Cryptozoic Entertainment (World of Warcraft TCG) and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund have joined forces to create Liberty Trading Cards, a new 70-card set, which will chronicle the history of attempts to censor comic books from the 1950s to the present, and which will also include chase cards from some of the leading figures in comic books and entertainment. The Liberty Trading Cards will be released in July of 2011 with proceeds from the sales of the cards benefiting the CBLDF in its fight against censorship.

 

The Liberty Trading Cards will feature a base set of seventy cards representing the history of comic book censorship from Dr. Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocents in the 1950s to the present, but packs of the Liberty Trading Cards will also contain a variety of randomly-inserted chase cards including hand-drawn sketch cards and autographs from top creators.

 

A number of contributors to the new series have already signed on including Geoff Johns, Neil Gaiman, Darwyn Cooke, Gail Simone, Mark Waid, Brian Azzarello, Paul Levitz, Denny O’Neill, Frank Quitely, and Phil Hester. Other creators, including Jeff Smith, Marc Silvestri, Erik Larsen, John Layman, Jim Valentino, Matt Wagner, Rob Liefeld, Stan Sakai, Eric Powell, and Mike Richardson are allowing the use of their copyrighted characters in the set.

 

Cryptozoic, which features a pop culture-savvy management team drawn from across various entertainment categories, took over the production of the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game in 2010 (see “Cryptozoic Gets WoW TCG”). Cryptozoic’s President Cory Jones is excited about partnering with the CBLDF: “I can't tell you how proud we are to partner with the CBLDF. The Fund has been one of my favorite charities for years, and to be able to support it on this scale is incredible.”