Faced with the expense of appealing the conviction of a Texas retailer for selling an 'adult comic to an adult' (see 'CBLDF To Take Castillo Case To The Supreme Court') the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is receiving some much needed financial support from two major auctions on e-Bay.  The first auction was initiated by artist Jim Lee, who offered to pay all of his expenses for a store signing anywhere in the U.S. (see 'Jim Lee Offers Retailers a Benefit Signing').  Fresh from the success of Batman #608, which has just been reprinted by DC Comics, Lee is one very hot artist -- a fact that is born out by the winning bid of $6,700 in the auction, which just concluded on Friday.  Leading retailer Chuck Rozanski of Mile High comics, who has a chain of retail stores as well as a significant Internet retailing presence, put in the winning bid, and will host the signing at his Thornton, Colorado location. 

 

In addition to Lee's efforts, Rick Veitch and Steve Conley of Comicon.com have assembled an auction of more than 36 pieces of original art and rare merchandise donated by members of the Comicon.com community.  Once again all proceeds of this auction, which will be broken up into groups of 6-8 items with each group getting a week's exposure on e-Bay, will all go to CBLDF.   Among the artists donating works to the auction are some of the biggest names in comics including Frank Miller, Bryan Talbot, Rick Veitch, David Lloyd, Marc Hempel, James Sturm, Howard Cruse, Bill Griffith, Michael Oeming, and others.  The first batch of items from Comicon.com has just appeared on e-Bay and Frank Miller's original art for Dark Knight #2 has already been bid up to the $5,000 level -- an auspicious beginning to be sure.