The Comic Legends Legal Defense Fund (CLLDF) is a Canadian nonprofit organization, created in 1987 to protect the free speech rights of comics creators, publishers, retailers, and readers, by helping to cover legal expenses in the defense of cases where its directors feel those issues are at stake.
[6] The CLLDF raised approximately $3000 to aid in the owners' defense, bringing Fantagraphics publisher Gary Groth to Calgary to testify as an expert witness in the trial.
[12] In later years, the organization made financial contributions to support Little Sister's Book and Art Emporium in its legal dispute with Canada Customs over imported comics, and paid for an expert witness whose testimony assisted in the acquittal of Marc Laliberte, a fanzine publisher in Windsor, Ontario.
[11] In 2011, the organization, which had been mostly dormant for twenty years, became involved in a case involving a U.S. citizen visiting Canada, whose laptop computer had been searched by Canada Customs and who was arrested and charged with possession of "child pornography" based on the comics illustrations found there.
At the same time, the fund expanded its board of directors from three (McCulloch, Stockton, and Wong) to five, adding retailers Jay Bardyla and Jennifer Haines.