A little over a year ago, we told you about the persecution of Georgia comics shop owner Gordon Lee, accused by Georgia prosecutors of distributing obscene materials to a minor. Well, the obscene materials in question were panels from a story called “The Ultimate Picasso,” which the Washington Post helpfully described as “a historically accurate depiction of Picasso’s first meeting with the painter Georges Braque,” in which “Picasso was pugnacious, potty-mouthed and nude.”
That story is just part of writer-artist Nick Bertozzi‘s The Salon, a graphic novel recently published by St. Martin’s, so last Thursday night’s book launch party at the Village Pourhouse was also a fundraiser for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which is covering the costs of Lee’s defense. Here, Bertozzi poses with th not-quite-life-size illustrations of Picasso and Braque (along with Gertrude Stein) that served as party decorations. (I wish I could’ve gone, but I was up late packing—I hear the party went on at least ’til midnight!)