Stan Lee’s COMIKAZE Comes Out Against CISPA

With the recent tragic events this past week in Boston, Texas and Iraq; you may not have heard yet that the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act-or CISPA-passed the house vote by an overwhelming majority. This controversial bill was proposed by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) who has claimed only ‘14 year olds in basements’ oppose this bill’s passage. Unsurprisingly, today Anonymous issued a press release calling for an internet blackout like last year’s Stop Online Piracy Act & Protect IP Act protest blackout.  Surprisingly, they got a response from the most unlikely source.

Stan Lee’s Comikaze Expo today released the following press release across their Facebook group in support of the blackout:

Dear Friends, The Stan Lee Comikaze team does not agree with #CISPA we stand with @YourAnonNews and will be going dark monday. We enjoy posting fun photos for you guys, so sorry for any disappointment. There is big Comikaze news coming soon so hang tight. We will be back up with shenanigans tuesday! Read about CISPA here and make your choice.

With Great Love, Appreciation, and Gratitude.

xoxoxo

Regina Carpinelli

CEO Stan Lee’s Comikaze

UTF reached out to Regina Carpinelli as the head of the first comic book convention to publicly come out against CISPA-as well as to be participating in tomorrow’s blackout-and asked for her thoughts on how she & the rest of the Comikaze staff feel CISPA will affect the convention and it’s attendees.  We received the following reply from Regina:

“I created Stan Lee’s Comikaze as a convention for fans BY fans. A show with low prices that had great content that was for the people by the people. Doing this, we grew very fast and have become one of the top 5 largest pop culture conventions in the US. Because we are dedicated to being FAN OWNED and Fan friendly, CISPA really hits hard. CISPA takes away peoples rights, it forces us to not have a choice. It is not just the exact opposite of what we personally stand for as a FUN convention for all to enjoy, but it strikes a deep chord of oppression. All of our success is because of how we are interactive with our fans on the Internet. We reach about 1 million people a week on Facebook alone, we may be a small company but we want our fans and friends protected so we are doing our best to spread the word on #STOPCISPA. We all have the right to privacy and Comikaze Entertainment Inc. will do its best to fight for that. All of the Stan Lee Comikaze social media sites and my personal social sites will be DARK April 22nd. “

Will the internet blackout protests Monday work? Only time will tell. For those opposed to the bill, there is a silver lining in that President Obama has said he will veto the bill  if it also gets approved by the Senate. Nonetheless  it is still good to see a comic book convention’s staff standing up together against what they feel is wrong. To that end, wouldn’t that make them a bit like the comic book heroes they themselves are fans of?