The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America (edition 2008)

A fascinating topic, but the book just didn't grab me. For one, I wish there had been more illustrations beyond the few plates of b&w photographs. And while the author was trying to put the comic-book scare into the context of the times (1940s & 50s in the U.S.), it was too much dry detail for me. I first learned about the comics code while reading Michael Chabon's Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a much more readable (and yes, fictional) introduction to the world of comic books & their creators. ( )

A fascinating topic, but the book just didn't grab me. For one, I wish there had been more illustrations beyond the few plates of b&w photographs. And while the author was trying to put the comic-book scare into the context of the times (1940s & 50s in the U.S.), it was too much dry detail for me. I first learned about the comics code while reading Michael Chabon's Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a much more readable (and yes, fictional) introduction to the world of comic books & their creators. ( )

Hadju's book is a history of the various campaigns to suppress comic books, culminating in the 1950s campaign that put so many writers, artists and publishers out of business. Along the way, he cannot avoid relating a good bit of the history of comic books, from the origin of comics in newspapers through the adoption of the Comics Code in the mid-Fifties. This is an interesting and readable history of one medium of popular culture. ( )

The comic code controversy has intrigued me for a while. It was before my time. I basically lived in the 12 cent comic code world and was happy for it, although I have since discovered the pre-code world and revel in it a wee bit. The silver age of comic code land is by far the best comic times that there ever were, to my mind.

What I find interesting is that the precode world from a modern ("now") view was pretty darn mild - but it must have been disturbing to have a story where the good guys don't always win or something like that to the establishment minds of the 50's. It sounds so stupid the little I had read about it - I didn't live through it (at least I wasn't reading comics through it) but EC Comics was destroyed by the comic code (they were the "Tales From The Crypt" guys as well as some other interesting stuff).

I enjoyed David Hadju's "Positively 4th Street ..." so this seemed like a good bet to read some in depth history of the comic code crisis. Modern comics have broken away from anything like the comic code and to my mind that is not a good thing because although I like a few modern comics, I find them as a whole near impossible to enjoy.

I enjoying this book quite a bit. Very interesting but an odd book. Considering the topic the lack of more than a handful of photos comes across as unusual. The start of the book is a rush through the birth of comics and a lot of names and characters get dropped in. Although I know very little early comics history I know enough to recognize several of the names. If I hadn't I think I may have been a bit overwhelmed as it was fun to go "ohhh Joe Kubert started working for so and so at age TEN!!!???!!!" but most folks in the world would go Joe Who? The book seems to assume you would already know some of the background stuff. I sort of think it needed a tougher editor. The book is a little scattered for me so I suspect it would be worse for the non-comic fan. Or maybe it seems scattered to me because I AM a comic fan. It is an odd combo of too much information and too little information. The guy also repeatedly is talking about the jewishness (is that a word) of most of these early comic guys but I fail to understand why in most cases. An exception is when he tries to explain how jews don't worship graven images that the catholics supposedly thrive on, I guess it would be some horrible sin if they did, and yet almost all these artists were jewish and creating comic graven images. It didn't make sense to me, probably cause I'm not jewish. I never even knew I worshiped graven images.I don't even know what a graven image is. Guess I better go wiki. ( )

Rating: 4* of five

The Book Description: In the years between World War II and the emergence of television as a mass medium, American popular culture as we know it was first created--in the pulpy, boldly illustrated pages of comic books. No sooner had this new culture emerged than it was beaten down by church groups, community bluestockings, and a McCarthyish Congress--only to resurface with a crooked smile on its face in Mad magazine.

The story of the rise and fall of those comic books has never been fully told--until The Ten-Cent Plague. David Hajdu's remarkable new book vividly opens up the lost world of comic books, its creativity, irreverence, and suspicion of authority.
When we picture the 1950s, we hear the sound of early rock and roll. The Ten-Cent Plague "shows how--years before music--comics brought on a clash between children and their parents, between prewar and postwar standards. Created by outsiders from the tenements, garish, shameless, and often shocking, comics spoke to young people and provided the guardians of mainstream culture with a big target. Parents, teachers, and complicit kids burned comics in public bonfires. Cities passed laws to outlaw comics. Congress took action with televised hearings that nearly destroyed the careers of hundreds of artists and writers.

The Ten-Cent Plague "radically revises common notions of popular culture, the generation gap, and the divide between "high" and "low" art. As he did with the lives of Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington (in "Lush Life") and Bob Dylan and his circle (in "Positively 4th Street"), Hajdu brings a place, a time, and a milieu unforgettably back to life.

My Review: Just read it. It's sixteen kinds of fascinating and a few more kinds of awesome.

Seriously. Just go get one and read it! Quit looking at reviews! Too much good stuff in here that anyone alive in this horrifying over-religioned right wing fucking nightmare country we've allowed to develop in our beloved USA should know about! Censorship and fear-mongering and lying sack-of-shit conservatives are not new developments...just more common than ever. ( )