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The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America
by David Hajdu

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1870771.The_Ten_Cent_Plague_The_Great_Comic_Book_Scare_and_How_It_Changed_America?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America" border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51PP7xt%2B1zL._SL160_.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1870771.The_Ten_Cent_Plague_The_Great_Comic_Book_Scare_and_How_It_Changed_America?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12298.David_Hajdu">David Hajdu</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/18000288?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 4 of 5 stars When I think about all the uproar over the last few years over video game violence, about how they teach kids to kill and desensitive them, when I think of all the Jack Thompsons of the world (and thankfully there's only one) suing game publishers for what they purport to do, I am still glad to know that it could be worse - far, far worse. Jack Thompson may be a nut, but he never for one day held as much sway over parents and lawmakers as Fredric Wertham and Estes Kefauver held over America in 1955. While Joe McCarthy was busy (witch)hunting Commies, these two were going after the comics industry, at first just horror and crime comics, but pretty soon all comics, to them, were "crime" comics.
 
 I've read a lot of comics history (Men Of Tomorrow being a great example), but this, to my knowledge, is the first book to look squarely on those few years post-WW II, pre-television when the Great Enemy was comics. Mind you, this was a time when super-heroes as a comic were a fading trend. The war made for some good hero stories, but the kids were looking for something new now, as were all those G.I.'s who read comics overseas. All of the familiar stories are here - M.C. Gaines' strange death, his son Bill helping to make E.C. Comics known for horror, the rise of romance, the launch of Mad, and of course the sub-committe hearings on the juvenile delinquincy,eventually to be associated with Tennessee senator Estes Kefauver.. Thankfully, Hadju , while giving more detail of that moment than most books, didn't just re-iterate every little nuance of the hearings. He did, however, bring a new dimension (and for me, a new hate) to Fredric Wertham, the pyschologist who wrote Seduction Of The Innocent, a book linking comic books to juvenile delinquency. He weaves a pretty good narrative of just how this man became so powerful in his opinions, and how he had the ear of almost every parent and city organization in the country. 
 The reason I say things could be far worse now with video games is that these guys actually had everyone so worked up, almost all the states were passing legislation banning the sales of most comics to almost anyone. A lot of times, they wouldn't even make it on the shelves! I also enjoyed seeing the exact origins of the Comics Code Authority, whose stamp on comics I was used to seeing most of my life (it's quietly been shuffled off now - DC Comics never uses it anymore, and Marvel has their own in-house ratings system). Yet read how the Authority worked, and what they looked for, and try to imagine that companies were still submitting their stories to these guys for approval as recently as five to ten years ago...that's how far-reaching the effects were.
 
 The biggest revelation reading this book has to be the first part of the appendix: over fifteen pages, Hajdu lists more than 850 individuals - artists, writers, and others - who never again worked in the business after the crackdown on comics. I can't even begin to fathom that. That would basically be like the entire industry today just disappearing! It was also shocking, to me, to see just how many children went along with all these public book burnings (and so soon after WW II!). Many didn't even realize why they were doing it, but they felt they were doing something good because the PTA said so. As a co-worker of mine would say, there's a lot to anger up the blood in here.
 
 "Naturally, with comic magazine censorship now a fact, we at EC look forward to an immediate drop in the crime and juvenile delinquency rate of the United States. We trust there will be fewer robberies, fewer murders, and fewer rapes!'
 -Bill Gaines, Editor of EC Comics, in the final issues of all of EC's "New Trend" line of horror and crime comics. That's the kind of bitter sarcasm I expect from the guys who created Mad Magazine.
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/467338?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Dan's review
rating:
bookshelves: 2008
recommended for: all comic fans, anyone opposed to censorship

When I think about all the uproar over the last few years over video game violence, about how they teach kids to kill and desensitive them, when I think of all the Jack Thompsons of the world (and thankfully there's only one) suing game publishers for what they purport to do, I am still glad to know that it could be worse - far, far worse. Jack Thompson may be a nut, but he never for one day held as much sway over parents and lawmakers as Fredric Wertham and Estes Kefauver held over America in 1955. While Joe McCarthy was busy (witch)hunting Commies, these two were going after the comics industry, at first just horror and crime comics, but pretty soon all comics, to them, were "crime" comics.

I've read a lot of comics history (Men Of Tomorrow being a great example), but this, to my knowledge, is the first book to look squarely on those few years post-WW II, pre-television when the Great Enemy was comics. Mind you, this was a time when super-heroes as a comic were a ...more When I think about all the uproar over the last few years over video game violence, about how they teach kids to kill and desensitive them, when I think of all the Jack Thompsons of the world (and thankfully there's only one) suing game publishers for what they purport to do, I am still glad to know that it could be worse - far, far worse. Jack Thompson may be a nut, but he never for one day held as much sway over parents and lawmakers as Fredric Wertham and Estes Kefauver held over America in 1955. While Joe McCarthy was busy (witch)hunting Commies, these two were going after the comics industry, at first just horror and crime comics, but pretty soon all comics, to them, were "crime" comics.

I've read a lot of comics history (Men Of Tomorrow being a great example), but this, to my knowledge, is the first book to look squarely on those few years post-WW II, pre-television when the Great Enemy was comics. Mind you, this was a time when super-heroes as a comic were a fading trend. The war made for some good hero stories, but the kids were looking for something new now, as were all those G.I.'s who read comics overseas. All of the familiar stories are here - M.C. Gaines' strange death, his son Bill helping to make E.C. Comics known for horror, the rise of romance, the launch of Mad, and of course the sub-committe hearings on the juvenile delinquincy,eventually to be associated with Tennessee senator Estes Kefauver.. Thankfully, Hadju , while giving more detail of that moment than most books, didn't just re-iterate every little nuance of the hearings. He did, however, bring a new dimension (and for me, a new hate) to Fredric Wertham, the pyschologist who wrote Seduction Of The Innocent, a book linking comic books to juvenile delinquency. He weaves a pretty good narrative of just how this man became so powerful in his opinions, and how he had the ear of almost every parent and city organization in the country.
The reason I say things could be far worse now with video games is that these guys actually had everyone so worked up, almost all the states were passing legislation banning the sales of most comics to almost anyone. A lot of times, they wouldn't even make it on the shelves! I also enjoyed seeing the exact origins of the Comics Code Authority, whose stamp on comics I was used to seeing most of my life (it's quietly been shuffled off now - DC Comics never uses it anymore, and Marvel has their own in-house ratings system). Yet read how the Authority worked, and what they looked for, and try to imagine that companies were still submitting their stories to these guys for approval as recently as five to ten years ago...that's how far-reaching the effects were.

The biggest revelation reading this book has to be the first part of the appendix: over fifteen pages, Hajdu lists more than 850 individuals - artists, writers, and others - who never again worked in the business after the crackdown on comics. I can't even begin to fathom that. That would basically be like the entire industry today just disappearing! It was also shocking, to me, to see just how many children went along with all these public book burnings (and so soon after WW II!). Many didn't even realize why they were doing it, but they felt they were doing something good because the PTA said so. As a co-worker of mine would say, there's a lot to anger up the blood in here.

"Naturally, with comic magazine censorship now a fact, we at EC look forward to an immediate drop in the crime and juvenile delinquency rate of the United States. We trust there will be fewer robberies, fewer murders, and fewer rapes!'
-Bill Gaines, Editor of EC Comics, in the final issues of all of EC's "New Trend" line of horror and crime comics. That's the kind of bitter sarcasm I expect from the guys who created Mad Magazine....less

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