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He truly believed that comic books were causing irreparable damage to the psyches of American youths and he took it upon himself to lead the charge against them.The result was a seriously weakened industry that couldn't tell all the stories it wanted to tell. David Hajdu takes a look at that dark time in The Ten-Cent Plague, his insightful examination of the effect of McCarthyism on comic books.Prior to the investigation, comics were expanding at an amazing pace. As Hajdu fairly presents, Wertham wasn't the oppressive censor he was often made out to be. and they paid a great price for it.
It's those latter two that seemed to push the envelope a little too much for some people's tastes. The throngs of new readers now drawn to the medium will learn much about the art form in this dense work. That understanding may help them see how graphic novels even now aren't that far removed from that seemingly long-ago time. And many more will wonder where the art form would be now if it hadn't been stifled just when it was beginning to branch out. It's never been easy to publish comic books for all ages in America. While other countries long ago incorporated the medium into their reading habits, comics and graphic novels have remained, here in the States, the domain of the young--at least in the popular mindset. With J. His famous phrase "Seduction of the Innocent" became a catchphrase among comic readers, and it sums up the heart of his argument.
Wertham considered comics a source of evil, having a detrimental effect on the impressionable minds of the young, and it didn't take much for him to convince congress, teachers, and parents of the same thing.Those of us who grew up reading comics heard a lot about Wertham--he was the reason every issue we bought contained a seal stating it was "Approved by the Comics Code Authority"--but the majority of new graphic novel readers might be unaware of his work. Creativity was limited, and sales were affected as a result. -- John Hogan He wisely avoids heavy-handedness in favor of a more objective approach, smoothly presenting opposing sides with empathy.Graphic novels continue to draw a wider and more diverse audience day by day. Edgar Hoover and other law-enforcement officials openly discussing their fear of a growing amount of juvenile delinquency, parents all over the country were fearful. It's taken decades for comics publishers to make the headway needed in the States to change all that--most notably through underground comix beginning in the '60s and after a "British Invasion" in the '80s ushered in a new direction (and attracted an older audience).Hajdu has a natural storytelling ability that keeps all of this subject matter from ever getting too dry.
And while many have pointed out that comics have grown up--and that there's a wealth of material available for all age ranges--it's more accurate to not that comics grew up a long, long time ago. In fact, he was somewhat progressive in his views. Fredric Wertham, a psychiatrist who headed up the Association for the Advancement of Psychotherapy. Sales were high, and a wide variety of books were sold, ranging from superheroes to romance to horror to true crime. And ready to listen to some (perhaps well-intentioned) fear-mongering from Dr.
I do blame a certain stepfather who cut up my Star Wars books for the pictures to paste up on a board that was intended to encourage me to work out more as discipline for stupid petty crap no one remembers why it was important. These words are said about all art forms that show works that don't always conform to the silly and safe notion that we must protect our kids from everything. While some of the reasons for comics being positive things are included in explanations of why comics became popular in the first place, I felt an epilogue chapter that explains with footnotes how American thought on comics has changed now that the fear mongers changed gears to go after in order: Rock, TV, The Passion of Christ, Rap, Video Games, Muslims and now healthcare reform was in order.I wanted to hear from the experts who'd been voices in the wilderness during hearings that use such phrases like Catharsis, Emotional Preparation for Adulthood, Interim Step to Full Literacy and Mythic Archetypes. It would almost be worth committing grievous sins to get assigned to his room in Hell. Simply put, the "trusted expert" blamed comic books for bad kids, when all kids good or bad read comic books invalidating the thesis in any responsible experimentation regime.But, it was the 1950s and who needs responsible science that may rock the boat in a society still at war with everybody. What made comic books so hated among adults even in the 1970s that it was OK to appropriate things we bought with our own allowance money and perpetrate nothing less than a property crime.I had to grow up and get back into comics as an adult to learn the name I sought: Frederick Wertham PhD.
Well, the one omission aside The 10-cent Plague is one must read book. Stop me if you've heard this weepy song heard at least once a week in many comic book stores nationwide: "I used to have X title, but my Mom accidentally (or intentionally) pitched the books out." Those of us that like comics all have all sung that song. For me it was the first printing of the Star Wars movie adaptation, a few Sergeant Rocks, an equal number of Howling Commandos and a representative sample of Batman, Spiderman, Avengers, Ghostrider and Superman. Hajdu makes his case very clear that Wertham's book The Seduction of the Innocent was based on almost no actual science with double blinds or other responsible study.
That I got angry says all that needs to be said about the technique in the book: excellent.I spent a whole night in one sitting reading this book on my Kindle racing through first person accounts of the poor kids coerced by people willing to believe anything written by a man with a PhD. The principles are the same: lie about the enemy, exaggerate the threat and play to parents who aren't monitoring their own kids. I kept my eyes open for the inevitable hypocrisy of black and white doctrinaire platforms whether it was comic books or a strict interpretation of Islam. Now, where did I leave my time machine for going back to rescue my comics.[.].
However, as fascinating as the book is retelling what happened and possibly why, the book didn't make as good a case for comic books being good as is now the accepted opinion. Well, at least David Hajdu captured the silly and frightening times of the 1950s where we hunted Reds (almost) and comic books into extinction in his book The 10-cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How it Changed America.I became progressively angrier with long dead people with each passing page as my mind made connections to other examples of American fear mongering that are more recent. People still collected and hid their comics from parents while Dad hid his Playboys.Hajdu's best scenes came out of the interviews with the kids who burned their books, because someone twisted their arms, and the comic book creators ruined by the televised hearings. No, I wouldn't solve any financial problems with my collection and I don't really blame Mom, because like most ten-year old boys I didn't really understand what I had beyond something fun to read until I lost it.
Parents didn't even try to understand that societies change or they die and that comic books popular with their children were just something different, not bad. McCarthy embarrassed himself on TV; turn on the news and see if there are parallels. Pity, the man is long dead, but the hate and anger is very black. Witch hunting didn't just die out when Sen.
The birth and explosion of comic books during the 1920s through 1950s was the first assault by youngsters against the adult world's puritanical codes of conduct. Mr.
The book is a wonderful historical snapshot and written in a highly entertaining fashion. Hajdu gives fair treatment to the outrageous, reckless excesses by comic book publishers, many who were only in it for the money, as well as the young artists trying to develop a new medium.
Mr. Over-zealous Anthony Comstock-like acolytes resort to mocking the First Amendment by going on witch-hunts and public book burnings; reminiscent of Nazi Germany.
This work is not only for people who have an interest in comics. Hajdu's book is another great example which dispels the conservative, halcyon notion that our culture was so much better before the psychedelic, anti-war, free-love 1960s.
As seen through present-day eyes, the political and religious attempts to link comic consumption and juvenile delinquency is laughable.
If I had one complaint about the book it was that for a book about such a visual medium there were not enough pictures. Beginning with the birth of the comic book industry, Hajdu chronicles its growth and then shows how such a successful industry was brought down by a few lunatics.A short photo insert in the center of the book presents some pictures of key players and some of the comic books mentioned. Hajdu's descriptions were great, but the book could have used a second photo insert showing more of the specific comic books mentioned in the book. Hajdu's book chronicles the heyday of the comic book industry in America and how it came to a sudden end thanks to a witch-hunt style persecution in the 1950s. I was in the dark about this dark chapter in American history, before reading the book and found the story to be intensely interesting and also extremely disturbing.Hajdu's descriptions of both the comic books and the different players involved in this drama are so vivid that they bring this colorful tale to life.
The problems here are two-fold: first, there was no official "purge," in the McCarthy sense; comics as an industry, rather than individual artisans, were targeted. Other publishers than EC could have been discussed more, and the writing could have been tightened up considerably. The book has rather slow, awkward pacing, and many of the anecdotes sound so similar that the book gets rather monotonous during the middle section. We're also not really treated to much discussion about what the lack of some titles and the endurance of others meant to American pop culture.If you're a big fan of comic books, you'll no doubt get a little more entertainment value than the average reader, since there are names in here that will mean something to you. I first learned of this book through an interview with the author on NPR.
Most readers will find the Senate hearings interesting, and I found the story of the emergence of Mad Magazine quite interesting. We're not even left with much of an impression about what many in the comic book industry thought, since the author focuses most of his attention on a single company (EC Comics) to the exclusion of nearly everything else.The epilogue and appendix are especially disappointing. To sum up, The Ten Cent Plague isn't bad, but it certainly isn't everything it could have been. Overall, the text felt lazy and poorly edited to me. People lost jobs from companies that closed, not because of any attack directed toward targeted individuals.Dwight Eisenhower's glum picture is even featured prominently on the cover, suggesting he was somehow involved in the "Great Comics Scare." Eisenhower is mentioned twice in the text, both times in passing. Those that are actually mentioned in the text are often mentioned only in passing.We're never really treated to a good discussion as to why some comics survived (Superman, Batman, etc.,) that were under fire, while others did not.
The interview was very interesting, and I knew that I had to get The Ten Cent Plague on my reading list.Unfortunately, I found this book a profound disappointment. After 300 pages, I expected the epilogue to tie Hajdu's story back in with contemporary America. It's taken that, if you're reading the book, you know those made it while others didn't and no more need be said. I'll lead off by saying that TTCP isn't a bad book, it just wasn't nearly as good as I thought it would be. Second, Hajdu treats the vast majority of these people as names on a page. Even though I like Crumb (and loved the documentary), he's hardly a stand-in for American culture.Hajdu also treats the reader to an appendix that's a massive list of those "who never again worked in comics after the purge of the 1950's," which might lead the prospective buyer to think that he's about to read a story akin to the Hollywood blacklists of the McCarthy era.
My biggest critique of the book, however, is that it doesn't deliver on the second part of the subtitle: "How It Changed America." By the end of the book, the reader isn't left with much of an impression as to how the story really did change America. Instead, the reader is treated to a self-indulgent, worthless snippet whose only point was to let everyone know that Hajdu managed to get an interview with Robert Crumb.
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