Been reading the new book about the anti-comic book crusade of the 40’s and 50’s, The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How it Changed America by David Hadju. Fascinating stuff. Among the more enlightening elements the book emphasizes is how easily children who were reading the crime and horror and romance and war comics of the era were so easily swayed by adults who thought they were acting in the kids’ best interests, without ever giving much thought as to what the kids wanted. So many lobbyists tried to find a smoking gun to link comics with “juvenile delinquency,” and if there wasn’t one they’d assume one. This book puts the fight over comics in true historical perspective, using events like World Wars One and Two, McCarthyism, and other pop culture elements like film and television, to provide context to the situation, and of course we get to examine the perspective of many of the great creators of the era, too, from Will Eisner to Bill Gaines, Harvey Kurtzman, and many more. Well worth reading.
Also, there are some elements of note to readers of this blog. I mentioned awhile back about how Seduction of the Innocent author Dr. Fredric Wertham had views on minorities in comics. According to Plague, Wertham was very down with the Negro community. He was friends with Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison, and in 1946 he opened a psychiatric clinic in a Harlem church catered specifically to low-income blacks. While he strove to provide treatment there, he also did some research on the effects of comics on young readers at the clinic. The conclusions he drew were flawed, however - read the book to find out more.
There’s also some discussion of Matt Baker, in the chapter on romance comics. In addition to his strong work ethic and sharp eye for anatomy, he apparently had movie-star good looks. And of course, his work on the first graphic novel, It Rhymes With Lust, written by Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller, is talked about.
Here’s PopCultureShock’s own Ten-Cent Plague feature, and Newsarama’s interview with David Hadju.
Related posts
