The Ten-Cent Plague:
The Great Comic-Book Scare
and How it Changed America
by David Hajdu
Darn. What a fascinating story! And what a dry book. Sorry to say it, but that was my reaction and I can't deny it.
Lots of mind-bending images--kids lining up with armloads of comics for burning. Newspaper headlines about juvenile delinquents raised on a gruesome diet of true crime. Did you know that the comic book industry was almost wiped out during the fifties, and only revived through the invention of wholesome, admirable, super heroes? But that came outside the scope of this book.
The best part was the hearing of the US subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. After many other defendants were questioned and outwitted, Bill Gaines insisted on taking the stand. He was in no shape for it--physically or mentally. After describing his line of comics that were designed to teach kids moral values such as racial tolerance, he was cornered into making the statement that "kids can't be hurt by anything they see or read" and that comics were a nothing more or less than entertainment, enjoyment and harmless thrills. I'm sure the eyes did roll.
Later, worn out by clever questioning, he got boxed into admitting that he would never publish anything that was outside of the "bounds of good taste". Right--enter Exhibit A--an edition of Crime SupensStories and its cover shot of a severed head dripping blood. Too tasteful for words.
I'd love to get my hands on some of those 1940's comic books. Library, here I come.
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