Book Review: The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu

So, I completed "The Ten-Cent Plague, The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America" yesterday... I figured I owe it to myself and the medium to know a little about the history of comic book censorship.

In reading the book, I was struck how this first "culture war" was so similar to all of the culture wars that followed; the hysteria, the generalizations, the linking of the undesirable with cultures that were deemed undesirable. This first culture war was the beginning of an America becoming increasingly unfamiliar with the minds and emotions of its young people. It is worth remembering that this book documents the years well before Elvis' pelvis ignited the bobby socks of a generation.

If you wish to read this book and are a comic book fan, be prepared to cringe; virtually every chapter describes some city official or town burning the comics of the golden age, (and you know an Action Comics #1 was in those piles!).

Our friends the superheroes were not immune to 1940s and 50s parents. Whether it be the supposedly homoerotic relationship between Batman and Robin, the bondage fantasy imagery of Wonder Woman or the fascist (!) tendencies of Superman, no superhero or comic was immune.

This is a great book to get for information on the early history of Will Eisner, William Gaines, Jack Kirby and a host of other artists and writers that should have been known better before their careers were cut short by the severity of the Comics Code Authority.

If you are a fan of the medium, do yourself a favor and pick this up...It is essential reading if we are going to preserve this art form and keep the comics we love free from a future censor's pen.