Review - The 10 Cent Plague by David Hajdu
Why do Americans love censorship so? We fight against fascists and dictators and communists, and yet we revere John Adams and the sedition act as a model for dealing with words and works we find uncomfortable. From Dixieland music to hip hop, popular culture has been at the forefront of the threat against American culture. One of the ugliest — and least documented — movements in American censorship has been in regard to comic books, a recurring effort that resulted in the gutting of an industry populated by Jews, immigrants and women in the 1950s.
In “The Ten Cent Plague,” author David Hajdu documents the dismantling of an American art form, where moral concerns — often misguided ones — bullied a vibrant, street level, populist creative format that eventually blossomed into the biggest selling entertainment in America, read by kids and adults.
Before the 1950s, comic books were not synonymous with superheroes — instead, it was populated by a multitude of genres, as well as pure drama and comedy, and millions were sold each month. Hajou reveals the medium’s contribution to the post-1950s culture of America where, even as aboveground culture continued to maintain a choke hold on creativity, alternative and youth culture wanted something more than the pre-fabricated, canned artistry that was offered to them. Comics helped build that sensibility.
Almost from the beginning, comics were derided and fought by segments of the population — sometimes, it was assaulted by arbiters of the national morality, but other times by the judges of the national literacy and many others. Hajdu tells the sprawling tale of a creative industry’s fight against its opponents and of the gritty characters that helped build its success. Not only is it a history of a derided segment of American publishing, it’s also an examination of the American desire to limit exposure to dangerous ideas — and to some citizen’s betrayal of the principles on which the country has stood. Although the final battle was in the 1950s, the fight against censorship was an ongoing one through decades — it was a process of chipping away that ran concurrently with any and all other efforts to censor other art forms that cropped up through the years.
In post World War 2, ordinary citizens were burning comic books in bonfires — to the sharper social critics of the time, it was a sad commentary that only several years earlier, Americans were appalled by Nazis who did the same. When the fight against the scourge of comic books moved past the realm of pop psychology and religious fundamentalism and those sphere’s attempts to explain juvenile delinquency, it moved into the halls of government. Parallel to the McCarthy hearings, comic book creators were called into question not as enemies of the state, but as immoral scum. By the mid ‘50s, the moralistic Comics Code Authority was enacted as a self-regulating device to get the government off the industry’s back, but it doubled as hari kari which was to dismantle the form.
By the time the code took control in the 1950s, it was used as a strong arm to put publishers out of business, to incite fear of prosecution for distributors and news stands and to push a conservative social propaganda in the stories. Comics involving Black Americans were often censored — romance comics, once a safe haven for tales of independent females became a shill for the institution of marriage as the result of all emotional journeys. No political criticism was allowed, no questioning of authority, so sexual deviancy — only good, American, Christian values. Considering comic books were the number one form of entertainment amongst American youth, is it any surprise that a decade later, youth would explode into a revolution against adult control of their entertainment?
If there is one hero in the book, it is William Gaines, publisher of EC Comics and, most importantly, Mad Magazine. If Mad seems a little trite and superfluous now, that is because we live in the world Mad created, a world where satire and criticism are commonplace. In the 1950s, these were far less the norm, but that didn’t stop Gaines from pursuing the entirely American value of free speech. With actions that would make Thomas Paine proud, Gaines fought Senate committees and censors, using his publications for a political voice to kids who had no say otherwise. Gaines publicly and valiantly compared the Red Scare censors to the very Communists they were against and comes off as a fallible but brave American hero who ended up inspiring more American youth through Mad than any of the now-forgotten political shills who tried to tear him down.
“The Ten Cent Plague” is an important and entertaining book, documenting the lively personalities who helped build the history of comic books, which are as important to American popular culture as movies are, though still maligned due, largely, to the efforts of the censors. The residue has not totally dissipated in half a century, but through the rise of graphic novels, it’s finally happening. Hajdu‘s effort reveals the rich history of the form, as well as possibilities of its future, partly due to its resilience despite the efforts of conservative social engineers.
Good information.comic books and their protagonists continue to be popular among kids and adults alike. The testimony to their popularity is the number of comic heroes, who have been given life in Hollywood blockbusters. Spiderman, Superman, Punisher, Batman? You name it and these superheroes have been successful in their reel version.