The Ten-Cent Plague

The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America

By: David Hajdu

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki

Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

In the years between World War II and the emergence of television as a mass medium, American popular culture as we know it was first created in the bold, pulpy pages of comic books. The Ten-Cent Plague explores this cultural emergence and its fierce backlash while challenging common notions of the divide between "high" and "low" art.

David Hajdu reveals how comics, years before the rock-and-roll revolution, brought on a clash between postwar children and their prewar parents. Created by outsiders from the tenements, garish, shameless, and often shocking, comics became the targets of a raging generational culture divide. They were burned in public bonfires, outlawed in certain cities, and nearly destroyed by a series of televised Congressional hearings. Yet their creativity, irreverence, and suspicion of authority would have a lasting influence.

©2008 David Hajdu (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Every once in a while, moral panic, innuendo, and fear bubble up from the depths of our culture....David Hajdu's fascinating new book tracks one of the stranger and most significant of these episodes, now forgotten, with exactness, clarity, and serious wit." (Sean Wilentz, Professor of History, Princeton University)
"This book tells an amazing story, with thrills and chills more extreme than the workings of a comic book's imagination." ( The New York Times)

An entertaining review of the birth of comic books

This is a great review of the birth of comic book pop culture and the backlash that nearly killed it. Between the lines are some of the seeds of anti-establishment sentiment.

Fascinating

The book itself is well written; I will have to look at the other book he has out on audible.

Rudnicki is a great narrator, but when he attempted a "New York" accent he sounded like one of the characters from his reading of ENDER'S GAME, whom I hadn't realised where supposed to be New Yorkers, and it's kind of jarring.

Other than that, no complaints.

Fascinating

Hadju's incredibly well researched examination of the censorship of comics offers a deeply contextualized narrative about the cultural and social impact and implications of the comics scare while also portraying of the rise and fall of the men and women who worked in the right industry at the wrong time.

Engaging History with Lessons to Learn

Alternate Title: How Early Lurid Comics Failed to Defend Themselves or Adjust to External Pressures. Too bad I wasn't there. There are important lessons to be learned, first that banning or forbidding things is not the answer, that it only perpetuates a vapid status quo that is doomed to fail. Second is identifying what are causes and what are effects (the lurid comics being the effects of deeper societal problems), so you can solve the true problem.

Outstanding!

Loved this wild, winding story of not only comic book history, but a slice of American history not often highlighted. Equal parts tragic and resilient, the stories of the men and women who fought to create the comic book medium is inspiring.

Relevant Again

Blue-noses have always been with us. The unthinking reactionaries have always assaulted non-conforming members of society. This is an important history of one of the times they won.

Great for the true comic book fan

I found this book enjoyable, but. . .

I think a comic book collector should and would cling to most of this book. It sort of got a little dry in the middle with historical information that I started to just want to work through.

Having said that, I really liked the book overall. I am a fan of Mad Magazine, and I particularly enjoyed reading about its history in this book. This book also does remind us that censorship has been around a long time--and will continue for a long time to come. I particularly love how we use blame and censorship to absolve us of blame for the behavior of our children. G(g)od forbid we should blame genes and poor parenting.

Enjoy this book and fast forward when it gets too dry. Many moments are quite entertaining.

What Were Comics Doing to Our Children?

This is some pretty solid reporting of the Comic Book Scare of the late forties, early fifties. It may be a little long for its topic, but very informative and enjoyable nonetheless. It makes me wonder what comics would be like if the brakes hadn't been put on creativity for twenty to thirty years.

Hidden History

I had no idea how big comics were or how much they were pilloried by the establishment of the 40's and 50's. Starts with a rather detailed history of comics, and moved to the comic book craze of the mid century. I have never been a big comic book reader, yet found the story fascinating especially the last half when people sought fame, fortune, and political power by trying to ban the comic book. The thread of Bill Gaines's story is most interesting. I used to love Mad magazine, and loved hearing the long version of how he came to publish it. The narration is fine, I appreciate his trying to capture a bit of each character's accent without going overboard. I'd recommend this to folks who like comics as well as anyone interested in First Amendment issues.

Must listen for students of comic, politics, culture, and history

Informative and engaging from beginning to end. I applaud the vast amount of research that must have gone into producing this important topic. Very good.