Review: The ten-cent plague
Recensione editoriale - Kirkus ReviewsWhat happened when Americans discovered what their children were reading between luridly colored covers. "The panic over comic books falls somewhere between the Red Scare and the frenzy over UFOs among the pathologies of postwar America," writes Hajdu (Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fari˜a, and Richard Fari˜a, 2001, etc.). The road that led from opportunistic moralists through a newly militarized and nationalistic society to paper bonfires was swiftly traveled during the 1950s, according to this sobering history. Hajdu begins by laying out the exponential growth of the comics industry in the early 20th century, covering some admittedly well-traveled territory with aplomb. A thick network of improbably talented and productive artists, writers and money men worked at dizzying speed, and outrage was nearly always snapping at their heels. Twice it seemed the industry was about to be submerged by a wave of indignation—pre-1917 moral watchdogs decried crude Sunday funnies for distracting the lower classes from the Sabbath; their 1930s counterparts critiqued Superman as a proto-Nazi authoritarian—but world wars intervened to divert people's attention. The 1950s, however, were a different story. Superheroes had been shoved to the side in a fickle marketplace by lurid crime and horror pulps. By the end of 1954, with McCarthy on the wane and no great national crisis to absorb a country accustomed to witch hunts, scolds quickly whipped up an outcry over comics, quoting so-called experts who linked them (with no evidence) to a perceived growth in juvenile delinquency. A wave of Senate hearings and outraged editorials led to an ugly coast-to-coast parade of comic-book burnings and the end of a popular art form. Half the comics on newsstands disappeared between 1954 and '56; five major publishers folded. An ugly and hysterical episode in American history, vividly rendered by a dogged student of the era.
Review: The TenCent Plague: The Great Comicbook Scare and How It Changed America
Recensione editoriale - Bookreporter.com - John HoganIt has never been easy to publish comic books for all ages in America. While other countries incorporated the medium into their reading habits long ago, comics and graphic novels have remained, here in the States, the domain of the young at least in the popular mindset. And while many have pointed out that comics have grown up and that there's a wealth of material available for all age ranges it's ... Leggi recensione completa
Review: The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America
Recensione dell'utente - Sarah - GoodreadsThis is a wonderful social history book. For people who like straight-up history, you have art, literature, controversy, and politics. For people who love comic books, this book is bursting with the ... Leggi recensione completa
Review: The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America
Recensione dell'utente - Alex Nagler - GoodreadsThis book serves two important purposes: 1) It is a worthy history of comic books from their inception to the mid 1950s, where it looks like the medium may have very well ceased after being legislated ... Leggi recensione completa
Review: The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America
Recensione dell'utente - Mike (the Paladin) - GoodreadsThis book gives most of the story of "the great comic book scare" but it does it from a somewhat slanted perspective. Oddly in part I agree with the aversion shown to the control freak reaction to ... Leggi recensione completa
Review: The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America
Recensione dell'utente - Debra - GoodreadsThe sky is falling...and it is all caused by comic books. That was a mantra, supported by doctors, politicians, the American Legion, and parents around the country in the 1940s and 1950s. So, what to ... Leggi recensione completa
Review: The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America
Recensione dell'utente - Neven - GoodreadsAbandoned, sadly. There's clearly a fascinating story here, but it's laid out in a dense, haphazard, and tiring manner. Everything is given the same flat treatment, from the story of the first ... Leggi recensione completa
Review: The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America
Recensione dell'utente - GoodreadsThis book covers the history, development, and controversies that surrounded the comic book industry from its inception in Sunday newspapers at the beginning of the century to its "golden age" in the ...
Review: The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America
Recensione dell'utente - Rahadyan - GoodreadsI've been a comic book reader for 41 years and arguably a fan of the genre since writing a letter to the editor of Justice League of America in 1972 and reading about the history of the medium in ... Leggi recensione completa
Review: The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America
Recensione dell'utente - Spiros - GoodreadsAmericans seem to have an unlimited capacity for fear; fear of Catholics, fear of Blacks, fear of Homosexuals, and fear of their own progeny. The rise of juvenile delinquency, brought about by the ... Leggi recensione completa
