Comic book scare 1950s america

The book is a rarity, vividly depicting a noirish 1950s america but without a. The tencent plague by david hajdu farrar, straus and giroux 434 pp. It was in this environment that 18yearold jack koslow and the other three teenage members of the brooklyn thrill killers. Comic book sales were down dramatically and distribution was suffering. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, these 10cent illustrated pulp magazines intended primarily for children featured stories. The insane history of how american paranoia ruined and. Neither of them, though, has what we now call precode issues. Steven rogers was born in the 1920s in the lower east side of manhattan, new york city, to poor irish immigrants, sarah and joseph rogers. Relative to the american cultural mainstream of the period.

I think you and your readers at boing boing will enjoy the new republics fascinating slideshow. In his new book, david hajdu chronicles the very serious. Its eyeopening to see that at the same time as the red scare, americans were doing their own authoritarian censorship based on nothing more than the quack science of a pop psychologist. The brooklyn thrillkill gang and the great comic book scare of the 1950s book. Comics were selling between eighty million and a hundred million copies every week, with a typical issue passed along or traded to six to ten readers, thereby reaching more people than movies. Library book banning and film censorship occurred throughout the country. In the us market, horror comic books reached a peak in the late 1940s through the mid1950s, when concern over content and the imposition of the selfcensorship comics code authority contributed to the demise of many titles and the toning down of others. Further reading if youd like to read more about this period in comic book history, here are some books that you might find useful. Superhero franchises now dominate the box office, and graphic novels can win the pulitzer prize.

This installment helps clarify some confusing parts of marvels and captain americas history from the 50s in a concise manner. David hajdu examines the great comic book panic of the 1950s. To start 2018s month of horror id thought it would be interesting to look at a forgotten part of comic book history. Is this tomorrow is published for the one purpose to make you think. In the 1950s, there was a nationwide movement to censor comic books. Very few books have been banned in the entirety of the us. The brooklyn thrillkill gang and the great comic book scare of the 1950s exposes the underbelly of americas midcentury, the terrible price of assimilation, the uncomfortable bedfellows of comic books and juvenile delinquency, and the dystopia already in bloom amongst american youth well before the 1960s. International dimensions of the postwar anticomics campaign. Cover art by joe simon inks and pencils and jack kirby pencils.

The great comic book scare and how it changed america, werthams ideas had remarkably wide currency in postwar america. The great comicbook scare and how it changed america by david hajdu farrar, straus and giroux, 434 pp. The story of the rise and fall of those comic books has never been fully told until the tencent plague. The great comic book scare and how it changed america, a historical look at 1950s paranoia aimed at. Horror comics are comic books, graphic novels, blackandwhite comics magazines, and manga focusing on horror fiction. This, of course, isnt to say that mccarthyism and the. Hartford library to mark banned books week with look at. The great comicbook scare and how it changed america, author david hajdu attempts to examine the birth of the comic book in america and trace its childhood and adolecense up to the point where people generally freaked out about how this wicked, perverted, and macabre art form was mauling the morals of this great country. With great power comes great responsibility cold war culture and the birth of marvel comics. In the 1950s, sales plunged after comic books were demonized by puritanical senators. The great comicbook scare and how it changed america, david hajdu writes about another comic related scandal, admittedly of greater importance than the one i. Stan lee and marvel saved the comicbook industry quartz.

History of comics censorship, part 1 comic book legal. In the mid1940s, when janice valleau was thriving as an artist for quality comics, the comic book was the most popular form of entertainment in america. Captain america was designed as a patriotic supersoldier who often fought the axis powers of. Comic books have been a staple of american pop culture for the better part of 90 years. The great comic book scare and how it changed america farrar, straus and giroux. Marvel comic book history is diverse and chaotic when you look back at it. Many books were banned in parts of the country, not allowed in schools or libraries, or prohibited from being sent in the mail. When we picture the 1950s, we hear the sound of early rock and roll.

David hajdus remarkable new book vividly opens up the lost world of comic books, its creativity, irreverence, and suspicion of authority. Paul, minnesota put out this warning against communist infiltration. As david hajdu reminds us in his new book, the tencent plague. Comics were a booming business millions of copies sold every week but they scared the daylights out of mccarthyera america. The late 1950s through the 1960s saw a change from dark and supernatural comic book themes to the other end of the spectrum with books containing silly plots and a high degree of camp. This chapter focuses on a controversial period of american comicbook history, from the late 1940s to the mid1950s, during which a wide variety of violent and explicit crime and horror comic titles could be purchased for only 10 cents. The cca allowed the comic publishers to selfregulate the content of comic books in the united states. Hajdu, david the ten cent plague the great comic book scare and how it changed america, farrar, straus and giroux, new york, 2008. Is this tomorrow america under communism catechetical. Within the comic book industry, it goes all the way back to the early 1950s. In the 1950s, creative expression came into the crosshairs of public officials wishing to tamp down on juvenile delinquency. If the great comic book scare interests you, and given that youre visiting this site it probably does, this book is essential reading.

David hajdu recounts this troubled time in the tencent plague. Decades helps streamline the narrative and chronology for modernday readers. The great comic book scare and how it changed america, 1999, p. The brooklyn thrillkill gang and the great comic book scare of the 1950s exposes the underbelly of america s midcentury, the terrible price of assimilation, the uncomfortable bedfellows of comic books and juvenile delinquency, and the dystopia already in bloom amongst american youth well before the 1960s. In the late 1950s and early 1960s the silver age of superhero comics begins as. During the 1950s, many creative institutions came under societal and governmental scrutiny. The united states in the 1950s experienced marked economic growth with an increase in manufacturing and home construction amongst a postworld war ii economic expansion. The central focus of this book is the public uproar over comic books in the late 1940s and 1950s. According to wikimedia, this item is no longer in as the holder did not renew their claim. The comics code authority cca was formed in 1954 by the comics magazine association of america as an alternative to government regulation. Soon there were comicbook burnings, senate hearings, and. Tencent plague tells of horror comics censorship in. Some 60 years ago, during the era of mccarthyism, comic books became a threat, causing a panic that culminated in a senate hearing in 1954. Captain america is a fictional superhero appearing in american comic books published by marvel comics.

What books were censored or banned in the us during the. The great comicbook scare and how it changed america, werthams ideas had remarkably wide currency in postwar america. In the eyedancers, mitchell brant is a comic book collector. The great comicbook scare and how it changed america. The brooklyn thrillkill gang and the great comic book scare of the 1950s exposes the underbelly of america\s midcentury, the terrible price of assimilation, the uncomfortable bedfellows of comic books and juvenile delinquency, and the dystopia already in bloom amongst american youth. With regard to comics, many felt concerned by the disturbing and deviant subject matter, particularly in horror or crime comics. The brooklyn thrillkill gang and the great comic book. Comic books, censorship, and moral panic mudd manuscript. An evolutionary analysis of jewish involvement in twentiethcentury intellectual and political movements, 1998. This video excerpt from a comicbook documentary highlights the ridiculous moral panic that overtook the u. The great comicbook scare and how it changed america 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 createdin the pulpy, boldly illustrated pages of comic books. Paul, mn, this 1947 comic implicates government regulation of business, social welfare programs, antireligious sentiment, and people giving up their silly ideas about sacredness of life in a fiendishly orchestrated plot to take over america.

By the end of the 1940s most superhero comics had gone into decline with only really batman, superman and captain marvel now called shazam surviving until their return in the second half of the 1950s. Why comic books scared us so a journalism professor examines the 1950s comicbook panic. The stories in these books, says david hajdu, author of the new book, the tencent plague. If youre curious about the origins of this phenomenon, read david hajdus the tencent plague. The cold war and its associated conflicts helped create a politically conservative climate in the country, as the quasiconfrontation intensified throughout the entire decade. Many, many comic books have advertisements of all kinds of weapons, really dangerous ones, like. This book covers the history of comic books from the rise of comic strips in the late 1800s to the fall of the comic book industry in the 1950s. Precode issues refer to comic books published prior to marchapril 1955. David hajdu examines the great comicbook panic of the 1950s. Terrifying early1950s comic book covers boing boing.

Comicbook controversy is a cautionary tale nbc news. Published in 1947, this is a comic book designed to teach people about the subversive nature of communist infiltration. The great comicbook scare and how it changed america, david hajdu writes about another comicrelated. The great comicbook scare and how it changed america, were unlike anything kids had seen before. The brooklyn thrillkill gang and the great comic book scare of the 1950s after ongoing months of daily headlines about gang shootouts, stompkillings, and millions of dollars worth of vandalism, by the summer of 1954, america had had enough of juvenile delinquency.