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Curse of the comics

By Scott A. Rosenberg | scott.rosenberg@am-ny.com

5:33 PM EDT, April 15, 2008

Photo of comics being burned, 1949. From 'The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America,' by David Hajdu (FSG, March 2008). (St. PatrickÂs Academy yearbook, Vincent Hawley collection)

Here's a little factoid that many people might not know. Not too long after Nazi Germany was condemned for, among many things, burning books, some small towns in America were holding book burnings of their very own.

Pretty scary, right?

David Hajdu's enlightening work, "The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America," shines a light on a disappointing time in American history when censorship and mass hysteria took hold of the public.

The book centers on EC Comics -- one of the major publishers of the 1940s and '50s -- and the rise and fall of its publisher, Bill Gaines.

In the early days of comics, when the four-color fantasies sold in astronomical numbers, publishers had free rein to produce whatever they wanted.

EC Comics published titles such as "Tales From the Crypt," "The Vault of Horror" and "Two-Fisted Tales," which were often filled with gruesome morality tales, all unrated. Opponents to the comics industry emerged, appalled that the comics were readily available to youth. They claimed that comics were causing children and teens to become violent and insubordinate. These adversaries called for a guiding body to ensure that comics conformed to standards of good taste.

The book examines some of the mighty struggles the industry faced, especially with Dr. Fredric Wertham's publication of "Seduction of the Innocent." "Ten-Cent Plague" chronicles that battle and looks at many of the artists and writers who came under attack.

Hajdu, who also wrote "Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña," spends considerable time exploring the different protests against the comics, from small-town book burnings to the extensive Wertham hearings. He gives equal time to their arguments, placing them clearly in the context of the time period. He also gives ample ink to the artists, writers and publishers whose lives were torn apart by the cries for censorship.

By the mid-'50s, EC Comics was finished; the lone survivor of the line is "Mad" -- still published today -- which shifted format from comic to magazine, to escape the attack on comics.

The EC Comics titles -- which seem tame compared to today's ultra-violent video games, TV shows and movies -- have held up over the years, and they are seeing a resurgence recently, with luscious hardcover collections of many of the EC horror and war books as well as early "Mad" issues. There are also countless historical retrospectives on the EC crew.

The climate of the early days of the comics industry is a fascinating topic, and Hajdu does an admirable job of producing a compelling narrative of the times.

EC Comics

Much of the EC Comics catalog is currently available in hardcover collections:

Tales from the Crypt, Vol. 1-3
Crime SuspenStories, Vol. 1
Shock SuspenStories, Vol. 1-2
Weird Science, Vol. 1-2
Haunt of Fear, Vol. 1
Two-Fisted Tales, Vol. 1-2
Frontline Combat, Vol. 1
Vault of Horror, Vol. 1-3
The Mad Archives, Vol. 1-2