The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America

The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America - Paperback

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The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America
  • The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America
The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America - Paperback

The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America - Paperback

by David Hajdu
$30.99
$30.99

Book Overview

by David Hajdu (Author)

The story of the rise and fall of those comic books has never been fully told -- until The Ten-Cent Plague. David Hajdu's remarkable new book vividly opens up the lost world of comic books, its creativity, irreverence, and suspicion of authority.

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 pulpy, boldly illustrated pages of comic books. No sooner had this new culture emerged than it was beaten down by church groups, community bluestockings, and a McCarthyish Congress--only to resurface with a crooked smile on its face in Mad magazine.

When we picture the 1950s, we hear the sound of early rock and roll. The Ten-Cent Plague shows how -- years before music -- comics brought on a clash between children and their parents, between prewar and postwar standards. Created by outsiders from the tenements, garish, shameless, and often shocking, comics spoke to young people and provided the guardians of mainstream culture with a big target. Parents, teachers, and complicit kids burned comics in public bonfires. Cities passed laws to outlaw comics. Congress took action with televised hearings that nearly destroyed the careers of hundreds of artists and writers.

The Ten-Cent Plague radically revises common notions of popular culture, the generation gap, and the divide between "high" and "low" art. As he did with the lives of Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington (in Lush Life) and Bob Dylan and his circle (in Positively 4th Street), Hajdu brings a place, a time, and a milieu unforgettably back to life.

Author Biography

David Hajdu is the author of Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn and Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña.

Number of Pages: 464
Dimensions: 0.9 x 8.2 x 5.4 IN
Illustrated: Yes
Publication Date: February 03, 2009
ISBN9780312428235
Author David Hajdu
PublisherPicador USA
GenreHistory, Literature, Humor & comedy, and Comics & graphic novels
FormatPaperback
PublishedFebruary 2009
LanguageENG- English
Pages464
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

Comics & Graphic Novels History Humor Literary Criticism Nonfiction

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About David Hajdu

David Hajdu is the music critic for The Nation and a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Before joining The Nation in January 2015, he served for more than ten years as the music critic forThe New Republic. He is the author of Positively 4th Street (FSG, 2001), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; The Ten-Cent Plague (FSG, 2008), a finalist for the Eisner award; and Heroes and Villains, also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He lives in Manhattan with his family.

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