The Ten-Cent Plague

David Hajdu’s third work deconstructs the early heyday of, and outraged response to, another domestic art form: the comic book. In The Ten-Cent Plague, Hajdu argues the fight over comics was the dry run for every similar dustup over youth culture in the years to follow—whether it be rock & roll or MySpace—especially any debate steeped in objections to bedrock American values.

Early comic artists were part of an anything-goes industry, as innovators like Will Eisner were given the freedom to create lasting icons or offer political criticisms, so long as they churned out the romance and horror pulp that kept the money rolling in for their eccentric, tight-fisted bosses. The graphic novels—with lurid titles like The Crypt of Terror and It Rhymes With Lust —that earn academic respect today are direct descendents of this grindhouse environment. Soon, book-burning community leaders and questionably scientific scientists gave politicians all the ammunition they needed to serve their own ambitions by blaming comics for everything from teen pregnancy to Communism.

The book culminates with hundreds of artists put out of work following the amphetamine-fueled appearance of EC Comics head William Gaines at Senate hearings on juvenile delinquency in 1954. His declaration that a horror comic cover featuring a woman’s head next to a bloody ax was “in good taste” served as a temporary death knell for the industry, which would only recover a decade later thanks to muscle-bound stories of men and women in tights fighting for the American way.

Based on historical records and firsthand interviews with more than 150 industry veterans, Hajdu’s novelistic approach conveys a palpable sense of foreboding while managing to be fair to all (even infamous crackpot psychiatrist Frederic Wertham). But his greatest success is making this story worth retelling, even though it’s one we’ve witnessed countless times since, just with different characters.