sevenspiders -
Helpful Score: 3
What a wonderful book about a terrible waste and shameful time in American history. Hadju traces the rise of comics from the puckish newspaper funnies through the creation of the superhero pantheon, the diversity of comic book genres and the eventual painful demise under the censorship and revilement of the late 1950s society. I learned so many things from this book. What a tragedy that all those creative and talented writers and artists, most from minorities who were rejected from mainstream and "high" art were villified.
'Ten Cent Plague' shows an image of America at its best and worst; as a land that fostered the rise of an industry of great originality and intelligence and as a society of people so desperate for a scapegoat that adults and children both rounded up and burned thousands of comic books less than 10 years after the fall of the Nazis.
This was a fascinating, well-researched, immensley engrossing book and a vital reminder of the dangers of assigning blame to any one artist or medium.
'Ten Cent Plague' shows an image of America at its best and worst; as a land that fostered the rise of an industry of great originality and intelligence and as a society of people so desperate for a scapegoat that adults and children both rounded up and burned thousands of comic books less than 10 years after the fall of the Nazis.
This was a fascinating, well-researched, immensley engrossing book and a vital reminder of the dangers of assigning blame to any one artist or medium.
