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

Hajdu, David

ISBN 10: 0374187673 / ISBN 13: 9780374187675

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2008

About this Item

First edition, hardcover, features an inscription by Hajdu as well as a simple drawing by him on the half title page, book has a mild skew to the binding, slight bumps to the spine ends and cover corners, a hint of faint smudging to the edges of the text block, and a very slim, square sensor tag adhered to the rear paste down, otherwise a solid, tight Very Good+ copy in a like unclipped dust jacket, which has light bumps to the spine ends and corners, a touch of wear along the folds, and very faint sunning to the spine. Jacket is wrapped in a Mylar cover. Seller Inventory # 105498

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book ...

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York

Publication Date: 2008

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Very Good+

Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good+

Signed: Signed by Author(s)

Edition: 1st Edition.

About this title

Synopsis:

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.

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.

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.

About the Author:

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 Farina and Richard Farina. He is the music critic for The New Republic, and he teaches at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.