Comic-book controversy is a cautionary tale

Kristin Kalning Games editor • E-mail

“I think Hitler was a beginner compared to the comic-book industry,” wrote psychiatrist Frederic Wertham in his 1954 book, “Seduction of the Innocent,” which linked comics to the rise in juvenile delinquency.

Video-game fans hear this kind of outrageous hyperbole all the time, levied by critics, politicians, and other self-appointed guardians of morality. But sixty years ago, comic books were in the crosshairs. Back then, comics were the most popular form of entertainment in America. Between 50 and 100 million of the things were sold each week, mostly to kids and teenagers.

The stories in these books, says David Hajdu, author of the new book, “The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America,” were unlike anything kids had seen before. They told tales of superheroes, but also of murder, crime and illicit romance. The illustrations could be shocking, and sometimes, the good guys didn’t win.

So, sixty years ago, grown-ups got nervous, articles were written, legislation enacted, Congressional hearings held. Sound familiar?

I spoke to Hajdu — who is also a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a critic for The New Republic — about the rise and fall of comics, and how their unwelcome reception compares to today’s criticism of violent video games.

In our conversation, excerpted below, we discussed violence in art, the importance of diversity to the success of the comic-book industry and the function of culture “to kick parents in the ass.”

You write in your book that much of the rantings behind comic books were because, for the first time, a generation of young people were developing their own interests and tastes, along with, as you put it, a determination to indulge them. For many people, mysef included, it’s hard to imagine an America where teenagers weren’t characterized by their overt individuality — and in fact, celebrated and courted because of it. What was so different about that time and why didn’t a youth culture exist?

The interesting thing about comics, and why comics were early to be a source of economic and social power for young people was because they were affordable. I mention this in the book, but these were things that were made by young people, for young people, marketed directly to young people and priced for young people. And they’re the only work of expression, of art, that qualified as such. Kids could buy candy bars … but not much else, for a dime. There were no other forms of art or creative expression within their reach.

Michelle Heimerman David Hajdu, author of "The Ten-Cent Plague" is the music critic for The New Republic and he teaches at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

What would you compare (comics) to? Would you compare it to TV? Would you compare it to movies … to video games? Or was the phenomenon even bigger than all those things?

Comics and the late,’40s and ’50s  were more popular than any form of popular entertainment. The way to fully absorb the power that comics had was to understand not just the reach, which was extraordinary, which was huge, but also that the content of those comics and the point of view of those comics and the sensibility of those comics was so radically different from that of anything else that young people can see. If kids are going to the movies, they’re not seeing anything like this in the movies. Movies were geared toward families. There was nothing like this.

Because of the purchasing power?

Right. It was purchasing power, partly, and the fact that young people were creating comics for other young people — and the fact that they’re doing so in the absence of much oversight or restriction. So, they were free to portray violence in a much more graphic way, and in a much more lurid way. They were free to portray the grotesque in a much more extreme way. You couldn’t be a 9-year-old and go to a movie and find the kind of defiant and transgressive behavior — and gleefully so — anywhere else.

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