I like to be in America/Everything free in America

[rolanni]

For those interested in cautionary tales, or who believe that mob rule cannot prevail, I recommend The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu. It's not a quick read, and it is a little dense at times. On the other hand, there's an immense amount of material to cover, from the birth of comics in the New York newspapers of the 1890s through their rise, persecution, and death in the mid-1950's, from the ashes of which Mad magazine eventually arose. This history is of special interest to science fiction folks, since the comics are a first cousin, and more than few of the names of influential and quoted people will be familiar -- Harry Harrison, Stan Lee, Will Eisner, to name a few. Includes a list of comic book artists and writers who lost their jobs in the purges of the 50s -- upwards of 900 of them -- and who were never able to work in their field again. I'm not sure if those who committed suicide as a result of hounding, ridicule, and eventual bankruptcy are included.

In other news, Steve's still sick. He is at home, tended by cats. I apologize for having to state the obvious, but while he is sick, SRM Publisher -- which is a one-person operation -- is closed, and no orders are being processed. Thank you for your understanding.

The temperature this morning was -2F/-18C this morning, which is as cold as we've seen in a while, and the little green Subaru thought about refusing to start, but then decided that it was a nice morning for a run. Good little green car.

Circumstantial evidence gathered on the way up from the parking lot indicates that the crows still find the campus grounds pleasing to themselves.

So, what've you read lately that was thought-provoking and strange?

Comments

[christymarx.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't say that comics died in the 50s by any means. They retrenched, adapted and evolved, but Wertham utterly failed to kill the medium, happily for me.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I suspect there's another book about the rebirth. The last chapter of this one does a hodgepodge about the rebirth of the superheros in the 1960s, but that's not really his focus.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

...and rethinking this a little more on the drive home...

The book ends with Mad reinventing itself, from a comic to a magazine, and adopting the editorial strategy of satirizing real-world people-and-events. The comics industry of the 50s was able to be successfully attacked because it wasn't (according to the text) paying sufficient attention to real-world events that concerned it. The implication is that the attack on and victory over the comics actually produced a smarter, savvier opponent.