The War on Comics

Greetings from House of Comics!

I wanted to tell you about an author reading I went to recently in Berkeley. David Hajdu has written a new book called The 10-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America. Hajdu writes about the period after World War II but before the Comics Code Authority came into place, when America started to get worried about juvenile delinquency and blamed the nearest target: comic books. The author details organized burnings of comic books that sound like they would be terrifying for a child! Hajdu also did a lot of research into EC Comics, which published the best comics of the day. Considering what is shown on today's tv shows and video games, it's hard to believe the satire comic book Panic was actually banned in Boston. It's not hard to believe that some of the other EC images, as shown in this newsletter, led to congressional hearings....This is a book I'd recommend that you all check out (the link goes to Amazon, where the book is available for about $17). I thought I knew a lot about this subject already, but it's filled with new research.

There are a lot of exciting new features coming to our website but I'm going to save that for another time. I'll leave you with a link to our "pre-code" comics, those that were published 1935-1954 before the Comics Code. We currently have about 1200 of these beauties and another 1000 are going to be up on the site soon. Check them out!

Marc

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