In 2008, David Hajdu published “The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America,” a historical look at 1950s paranoia aimed at the perceived moral depravity of comic books. He traveled around promoting it, but never had any book events in Hartford.
That’s a noteworthy omission, since the scandal probably wouldn’t have happened if not for The Hartford Courant.
In 1953 and 1954, Courant news and editorial writers wrote a series of pieces criticizing comic books’ effects on the minds of young people. The series led to Congressional hearings aimed at censorship.
Hajdu finally will bring his book to Hartford, leading a discussion on the topic as part of an event on Sept. 23 that marks Banned Books Week (Sept. 21 to 27), a nationwide annual observance. Hartford Public Library’s One Book One Hartford program is held in conjunction with Banned Books Week. The book event, being held at the main library at 500 Main St., also will feature improvisational comedy by Sea Tea Improv.
Hajdu, a journalism professor at Columbia University, said comic books had been viewed with suspicion since they popped on the scene in the 1930s. In the late ’40s and early ’50s, however, comic books had evolved to graphically dealing with sordid, violent or sexually suggestive subjects. At the same time, an atmosphere of paranoia over the spread of communism reigned, and spilled over to include comic books.
“That was the peak of the HUAC [House Committee on Un-American Activities] hearings. The red scare is in full bloom and so is the paranoia over flying saucers, all at the same time. If you get a copy of any newpspaper from 1948, it is full of stories of paranoia,” Hajdu said in a phone interview. “It was all of a piece, the deep fear that our values are under threat, that our young people are changing, that something is happening that is out of our control.”
The Courant entered the fray with a scathing 1953 piece by columnist Thomas E. Murphy, which was reprinted in Reader’s Digest, the most widely read magazine in the country at that time. That success inspired the papers’ editors to assign a reporter, Irving Kravsow, to do a four-part series on comic books.
Kravsow did a thorough job, with a few flaws, Hajdu said.
“He went out and bought a pile of comics and studied them. He read them carefully,” Hajdu said. “Then he went down to New York and interviewed comics publishers. … Then he went back to Hartford. He talked to newsstand owners, distributors, parents, church groups.”
But he didn’t talk to any comic artists. “He never got to what they had in mind. He never entertained the proposition that the intention might have been to offer children something cathartic. … He never interviewed any readers, any kids.”
Kravsow’s series — headlined “Depravity For Children — 10 Cents a Copy!” — ran from Feb. 14 to 17, 1954. It got the attention of Congress, which held hearings on comics and juvenile delinquency.
In a Courant interview in 2008, when Hajdu’s book was published, Kravsow, who was also managing editor of the Courant in the ’70s , also said censorship was not the goal of his series. “We were against censorship,” Kravsow said. “We didn’t want anyone going out and burning books. We just wanted parents to be aware and make their own decisions on what they wanted their kids to read.”
The hearings proceeded, but in the end no national censorship ever came of it. But they spooked comic-book publishers into strict self-censorship. The industry was crippled for years but recovered in the ’60s.
“Time had passed and the atmosphere of paranoia had waned. [Blacklist victim] Dalton Trumbo is being hired to write films again. Blacklisted actors are reappearing on TV. People no longer were thinking of comic books as being so dangerous,” Hajdu said.
The tone of comics changed, too, “Another generation of comics creators and comics readers had come up, had come to comics without that baggage,” Hajdu said. “The work that does bring comics back from the abyss has a kind of wholesomeness and virtuousness and adherence to wholesome values, American values, that insulated them from attack. Crime comics were dead. Hard comics were dead. When comics come back, it’s superheroes that come back in a very wholesome form.”
The event on Sept. 23 is co-sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut. Jeanne Leblanc, communications director for ACLU-CT, compared the comic-book scare to today’s suspicion over violent video games.
“The argument is that fictional violence inspires violent acts but there’s no more evidence for that today than there was 65 years ago,” Leblanc said. “Eventually, when we remember the First Amendment and remind ourselves that ideas are just ideas, not dangerous in themselves, we can all calm down and get over it.”
The event also will include improv comedy by Sea Tea Improv. Julia Pistell, who is a member of that group and who also will interview Hajdu about his research, said the comedy presented will center around banned-books themed.
“We’re going to look for stories from people who have read banned books and had experience with censorship and build satire and parody around that,” Pistell said. “It all depends on the audience and their experiences. It’s less about the books and more about people’s experiences with censorship.”
BANNED BOOKS WEEK event in the atrium of the Hartford Public Library, 500 Main St., is on Tuesday, Sept. 23. A reception is at 5:30 p.m., an improvisational comedy performance by Sea Tea Improv at 6 p.m. and a discussion between Sea Tea member Julia Pistell and author David Hajdu immediately following. Admission is free.
