DAVID HAJDU ON THE TEN CENT PLAGUE

[MattBrady]

by Vinnie Bartilucci

David Hajdu has received praise for his first two books, which looked at the career of Jazz great Billy Strayhorn, and gave an inside look at the folk movement of the 60’s. So why did he next choose to analyze the comics industry, and give the first detailed look of the anti-comics controversy that almost destroyed the genre in the ‘50s? For David, writing The Ten Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America was actually a return to his roots.

David Hajdu: Let me tell something you don’t know about me, and it’s relevant, is how far I go back with comics. You probably think of me as a “music guy”, a lot of people think of me like that, as most of my professional work has been in music. Most people think of me as a music writer scholar. But the first professional work I ever did was illustrations, for the Easton Express. They were illustrations but they were done in a very dramatic, serious comic-book style. I drew my entire life. I’d draw comics for pleasure when I was a kid, and I drew my own comic strip in High School newspaper. It was called “The Endless Odyssey of Skip Toomaloo”. My Senior year yearbook had a picture of me drawing my comic strip. If you went to the Wegmans (grocery store) in Easton and bumped into somebody I went to High School with, and mentioned my name, they’d say, “Oh, David Hajdu the comic book guy?”

I go way back with comics. I was a big reader of comics my entire life when I was a kid. I don’t say “Collector”; I was a reader. I bought them and read them voraciously. I kept my favorite in Phillies cigar box, but traded the rest, or gave them away, and didn’t amass a huge collection of physical comics, but I did amass a huge collection of comic knowledge, just from reading. I was a big DC guy. I loved Daredevil in the Marvel Universe, but I was mainly a DC guy.

Newsarama: When did you start collecting the interviews for the book?

DH: It’s something I wanted to do for a long time. When my second book, Positively Fourth Street, was finished, which was around 2000 or so…there‘s a period of time, as you know between when a book is finished, and when it’s published. After the writer’s finished with it and before it’s bound up, there’s down time. So I started then, and I did a chunk of the main, key interviews very early, to make sure, to have enough time with some of the central people. So it’s early 2001, which is seven years ago now.

I went down to Florida, several times, spent a lot of time with Will Eisner. I stayed in his guest room. Went down to Georgia, where Jack Davis lives, and spent time with him. And that’s a case of where my own ability to draw came in handy. I was doing an interview with Jack in his studio, and while I was interviewing him, he was drawing, kind of absently doodling on a pad while we were talking. And then I was drawing in my notebook. And finally I said, “Jack, can I ask; what are you drawing?” and he said “I’m drawing you.” And I said “That’s funny, because I’m drawing you…” We exchanged drawings. So I have this caricature Jack Davis did of me, and he has mine of him. Although I doubt he treasures mine as much as I treasure the one he did of me.

So I did the early interviews with Lyle Stuart, who was the business manager for EC, and helped Gaines write his testimony for the juvenile delinquency hearings. Every EC artist who was alive at the time. Al Williamson, while he was still Al Williamson; he’s been in decline in the past few years. I was at Al Feldstein’s ranch in Montana, stayed in his guest house out there; he’s still the same old irascible guy he’s ever been. Jack Kamen, he lives up in New Hampshire in a house his son Dean built for him…

NRAMA: The inventor of the Segway…

DH: That’s right, and we met Dean, and he was scooting around on his Segway when I met him.

NRAMA: Why did you choose to interview all of these people one-on-one?

DH: It was important for me not to draw for secondary sources. Not draw this from what’s been written about comics in the past. But to talk to the first-hand witnesses to what I was writing about. And to spend enough time with them so they were comfortable with me. And a lot of years have passed, so we needed time so that memories were functioning well. Sometimes you’re talking to people about things that happened forty, fifty years ago, sixty years ago in some cases. It takes some time. To find the first-hand witnesses and spend the time with them so that they can tell their stories. And devote enough time so that they can tell their stories well. And then I could do them justice and tell their stories well.

NRAMA: A lot of the folks you interviewed from the Golden Age were and are still quite popular at conventions. A lot of these folks vanished. Janice Valleau, the lady you started the book with, all but disavowed her career, save for a framed page of Reed Crandall art in her house. It’s as if you’ve really taken the opportunity to re-introduce these people, not only to the general public, but to comics fans who are going to read this.

DH: That’s nice of you to point out. I’m a historian who was trained as a journalist. So my orientation is partly journalistic. So I never see the need to take up my time, and the reader’s time, to tell a story that’s already been told before. Yes the story of the controversy over comics has been told before, but on a certain scale. But there’s a great deal more to that story that has hasn’t been told. Especially the story of those people who suffered most from that purge…because they disappeared. And because they disappeared, because they haven’t done the comic-book conventions, they haven’t stayed in the scene; their stories were largely lost to time. The story of the purge is a tragedy, but what brings the tragedy to life is an understanding of how some people suffered by having their livelihoods taken from them, and being denied the ability to do something they were proud of and they treasured and they thought was important. Some of these people felt so wounded, they felt such a miscarriage of justice had happened, they felt so wronged, that they left comics and never looked back. They were bitter about their comics experience and they never looked back. Somebody like Mort Leav, he was living in New Jersey in a retirement home. Still vital, but had devoted his career to advertising, and just didn’t want to think about comic books any more, because he had felt so wronged. So it was important for me to find those people who hadn’t talked before.

But by the same token, I also wanted to talk to the kids. The people who were then kids who loved comics and were caught in this battle between the generations, the young and the old, who were not given a voice, were not given an outlet to tell their stories at the time. They are very rarely interviewed, because they’re not famous. With the exception of some people like Ted White who’s gone on to become famous as a collector, or Bhob Stewart, there were zealous comic book enthusiasts in the 30’s 40’s and early 50’s who didn’t continue to be collectors. And since they didn’t go on to become famous as collectors, they’re unknown today. But these people are really, even more so than the ones who went on to become collectors, are typical of the comic-book reader of the pre-Code era. The comic book reader of the pre-Code era was not an enthusiast like we think of comic-book readers today…nearly everybody read comics!

The comic book controversy took many forms; it wasn’t just Wertham. I have a file cabinet full of clips about the various dimensions of the comics controversy, from the very early days of comics, to the time when the Catholic Church was against them… In that whole file cabinet, there are very few interviews with the kids, because journalists and grownups who were writing about comics really didn’t think of young people as qualified to make intelligent judgments. And that was one of the problems. That very point of view, that very opinion was at the heart of the conflict over comics. The patronizing, diminishing look of young people as sub-people, sub-human, almost. As a result, young people weren’t interviewed. So it was important for me to find people who were devoted to comics when they were young, and get them to tell their stories. And at the same time, a lot of kids were ambivalent about comics, and some kids joined the anti-comics crusade. They were dragging their wagons door-to-door collecting comics, building bonfires and taking part in these horrible ablational comic-book burnings. I found those kids too.

I thought is was more important to find the people to tell those stories than for me to imagine what it was like, which I couldn’t do accurately.

NRAMA: Last year George Clooney came out with Good Night and Good Luck, about the red scare and Murrow’s dealings with McCarthy. And he intended it to have a parallel to modern day and the “Anti-American” mindset after 9/11. Considering there are still people today touting books that tell parents what’s wrong with their kids, is it safe to say there’s a parallel between this book and modern day?

DH: Oh, absolutely. But the object of parents’ ire today isn’t comic books; it’s video games. GTA4. It’s a vivid parallel. And I have a four-and-a-half year-old. So I’m living as a parent with the modern-day version of these issues; what’s appropriate for kids, and what affect will exposure to…evil, to wrong…have on young minds? Is it a corrupting influence, or is it a release valve? And the issues are very complicated, and they’re timeless, and they’re very timely. What I learned from it that helped me as a parent is, take a deep breath and pause and reflect. Give the kid some credit. Kids are not idiots. The kids are people, and they’re able to read complex systems of codes. They understand, like I understood, that a comic is just a comic, and a game is just a game, and just the depiction of crime or horror in a game or a comic is not a romaniticization or glamorization. Sometimes it can be a way for the kid to come to terms with evil. God allowed Satan [to exist], because the presence of Evil reminds us of the imperative of Good.

I was raised a Catholic, in New Jersey. And there’s a lot of horror in the Scriptures, but for good reason. I must make clear; I’m not comparing Stanley P. Morse’s comics with the Scriptures. The point that I want to make is that young people must come to terms with good and bad; it’s an essential part of growing up. And confronting Evil can be cathartic. And in that sense, there’s a value to the presence of Evil in comics and games.

NRAMA: I’m always pointing out the hypocrisy that the parents of today who are going after video games are the same ones who railed against Tipper Gore when she was going after heavy metal. And their parents were the ones defending the Beatles to their parents. There’s always someone there to tell parents, “THIS is it, THIS is the reason…”

DH: The battle over comics was never over comics. It was essentially over the right of young people to have tastes of their own. For young people’s rights to be individuals, to be people. I guess it’s natural, I’m a parent myself, to want to be the sole source of guidance in the kid’s life.

NRAMA: I had the feeling the Eisner interview was one of your favorites, because you used Eisner as a narrative thread throughout the book.

DH: I’ll tell you why; it’s not just because he’s one of my favorite creators. As far as I could tell, Eisner was one of the very few people, if not the only person, who spoke on the record, in print, in the 1940’s, that comic books were an art form. And he championed this, in his actions and his words, way before anyone else. Even many great comic book artists in those days, it’s fair to say, thought of their work as…kind of play. As an indulgence, or just plain a job. But Will always thought of it as an art.

For the reader to care what happened to these artists, they have to understand that the art was important. If the art wasn’t important, then what happened to the artists doesn’t matter. Will is the most vivid example of not only the greatness of comics, but the belief in the greatness of comics. We spent time right up to his final weeks, and he died still fearing that comics still haven’t been given their due, and still fearing that he hadn’t been given his due. I got an email from his wife, Ann today. And I think she’s now, for all the accolades he got; I don’t think there’s anyone in comics more celebrated than Will Eisner… His conception of the greatness of comics as an art form, was kind of over the recognition that he got.

Let me give you an example what I mean by that. He got every award in the comics field; the Eisner Awards are named after him. But he didn’t get any awards outside the comics field. He never got a Kennedy Center Award. There’s never been an artist who got a Kennedy Center Award. It’s only a matter of time, and comics deserve to be shoulder to shoulder with opera singers and pop stars like Bob Dylan, and actors and actresses and choreographers, and all the other artists high and low; comics deserve to be there. If any of them deserve it, Will did. Even he never made it. It shows how far we still have to go, in terms of the general public, mainstream America for giving comics their due.

NRAMA: Let’s end with one silly question. Dan DiDio from DC calls you and asks you to write a DC title – what would you pick?

DH: That is a great question. I really wanna answer that. I would have said Nightwing, but Nightwing’s back, and being done really well. Cause I always loved Dick Grayson, and I didn’t think he was being done to his potential. I would say… Elongated Man.

NRAMA: He’s dead.

DH: Untold Stories of Elongated Man! I would want to do some of the things that have been getting done lately. The Silver Age has been getting its due now lately. There’ve been new Bizarro stories, new Kandor stories. Maybe I’d want to do a new Bottle City of Kandor story. I’m a child of the Silver Age, I’ve always had a weakness for the Silver Age. I like the crazy Silver Age stories with 72 different colors of Kryptonite and Super-Horse. They kind of got silly and out of control for a while there, but I always had a weak spot for them since they’re the comics of my youth, and we always have a special place in our heart for the comics we grew up in.

[Quislet]

I am so all over this book. Great interview.

[Gordon McAlpin]

This looks really interesting, and just ordered my copy (thanks for bringing to my attention!), but it's not really the FIRST detailed look at this point in comics history:

Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code by Amy Kiste Nyberg covers this era very well. At more than twice the page length of Seal, though, it's a safe bet Hajdu's book goes into a bit more depth.

[MrVinegar]

I pre-ordered a copy and now I am even more glad that I did. Should arrive in the mail any day now!

[Nobody]

Sounds very interesting. I'll try to pick up a copy.

[Faraway Press]

Interesting story -- just came from a discussion of the comics sales numbers cited in the Kefauver report. There's a huge amount of info out there yet to be dug up about this time. Will have to check this book out!

[pogofan]

A very interesting book on the issue that lay at the heart of the anti-comics crusade---the impact on children of exposure to images of violence and evil---is Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super-Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence by Gerard Jones (yes, the former comics writer). His thesis is that we need to pay more attention to what the violence means to the children and how they are using it, as opposed to looking at it through adult eyes. There's some fascinating material exposing the shoddy underpinnings to what "everybody knows" about the dangers of violent comics, TV, etc., though he certainly accepts that such material can have unhealthy effects on certain children, depending on the issues they bring in with them and the way they use it.

[AirDave817]

I like the angle that he takes that it's - the focus - is not comics or music or TV or movies or video games. The point is the choice. What we choose, our tastes define us - gives us a unique and individual identity. Makes me me. Who can tell me how to be me?

[Tony T]

This book sounds incredibly interesting and right up my alley. I just placed my order at Amazon. Being a huge EC fan, the topics that this book addresses have always been of great interest to me. I am thankful that people like Hajdu are making the effort to tell the story of this critical time in the history of comics, and to document the recollections of those who were there.

Meanwhile, this is the second time recently that I've read a vague mention of Al Williamson's declining health. The last time I saw Al in person was at the EC 50th Anniversary Reunion at San Diego in 2000 and he seemed perfectly healthy and fit then. I hate to hear that his health is failing. The man is creative genius. (As were all of the EC creators.) I want to respect Al's right to privacy, but at the same time I would appreciate more specific news about the cause of his health concerns and the status of his well-being.

[MadBandit]

Originally Posted by AirDave817

I like the angle that he takes that it's - the focus - is not comics or music or TV or movies or video games. The point is the choice. What we choose, our tastes define us - gives us a unique and individual identity. Makes me me. Who can tell me how to be me?

Problem is, ever since Wertham and his ilk came about, individualism and creative expression have been dissected to be censored (or near). I'll definitely buy this book.

[TimTurnip]

Hajdu's book about the '60s folk scene, Positively 4th Street, is excellent and is one of my very favorite books about music. (It's really about the relationship between Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, as well as her sister Mimi, and her husband, folkie Richard Fariña.)

When I heard Hajdu's next book would be about '50s comics, I was viscerally thrilled, as this was a topic I'd just discovered myself, having gradually wound my way back through the history of comics into that epicenter of mindblowing artistry and historic cultural collision. I actually stood in Barnes & Noble the other day, anxiously punching up Amazon on my iPhone to see if Hajdu's book had come out in stores yet, sadly discovering it had not. I'll be up there this weekend to grab me a copy, it will go proudly on my shelf next to my growing collection of EC hardcover archives.

[OM]

Q: Is Frederick Wertham still alive?

A: If not, anyone up for a mass grave pissing on the next anniversary of the release of Seduction of the Innocent?

[vbartilucci]

Originally Posted by OM

Q: Is Frederick Wertham still alive?

Not only is he merely dead, he's really most sincerely dead.

Originally Posted by OM

A: If not, anyone up for a mass grave pissing on the next anniversary of the release of Seduction of the Innocent?

Kitchen Sink actually considered a re-release, with massive annotations. Never happened, obviously. Apparently someone DID reprint it back in 2004 - copies are on eBay for ridiculous prices.

Many years later, he published a book called The World of Fanzines which was quite complimentary to the zines and the fanzine culture as a whole. It was generally considered to be an apology of sorts to the comics fans.

I've owned a copy of SotI for years, and it now has a neighbor on the shelf - David's book.