The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America

This cultural history is a "well-reported account of the men and women who created the comic book and the backlash of the 1950s that nearly destroyed it" (Entertainment Weekly).

In the years between World War II and the emergence of television as a mass medium, American popular culture as we know it was first created—in the pulpy, boldly illustrated pages of comic books. No sooner had this new culture emerged than it was beaten down by church groups, community bluestockings, and a McCarthyis...