The Brooklyn Thrill-Kill Gang and the Great Comic Book Scare of the 1950s

The Brooklyn Thrill-Kill Gang and the Great Comic Book Scare of the 1950s PDF Author: Mariah Adin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 174

Get Book Here

Book Description
What caused four recently bar mitzvahed middle-class youths to go on a crime spree of assault and murder in 1954? This book provides a compelling narrative retelling of the boys, their crimes, and a U.S. culture obsessed with juvenile delinquency. After ongoing months of daily headlines about gang shootouts, stomp-killings, and millions of dollars worth of vandalism, by the summer of 1954, America had had enough of juvenile delinquency. It was in this environment that 18-year-old Jack Koslow and the other three teenage members of the Brooklyn Thrill Killers committed their heinous crimes and achieved notoriety. The Brooklyn Thrill-Kill Gang and the Great Comic Book Scare of the 1950s exposes the underbelly of America's mid-century, the terrible price of assimilation, the uncomfortable bedfellows of comic books and juvenile delinquency, and the dystopia already in bloom amongst American youth well before the 1960s. Readers will be engrossed and horrified by the tale of the Brooklyn Thrill-Kill Gang whose shocking, front-page story could easily have been copy-pasted from today's online news sites. Author Mariah Adin takes readers along for a breathtaking moment-by-moment retelling of the crime spree, the subsequent interrogations, and the dramatic courtroom showdown, interspersed with expository chapters on juvenile delinquency, America's Jewish community in the post-Holocaust period, and the anti-comics movement. This book serves to merge the history of juvenile delinquency with that of the Great Comic Book Scare, highlights the assimilation of immigrants into America's white mainstream gone wrong, and complicates our understanding of America's "Golden Age."

The Brooklyn Thrill-Kill Gang and the Great Comic Book Scare of the 1950s

The Brooklyn Thrill-Kill Gang and the Great Comic Book Scare of the 1950s PDF Author: Mariah Adin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 174

Get Book Here

Book Description
What caused four recently bar mitzvahed middle-class youths to go on a crime spree of assault and murder in 1954? This book provides a compelling narrative retelling of the boys, their crimes, and a U.S. culture obsessed with juvenile delinquency. After ongoing months of daily headlines about gang shootouts, stomp-killings, and millions of dollars worth of vandalism, by the summer of 1954, America had had enough of juvenile delinquency. It was in this environment that 18-year-old Jack Koslow and the other three teenage members of the Brooklyn Thrill Killers committed their heinous crimes and achieved notoriety. The Brooklyn Thrill-Kill Gang and the Great Comic Book Scare of the 1950s exposes the underbelly of America's mid-century, the terrible price of assimilation, the uncomfortable bedfellows of comic books and juvenile delinquency, and the dystopia already in bloom amongst American youth well before the 1960s. Readers will be engrossed and horrified by the tale of the Brooklyn Thrill-Kill Gang whose shocking, front-page story could easily have been copy-pasted from today's online news sites. Author Mariah Adin takes readers along for a breathtaking moment-by-moment retelling of the crime spree, the subsequent interrogations, and the dramatic courtroom showdown, interspersed with expository chapters on juvenile delinquency, America's Jewish community in the post-Holocaust period, and the anti-comics movement. This book serves to merge the history of juvenile delinquency with that of the Great Comic Book Scare, highlights the assimilation of immigrants into America's white mainstream gone wrong, and complicates our understanding of America's "Golden Age."

The Ten-Cent Plague

The Ten-Cent Plague PDF Author: David Hajdu
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312428235
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 462

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the years between the end of World War II and the mid-1950s, the popular culture of today was invented in the pulpy, boldly illustrated pages of comic books. But no sooner had comics emerged than they were beaten down by mass bonfires, congressional hearings, and a McCarthyish panic over their unmonitored and uncensored content. Esteemed critic David Hajdu vividly evokes the rise, fall, and rise again of comics in this engrossing history. "Marvelous . . . a staggeringly well-reported account of the men and women who created the comic book, and the backlash of the 1950s that nearly destroyed it....Hajdu’s important book dramatizes an early, long-forgotten skirmish in the culture wars that, half a century later, continues to roil."--Jennifer Reese,Entertainment Weekly(Grade: A-) "Incisive and entertaining . . . This book tells an amazing story, with thrills and chills more extreme than the workings of a comic book’s imagination."--Janet Maslin,The New York Times "A well-written, detailed book . . . Hajdu’s research is impressive."--Bob Minzesheimer,USA Today "Crammed with interviews and original research, Hajdu’s book is a sprawling cultural history of comic books."--Matthew Price,Newsday "To those who think rock 'n' roll created the postwar generation gap, David Hajdu says: Think again. Every page ofThe Ten-Cent Plagueevinces [Hajdu’s] zest for the 'aesthetic lawlessness' of comic books and his sympathetic respect for the people who made them. Comic books have grown up, but Hajdu’s affectionate portrait of their rowdy adolescence will make readers hope they never lose their impudent edge."--Wendy Smith, Chicago Tribune "A vivid and engaging book."--Louis Menand,The New Yorker "David Hajdu, who perfectly detailed the Dylan-era Greenwhich Village scene in Positively 4th Street, does the same for the birth and near death (McCarthyism!) of comic books inThe Ten-Cent Plague." --GQ "Sharp . . . lively . . . entertaining and erudite . . . David Hajdu offers captivating insights into America’s early bluestocking-versus-blue-collar culture wars, and the later tensions between wary parents and the first generation of kids with buying power to mold mass entertainment."--R. C. Baker,The Village Voice "Hajdu doggedly documents a long national saga of comic creators testing the limits of content while facing down an ever-changing bonfire brigade. That brigade was made up, at varying times, of politicians, lawmen, preachers, medical minds, and academics. Sometimes, their regulatory bids recalled the Hays Code; at others, it was a bottled-up version of McCarthyism. Most of all, the hysteria over comics foreshadowed the looming rock 'n' roll era."--Geoff Boucher, Los Angeles Times "A compelling story of the pride, prejudice, and paranoia that marred the reception of mass entertainment in the first half of the century."--Michael Saler,The Times Literary Supplement(London) David Hajdu is the author ofLush Life: A Biography of Billy StrayhornandPositively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña.

Seduction of the Innocent

Seduction of the Innocent PDF Author: Fredric Wertham
Publisher: Main Road Books
ISBN: 9781596830004
Category : Comic books and children
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Dr. Wertham was senior psychiatrist for the Department of Hospitals in New York City. This book, thoroughly documented by facts and cases, gives the substance of Dr. Wertham's expert opinion on the effects that comic books have on the minds and behavior of children who come in contact with them. Reprint of the 1954 edition with a new comprehensive Introduction by James E. Reibman, Ph.D.

The Mind of the Censor and the Eye of the Beholder

The Mind of the Censor and the Eye of the Beholder PDF Author: Robert Corn-Revere
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110712994X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Get Book Here

Book Description
The book explores the importance of free speech in America by telling the stories of its chief antagonists - the censors.

Comic Book Nation

Comic Book Nation PDF Author: Bradford W. Wright
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801874505
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Get Book Here

Book Description
A history of comic books from the 1930s to 9/11.

Comic Book Crime

Comic Book Crime PDF Author: Nickie D. Phillips
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814764525
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Get Book Here

Book Description
Superman, Batman, Daredevil, and Wonder Woman are iconic cultural figures that embody values of order, fairness, justice, and retribution. Comic Book Crime digs deep into these and other celebrated characters, providing a comprehensive understanding of crime and justice in contemporary American comic books. This is a world where justice is delivered, where heroes save ordinary citizens from certain doom, where evil is easily identified and thwarted by powers far greater than mere mortals could possess. Nickie Phillips and Staci Strobl explore these representations and show that comic books, as a historically important American cultural medium, participate in both reflecting and shaping an American ideological identity that is often focused on ideas of the apocalypse, utopia, retribution, and nationalism. Through an analysis of approximately 200 comic books sold from 2002 to 2010, as well as several years of immersion in comic book fan culture, Phillips and Strobl reveal the kinds of themes and plots popular comics feature in a post-9/11 context. They discuss heroes’ calculations of “deathworthiness,” or who should be killed in meting out justice, and how these judgments have as much to do with the hero’s character as they do with the actions of the villains. This fascinating volume also analyzes how class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation are used to construct difference for both the heroes and the villains in ways that are both conservative and progressive. Engaging, sharp, and insightful, Comic Book Crime is a fresh take on the very meaning of truth, justice, and the American way.

Seal of Approval

Seal of Approval PDF Author: Amy Kiste Nyberg
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 9780878059751
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Get Book Here

Book Description
The content of comic books has been governed by an industry self-regulatory code adopted by publishers in 1954 in response to public and governmental pressure. This book, the first full-length study of this period of comic book history, examines the reasons that comic books were the subject of heated controversy. In tracing the evolution of the controversy and the resulting code, Seal of Approval shows that the comic book has yet to achieve legitimation as a unique form of expression appreciated by readers of all ages.

The Horror! The Horror!

The Horror! The Horror! PDF Author: Jim Trombetta
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
ISBN: 9780810955950
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Get Book Here

Book Description
Censored out of existence by Congress in the 1950s, rare comic book images--many of which have been rarely seen since they were first issued--are now revealed once again in all of their eye-popping inventive outrageousness. Original.

Comic Books and the Cold War, 1946-1962

Comic Books and the Cold War, 1946-1962 PDF Author: Chris York
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786489472
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 233

Get Book Here

Book Description
Conventional wisdom holds that comic books of the post-World War II era are poorly drawn and poorly written publications, notable only for the furor they raised. Contributors to this thoughtful collection, however, demonstrate that these comics constitute complex cultural documents that create a dialogue between mainstream values and alternative beliefs that question or complicate the grand narratives of the era. Close analysis of individual titles, including EC comics, Superman, romance comics, and other, more obscure works, reveals the ways Cold War culture--from atomic anxieties and the nuclear family to communist hysteria and social inequalities--manifests itself in the comic books of the era. By illuminating the complexities of mid-century graphic novels, this study demonstrates that postwar popular culture was far from monolithic in its representation of American values and beliefs.

The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics

The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics PDF Author: Paul Gravett
Publisher: Running Press Adult
ISBN:
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 510

Get Book Here

Book Description
Mammoth Books: From history to manga, true crime to sci-fi, these anthologies feature top-name contributors and award-winning editors.