SOTI:detective novel set during anti-comic book hysteria of the 1950s

[montrealfilmguy]

This should be quite a fun read.

 

 

From Boingboing.com

 

There's a good excerpt on the website.

 

http://boingboing.net/2013/02/19/seduction-of-the-innocent-det.html

 

 

Seduction of the Innocent by Max Allan Collins (Road to Perdition author) sounds like fun -- it's a detective novel that take place during the heyday of the anti-comic book hysteria of the 1950s, which was led by the evil Dr. Fredric Wertham, who wrote a popular scare book also called Seduction of the Innocent. (For an excellent historical account of this era, read The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America, by David Hajdu). In Collins' novel, Fredric Wertham is thinly disguised as character Dr. Werner Frederick, featured in the excerpt below.

 

 

It's 1954, and a rabble-rousing social critic has declared war on comic books -- especially the scary, gory, bloody sort published by the bad boys of the industry, EF Comics. But on the way to a Senate hearing on whether these depraved publications should be banned, the would-be censor meets a violent end of his own -- leaving his opponents in hot water.

 

Can Jack Starr, private eye to the funny-book industry, and his beautiful boss Maggie unravel the secret of Dr. Frederick's gruesome demise? Or will the crackdown come, falling like an executioner's axe...?

 

 

Just read the comments and this.

 

Something not mentioned in the Amazon posting:

And unusual or unique for those Hard Case Crime paperbacks, as far as I know, most of them don't have interior illustrations:

http://www.hardcasecrime.com/b...

"Features more than a dozen brand new illustrations in the classic EC style by comic book legend Terry Beatty!"

 

 

also,

 

This is the third in Max's "Jack and Maggie Starr" series. The previous two mysteries were titled "A Killing in Comics," which fictionalized the Superman ownership dispute (and provides hilarious caricatures of then-current DC Comics staff like Bob Kane and Siegel & Shuster), and "Strip for Murder," a fictionalized version of the Al Capp (creator of "Lil Abner") feud with Ham Fisher. Both are quick, breezy fun with plenty of in-jokes for happy mutants.

[Comicopolis]

Sounds interesting.

[rjpb]

I should probably pick this up. Collins usually delivers a solid read.

[mrmyst]

Just saw this and it looks cool

[Doohickamabob]

Here is the Amazon page . No reader reviews yet.