Philadelphia Weekly

>>Panel beaters

David Hajdu

First they came for Batman, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't Batman. New Republic music writer David Hajdu's new book The Ten Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America goes back to the 1950s, when the first battle of the culture wars was fought over the original great scourge, comic books. Self-appointed experts like psychiatrist Frederic Wertham saw evil and subversiveness in every panel, obsessing over everything from Wonder Woman's bondage fetish to Batman and Robin's gay relationship. While it sounds laughable today, in the 1950s it led to congressional hearings, book burnings and ruined careers. Hajdu previously chronicled the 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene in Positively 4th Street. This tale's more fascinating and tragic, and has obvious parallels with today's scares over video games and rap. (Jack Schonewolf)

>>revulva

Hattie Gossett

The primary race seems to be less about issues and more about ranking and pandering to some bogus hierarchy of oppression. So it's refreshing to come across Hattie Gossett, a black feminist poet driven by outrageous social commentary rather than empty ruminations on race and gender. You want hilarious and profound verses about "colored pussy" and "21st-century black warrior wimmin"? Gossett's your lady. A few decades back she co-founded both Essence magazine and Kitchen Table Press, a publishing house dedicated to women of color. But these days Gossett's focusing on her own art, including her most recent collection The Immigrant Suite: Hey Xenophobe Who You Calling a Foreigner? The book, a rumination on Manhattan's medley of varied and competing voices, was released by Seven Stories, the intensely indie press that's published Noam Chomsky, Octavia Butler, Howard Zinn, Ani DiFranco and other revolutionaries who refuse to turn politics and identity into bumper stickers and campaign promises. (Caralyn Green)

>>swede Jesus

Backseat Film Festival

Be Kind Rewind's New Jersey remakers have nothing on the makers of Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation. Over seven summers from 1982 through 1989, three Mississippi kids methodically remade the first Indiana Jones picture shot-for-shot, complete with themselves in the leads and resourceful home-brewed special effects. How did they duplicate the head-melting scene? Or the truck chase? After a decade of neglect, this apex of fanboyism found its way to the right dorks (Eli Roth and Harry Knowles) and to special screening heaven, finally catching the eye of both Steven Spielberg himself and mega-producer Scott Rudin, who plans to do some adapting of his own. At long last The Adaptation makes it here as the centerpiece of the sixth Backseat Film Festival, otherwise known as the "drinking man's film festival." The five-day fest also promises coke-binging Mexican wrestlers (The Dead Sleep Easy), zombie cowboys (Dead Noon) and the murdering spawn of Charles Manson (Gimme Shelter). (Matt Prigge)

>>Gallic symbol

Bienvenue Lafayette!

Forget Hills and the O-Bomb for a moment and get down to the last greasy shard of our shameful divided past as Americans: the freedom fry. Remember that? Whether your dad likes it or not, the French totally saved our ass a while back--thanks in large part to Revolutionary War hero Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette. Bienvenue Lafayette! celebrates Lafayette's visit to the Physick House during his 1824-'23 tour of the States (the one where he arrived broke and left loaded). Non-bigoted patriots and foodies who worship the mother sauce system alike can bring the kids to learn about French cuisine and the pleasant cascades of the parley-vous-doo language. While you're there, take a look-see around the magnificent 30-room mansion that wine built and television saved. (Tara Murtha)