K.E. Runkle

i apologize for my ignorance but who is this danny character and why hasnt a comic villain been created about him or is he the infamous two face

Since my last journal entry discussed the methodology used to assess violence in Batman Comic books. This entry will elaborate on where the majority of my qualitative research was conducted for those of you interested in conducting research related to popular culture. This discussion is also included in my Thesis under Appendix B. Obviously it would be difficult for a researcher to obtain every Batman comic book published between 1940-2000. Some of the older Batman comics are so rare and expensive that the cost of obtaining these books would greatly outweigh the significance of this research project. The Library of Congress is supposed to have a copy of every literary work, including comic books, published in the United States. According to other researchers, (Savage, 1990) and (Inge, 1978) the library, at one time had been pilfered resulting in a substantial amount of missing material. Bowling Green State University in Ohio has a popular culture collection yet their material was also incomplete for the purposes of this study. The Russell B. Nye Popular Culture Collection at Michigan State University holds the most extensive collection of Batman comic books within the mid-western United States available to researchers. This library quite possibly contains the largest collection of popular culture artifacts such as books, collectibles, magazines, fanzines and comic books in the world. After conducting interviews with staff, a recent inventory revealed the Russell Nye collection substantially surpasses the Library of Congress holdings. Although the entire collection of Batman comics is not complete, the majority of missing originals can be analyzed on microfilm. The Russell Nye collection dates back to the late 1960's when scholars at Michigan State University as well as other universities increasingly began to study the importance of mass media entertainment; namely pulp popular culture. In 1978, the Popular Culture Collection was renamed the Russell B. Nye Popular Culture Collection to honor one of the founders of the study of popular culture as well as being a major contributor to the collection. The collection now has over 125,000 items (at time of this publication in 2000) and is recognized across the nation as the leading research center for the study of popular culture. As far as comic books themselves, the collection encompasses over 80,000 comic books published in the United States since 1935. This is by far the largest collection of comic books available to the public therefore an excellent source for qualitative data collection. Being there are so many materials of monetary value, there is a fairly strict level of security. It is considered more courteous to let the staff know you are coming ahead of time and what type of research you will be working on, although this is not a prerequisite of their policy. When you walk into the collection's reading room the first thing to do is tell the staff who you are and what you are looking for which can also be accomplished via e-mail. After all of the necessary forms have been filled out as to what type of study you are conducting, where you are from, and the materials needed, the researcher can then proceed to one of the tables in the reading room and begin the research. Only pencils are allowed past the front desk and backpacks, briefcases and coats are left at the entrance, no exceptions. The reading room consists of two large wooden tables in the center room with about eight or ten smaller tables located next to the wall all around the room. A staff member is, for the most part, sitting at the front desk near the entrance ready to assist with any questions as well as retrieve the requested research documents. Copyright 2010 K.E. Runkle

Sorry for the length of time between journal entries. This is Chapter III of my Master's Thesis which will discuss the methods used to test my hypothesis of violence in comic books as outlined in Chapter II. Research Design In order to determine if the portrayal of violence in comic books has changed over the past 60 years, this thesis will employ content analysis. The time design is a longitudinal trend analysis comparing representative samples of comic book stories from three distinct periods ranging from 1940-2000. This design enables this thesis to determine if the levels of violence have increased, decreased or remained the same over a span of sixty years. Again the central objective of this thesis is to address this question: Has the violent content in comic books increased, decreased or remained the same over the last sixty? Addressing this question, it is important to compare the presentation of violence in comic books from 1940-2000. Sample The population form which the study sample has been drawn is the collection of Batman comic books from the Russell B. Nye Popular Culture Collection at Michigan State University. Of all the Batman comic books published since 1940, the Russell Nye collection houses approximately 91% of them available for research purposes. The reason Batman comics have been chosen to serve as an appropriate vehicle to assess the nature of comic book violence is because not only have they been a form of mass media entertainment for over sixty years, but also they are a genre of super hero action/adventure comic in which violent acts are commonly portrayed. In addition, Batman comics have consistently been one of the top selling books for the last sixty years. Although comics may not be as popular as they were in the 1940's and 1950's, they have nontheless obtained a large cultural acceptance. The unit of analysis for this study is the comic book stories. A holdings list of all the Batman comics, or sampling frame, was obtained from the Russell Nye web site. The comics were then arranged in numeric order beginning with Batman number one and ending with the most current publication held at the Nye collection at the time this tesis was written. The sampling frame was then divided into three respective eras in which the comic books were published. The first era is the Golden Age (1935-1949), the Silver Age (1950-1979) is the second, and the third era is the Bronze/Modern Age (1980-present). Being there are three eras, a random number of 99 books were chosen to analyze. This amount of books is easily divisible by the number of eras (three) resulting in thirty-three units of analysis per era. Once the sampling frame of comics was constructed a stratified systematic random sample was used to draw equal size samples of comics from each of the three eras. This random sample was developed by dividing the total number of Batman comics in the Nye collection (Golden N=56, Silver N=24, Bronze/Modern N=244) by the number of books to be analyzed in each era (N=33). Therefore, N=2 for the first era, N=7 for the second era, and N=7 for the third era. Since the number of stories in the comic books can vary from era to era, the stories that serve as the unit of analysis have been chosen by what is best represented on the cover of the comic book. If there is no representative cover to any of the stories, then the first story of the book was chosen. Coding violent content in one story rather than all four stories of a book makes coding the data a simpler task. For example, the golden age would have 33 books multiplied by four stories resulting in a total of seventy-seven stories. The trouble here is the eras would not have a consistent amount of stories resulting in a disproportionate analysis. Measurement The independent variables are the eras in which the comic books have been published. For the purpose of this research, the eras are defined as the Golden Age (1938-1949), the Silver Age (1950-1979) and the Bronze/Modern Age (1980-present). The dependent variables for this research project are the levels of violence found in comic book stories. Given the ambiguity of the concept of violence, two specific offenses are given notice: murder/non-negligent manslaughter and aggravated assault as defined by the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). The UCR definition of murder and non-neglifent manslaughter is the "willful killing of one human being by another." Aggravated assault as defined by the UCR is the unlawful attack by one person upon another for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated injury, usually accompanied by the use of a weapon." Measurement Criteria-Violence In order to measure the amouont of violence in each of these eras, a code sheet was developed to accurately account for the amount of violence in each separate era. The code sheet consists of five separate violent acts being coded for. They are as follows: 1) the number of times a super hero kills another character (with or without a weapon), 2) the number of times a super hero assualts another character (with or without a weapon) 3) the number of times a character assaults a super hero (with or without a weapon), 4) the number of times a character kills another character (with or without a weapon), 5) the number of times a character assaults another character (with or without a weapon). Each violent incident, as defined by the UCR, was marked next to each respective category on the code sheet along with weapon use and types of weapons used. Violence Rating The level of violence in the comics for each of the independent variables (eras), per story, will be represented as a proportion which will be calculated by dividing the total number of violent acts for each of the five forms of violence coded for in a story (with and without weapon use) by the total number of panels within each era. This analysis per panel across each era will allow for a comparison of violent content within each of the three eras coded and subsequently analyzed. Summary Chapter three indicates that content analysis is the methodology uses in this thesis. The time design is a longitudinal trend analysis comparig representative samples of comic books over a period of sixty years to ascertain whether violent content in comic books has increased, decreased or remained stable from 1940-2000. Data were collected at the Russell B. Nye Popular Culture Collection which is in the lower level of the Michigan State University library. The units of analysis for this study are the comic book stories. The independent variables are the three classic eras in which the comic books have been published. The dependent variables are the levels of violence found in the comic book stories. The FBI's Uniform Crime Report definitions of murder/non-negligent manslaughter and aggravated assault were utilized in order to dissuade any ambiguity of what constitutes a violent act throughout the entire coding process. Copyright 2010 K.E. Runkle

This journal entry is a conclusion to complete Chapter II of my master's thesis which i began in my journal entry last week. Enjoy!!!History of Comic BooksComics are a vehicle for traveling into the American past. During the 1940's super hero comic books focused largely on WWII as the major theme of their stories. During the 1950's, super hero comic books changed their theme and for the most part they focused primarily on crime and twarting the communist regime. In the 1960's and 1970's, comic books once again changed their major themes to match the confusing involvement of the U.S. in the Vietnam War along with the protests found within many colleges and universities, such as anti-war demonstrations, peace marches as well as the cynical attitudes of American citizens as government officials were caught in scandals.Comic books, as most people may envision them today did not start out in the fashionable sense of Batman and Superman comic books (Berger 1973). Comic charavter such as the Yellow Kid, The Katzenjammer kids, Krazy Kat, Little Nemo and Mutt and Jeff began as newspaper comic strips and were indroduced as early as 1895 (Berger 1973). Printed in the color yellow, and with the rise of techonological advancements associated with newspaper productio, The Yellow Kid was born (Berger 1973). Created by Richard Outcault, the Yellow Kid, with its depictions of immigrant children set in lower-class urban areas and having no regard for adult authority figures, soon acquired substantial popularity among the general public (Berger 1973). The introduction of balloon dialogue and the use of a set of progressive panels to explain a story soon became the norm in which other comic strips would come to follow (Inge 1978). Over the course of several years comic strip characters such as Popeye, Barney Google, Bringing Up Father, and Moon Mullins began to appear in the newspapers. However, the action/adventure genre of comic strip characters did not fully develop until the introduction of the first science fiction comic strip, Buck Rogers in 1929 as well as the introduction of Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan which was converted from novel form to comic strip (Inge, 1978:79). In their early form, comic books, were cardboard bound reprints of classic works such as The Yellow Kid, Barney Google and Mutt and Jeff (Inge 1978:79). The following is a brief explanation of how the comic format began: "The comic book as we know it, however began in 1933 when ten thousand copies of Funnies on Parade were printed with thirty-two pages of Sunday color newspaper reprints within a paper covered booklet about 7 1/" by 10" in size and intended to be given away as a premium for using the products of Proctor and Gamble " (Inge, 1978:80). Funnies On Parade attracted so much popularity, that thirty-five thousand issues of Famouis Funnies by Dell publishing were sold for ten cents a copy. According to Inge (1978:81), "this was to become the first monthly comic magazine which also reaved a circulation peak of nearly one million copies during its twenty-five year existence." Inge (1978) also notes: "While other publishers would begin successful imitations of this reprint comic book, such as Popular Comics, Tip Top Comics, King Comics a major innovation occurred when in 1935 National Periodical Publications issued More Fun, the first comic book to publish original material written and drawn for its unique page size and format."Later, in 1937, National Periodical Publications which would soon become DC comics issued Detective Comics devoted to detective and crime stories (Inge 1978). In June 1938, National Periodical Publications issued Action Comics No. 1 featuring the very first Superman story, revolutionizing the industry and paving the way for other super hero characters such as Batman, The Sub-Mariner, The Human Torch, Captain America, The Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, The Spirit, Daredevil, Plastic Man, Shazam and a plethora of other characters some enduring many years of popular public interest (Inge, 1978).Defining Deviancy DownIn 1993, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan published an article titled "Defining Deviancy Down: How We've Become Accustomed to Alarming Levels of Crime and Destructive Behavior" in which he discusses the French sociologist Emile Durkheim and his book The Rules of Sociological Method (1895). In this book Durkheim (1966:65) states that "crime is present not only in the majority of societies of one particular species but in all societies of all types. There is no society that is not confronted with the problem of criminality." Although the definition of what constitutes a criminal act may change from time to time, there are still those people who feel it necessary to commit criminal acts (Durkheim, 1966:66). More specifically, Durkheim (70) maintains that "crime is, then necessary; it is bound up with the fundamental condition of all social life, and by that very fact it is useful, because these conditions of which it is a part are themselves indispensable to the normal evolution of morality and law." That is to say, without crime society would not function properly yet too much crime can be detrimental to the way a society functions. Extending a discussion of Durkheim's thesis, Moynihan (1993) argues that deviancy, specifically violence, has become so normalized in America that what was once defined as a deviant act forty or fifty years ago is considered a normal act by today's standards. According to Moynihan (1993:18) "the normalization of violence is categorized by "the growing acceptance of unprecedented levels of violent crime." That is to say American society now accepts violent crime as the norm rather than the exception. This thesis will test part of Moynihan's analysis of normalizing violence as it pertains to comic books. Testing Moynihan's thesis of "defining deviancy down", Maguire (200) used professional wrestling to evaluate the validity of Moynihan's assertion that deviant behavior has become normalized in American society. In this study, Maguire (2000:553) examined 12 months worh of Monday night wrestling programs from "January through December of 1999." The author's "main objective of the present research is to identify dominant patterns of behavior and the social meanings that attach to them" (553.) He then compared "behavioral patterns of the previous era of professional wrestling" (553) with that of the behavior patterns of the current era of professional wrestling. The study analyzed such themes of the worls of wrestling as morality, racism, sexism, use of sex, violence, forms of violence, weapons used to commit violent acts and the types of victims commonly assaulted (verbally and physically).To conclude, Maguire (563) maintains that Moynihan's thesis should apply to both macro-level and micro-level studies. Maguire's test of professional wrestling is a micro-level analysis along with this present test of Moynihan's thesis using comic books. In addition, Maguire asserts that deviancy has been defined down within the arena of professional wrestling. Unlike Moynihan, Maguire (563) states "the process can be reversed." Therefore this current thesis is a further test of Moynihan's, using a different form of mass media entertainment, comic books.HypothesisThe current literature on the topic of media violence suggests that violence is on the increase and has been for some time now. Some psychological research goes as far to state that violent and aggressive acts are linked to video games (

Lets delve into a lterature review of the different types of media violence, focusing on comics. This is chapter II of my Master's Thesis. Violence and the Media In recent years, social researchers have scrutinized various forms of mass media entertainment violence. This includes the film industry, video games, television entertainment programs, television news, television commercials, comics books and music. Comic Book Violence During the 1950's, Dr. Fredric Wertham's book, Seduction of the Innocent raised a considerable alarm charging that violence in comic books was a major contributing factor as to why juveniles were committing crimes. Wertham suggested that due to the rising amount of juvenile delinquency in the 1940's and 1950's that comic books are not the disease, they are only a symptom. And they are far more significant as symptoms than as causes. They (comic books) shed some light on the whole foundation of moral and social behavior. According to a December 20, 1948 Time Magazine article, a mass comic book burning took place in Binghampton, New York, in which a house to house collection of comics was conducted and the books burned. These staements clearly show that the government and public interes in regulating media violence is nothing new, given that in 1954, Wertham's book was published initiating a U.S. Senate Investigation into the relationship between comic book violence and juvenile delinquincy. Wertham soon found himself testifying before the Senate Investigation Committee on Juvenile Delinquency in an attempt to ban comic books. In his book, Wertham made statements such as, "slowly and at first reluctantly, I have come to the conclusion that this chronic stimulation, temptation and seduction by comic books, both their alluring advertisements of knives and guns, are contributing factors to many children's maladjustment." Although Wertham's book focused primarily on crime comic books, his study was not limited to them. For example, Wertham states that "crime comic books are comic books that depict crime, whether the setting is urban, western, science-fiction, jungle, adventure or the realm of superman, horror, or supernatural beings". Clearly there were only a select few comic books, such as Dell's Donal Duck, that did not come under scrutiny by Wertham and his team of researchers. Wertham also criticized the comic book industry for depicting super-heroes and heroines as the only ones that can stop "evil-doers" from harming helpess citizens. That is, comics depicted government agencies and law enforcement officials as incapable of doing their job. Comic books were, and to some extent still are a major form of mass media entertainment for young people. It is well to keep in mind that television was at the very early stages of development during the late 1940's and early 1950's and therefore not yet under close scrutiny by advocates for the deterrence of violence in forms of popular media entertainment. Hence with rising rates of juvenile delinquency during the post-war era of the late 1940's and early-mid 1950's, comic books became a major target for those determined to explain the causes of juvenile delinquency and to extinguish those causes as fast as possible. Comic books soon became the scapegoat for rising amounts of juvenile delinquency in the United States. In 1954, comic book publishers, in fear of having their books regulated by the government, took it upon themselves to devise the Comic Code Authority (CCA) in order to regulate their own material. As stated by Nyberg, "modeled after the film code, the comics code targeted all material that could possibly be considered offensive, going beyond the regulation of crime and horror comics to mandate that comcs should reflect dominant American values." In a symposium held in 1948, organized in part by Wertham, the topic was about violence in comic books. In an abstract describing the symposium's topic, the author states that "all comic books without exception are principally, if not wholly devoted to violence" (Legman, 1996). Another study within this field of researc attempts to assess the amount of violence in newspaper comc strips. The researcher conducted a content analysis of comic strips in the Baltimore Sun ranging from 1911-1966. The researcher, Hutchinson, looked at a total of 5,238 comic strips having a total of 26,875 panesl. In his study, Hutchinson was trying to determine the effects of the United States military conflicts upon comic strips. Violence was coded in four separate categores of comic violence defined as comic violence actual, comic violence threatened, serious violence actual and serious violence threatened. The researcher then compared comic strip violence with Uniform Crime Report statistics. His findings suggest that crime rates (the number of crimes per 100,000 population) had been increasing since the 1940's, but comic strip violence between 1939-1966 had declined. Hutchincson state, "during this time period, the relatinship between crime rates and violent comic strips has approximately been an inverse one". The crime rate, notes Hutchinson, rose slightly more than 50% faster than comic strip violence was falling." In 1971, Arthur Berger published an article titled "Comics and Culture". This article is in part, the foundation for his later book The Comic Stripped American (1973), which would be one of the first American Books to explore the scientific relevance of studying American comic strips and comic books. In the article "Comics and Culture Berger (1971) stresses that up until the late 1960's and early 1970's comics have been somewhat neglected by American scholars. Only recently have American social science researchers begun to follow in the foodsteps of European scholars wha have been studying American comics for many years (1971:165). According to Berger (1971:177), "Italians have, for a long time, studied American comics assiduously, and sponsor an international colloquiom every year dealing with comics and society". Other countries such as France, Germany and England have works pertaining to the study of American comics and comic strip art. Berger (1971) also states that "the University of Rome has an extensive collection of comics and perhaps a dozen books have been published in Italy, in the past five or ten years, on comics---with particular attention to American ones." This is just one example that compliments the idea that comcs indeed can be a major venue of study for social science researchers, nonetheless, Berger (1971:165) caustions that comics are not a perfect mirror of society but it is plausible to discover important American values showing through." In a sutdy of the Sunday comics made by Science Research Associated in 1956 Berger (1971:168) states that "it was suggested that comics are like icebergs, with the important and significant meaning tending to be below the surface and concealed from public view." In 1971, literary critic and novelist from Chile, Ariel Dorfman, along with Belgium sociologist Armand Matterlart published a book titled How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic. The authors charge that Walt Disney along with reigning political dominant authority figures use Walt Disney comics, specifically Donal Duck to undermine the people of Chile. One of the book's main premises is the the representation of Donald & Company within the comics is actually the dominant hand of U.S. government in Chilean affairs. Compared with other works within this field, this is o

Statement of the Problem, Conceptual Definitions, Implications of the Research/Summary Chapter I: Introduction Virtually all forms of media violence have come under close scrutiny. Many media entertainment industries have had to devise a self-regulating system or face criticism from the public and run the risk of external regulation by the government. This scrutiny of media entertainment includes most prominently the film industry, television, video games, comic books and music. The topic of media violence has attracted the attention of academic researchers (Comstock and Scharrer, 1999; Rule and Ferguson, 1986; Dodge and Frame, 1982; and Huesmann and Guerra, 1997) as well as public figures, particularly politicians. For years Hollywood has implemented a ratings system of movies shone in theaters and made into videotape or DVD. In addition, technology has introduced the V-Chip to help parents monitor the programs watched by their children. In June of 1999, President Clinton ordered the Surgeon General to coordinate a general study of the effects of media violence on children and young adults (Keegan, 1992:42). A mass of research studies pertaining to media violence has been analyzed by a government agency. The findings of this study suggest that "a substantial body of research now indicates that exposure to media violence increases children's physically and verbally agressive begavior in the short term (within hours to days of exposure)" (Department of Health and Human Services 2001:92). Also, "longitudinal studies suggest a small but statistically significant impact on aggression over many years" (Department of Health and Human Services 2001:92). This thesis addresses on aspect of this very broad issue: comic books. Statement of the Problem In America, people are exposed to various forms of media violence. Violence is found throughout movies, video games, television, music and comic books. As this thesis will illustrate in chapter two, social scientists have written much pertaining to how violence in the media affects people, particularly adolescents. Politicians as well as special interest groups have also focused on media violence. They have spoken out about numerous forms of violence found in the lyrics of music and the types of violent content found in film, television and video games. For example, an article in The Nation (1995) discusses Senator Bob Dole's criticism of motion picture violence and violent lyrics in rap music. Dole goes as far as to stte that "the loss of family values is caused by moral corruption of popular culture, and therefore we should hold rap artists, Hollywood moguls and record executives responsible for our moral chaos" (quoted in Dyson 1995:909). Former Vice-President Al Gore, in a June 1, 1998 article of Variety, blamed recent school shootings on TV violence. Although Gore did not specifically blame TV directly for the school shootings, he did state that "exposure to this amount of media violence is not healthy for children" (Variety, 1998:24). The Parents Television Council states that "depictions of sexuality, violence and profanity are booming" (Variety, 1998:4). Even law enforcement officials occasionally speak out and blame media violence for the ills of society. A radical stance toward violence in the film industry was given by Joseph McNamara; chief of police in San Jose, California, in an article by U.S. News and World Report. McNamara stated that "What's being depicted is really the end of civilization as we know it-that people will be walking around with their own UZI machine guns," (Sanoff, 1986:55). In terms of video game violence, a study conducted to test the levels of aggression after playing video games shows that "there has been an increase in the violence and brutality of the games and increasingly realistic graphic and shound that yield blood-gushing, bone crunching special effects" (Ballard and Lineberger, 1999:541). As well, according to articles in the Chicago Sun Times (2000) and the Peoria Journal Star (2000), the city of Indianapolis, Indiana has attempted to enact an ordinance that prohibits any adolescent under age 18 from playing violent cideo games unless accompanied by an adult. Former Attorney General Jim Ryan of Illinois asked stores that sell violent video games not to sell them to children less than 17 uyears of age in which Sears and Montgomery Ward have responded by discontinuing sales of certain violent video games (Golab, 200; Tarter, 2000). In resonse to Indianaplolis's ordinance, the city of Chicago is also attempting to pass similar ordinances in which children younger than 17 would have to bring an adult to the video arcade in order to play games with violent content (Spielman, 2000). A 1993 article written by former U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan "Defining Deviancy Down, How We've Become Accustomed to Alarming Levels of Crime and Destructive Behavior" outlines the thesis that violence in American society is spiraling out of contorl. Society has redefined the definitions of what is considered a deviant act in order to cope with rising levels of violence. If Moynihan's observation is correct, then there should be evidence of it in one of the oldest forms of 20th century media entertainment: comic books. To test Moynihan's assertion, this thesis will assess the amount of violent content in Batman comic books from 1940 to the year 2000 in order to answer the following research question: Has the violent content in comic books increased, decreased or remained the same over a peoriod of sixty years? Conceptual Definitions For the purpose of this thesis the definitions of murder/non-negligent manslaughter and aggravated assault defined by the FBI Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) have been used. The UCR definition of murder/non-negligent manslaughter is stated as "the willful killing of one human being by another." Aggravated assault is defined as "the unlawful attack by one person upon another for the purpose of inflictin severe or aggravated injury, usually accompanied by the use of a weapon." These definitions have been used to designate what constitutes a violent act as it pertains to coding depictions of violence in Batman comic books. The independent variables in this study are defined by the time periods in which the comic books have been published; they are the Golden, Silver and Bronze age eras. The Golden Age era is the time period from 1938-1949. The Silver Age era is the time period from 1950-1979, and the Bronze Age era is defined as the time period from 1980-present. Implications of the Research Why study media violence? What implications can this research project offer that will enhance other people's knowledge about this subject? This research project not only offers sociological insight but practical insight as well. Sociologically, there has been little research to test Moynihan's thesis; Maguire's 2000 study of professional wrestling is an exception. This thesis will contribute to the existing sociological literature by systematically testing Moynihan's thesis in regard to comic books. In the practical sense, there has been continuing concern as to the effects of violent forms of media entertainment upon the observer. Video games, music, film, comic books and television have all been subject to some form of censorship by academics, politicians, and special interest groups throughout American history (Schmitt, 1992). In short, is this concern pertaining to vi

This is what an obsession for comic book collecting will do to a man! Not to mention the desire to test a hypothesis. Over the next few weeks I will be revising my Master's Thesis, chapter by chapter. Originally published in December 2003, I will make revisions to better fit the audience of the CGC journal entries rather than that of the original scholarly audience. Hopefully, readers will be able to enjoy and share the journey I had while conducting and collecting research on my thesis as I searched for the answer to the question: Were Batman Comic Books More Violent During the Golden, Silver or Modern age of comic books. Title: A Content Analysis of The Levels of Violence in Batman Comic Books: A Test of Moynihan's Theory of Defining Deviancy Down. This is an abstract of a Thesis presented to the Department of Sociology and Anthropology Western Illinois University in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts by K.E. Runkle December 2003. Abstract: In recent years, media violence has been a topic of considerable scholarly research and popular commentary. Most of the attention has focused on the violent content of movies, television entertainment and news, video games, and music. In general, studies of these specific media forms suggest that violent content is high and that it has been on the increase. this thesis focuses on another form of popular media: comic books. Are comic books also high in violent content? Has comic book violence increased, remained stable, or decreased over time? This thesis will provide partial answers to these questions by using content analysis of the super hero character Batman over a period of six decades. In addition, this thesis will test Daniel Patrick Moynihan's theory of defining deviancy down by examining representative issues of Batman dating from 1940 to 2000. Findings of this thesis run contrary to the research literature on the topic of violence in the media. Please stay tuned, next week I will be jumping right into Chapter I, Introduction as I define the statement of the problem which helped drive this research project. Hopefully, the reader will find my journey as fun and enlightining as I did. Copyright 2009 K.E. Runkle

Watchmen & Wolverine Books Are Hot As Hollywood delves deeper in the great world of comic books to create movies from the white pages of our favorite superheroes, i would imagine CGC is receiving a backlog of books for grading. Most likely, collectors are attempting to cash in on the movies and sending books to CGC for grading. Unfortunately, there are always people waiting to try and take advantage and make a quick buck. As diligent collectors in the hobby, we should be grateful at the same time being humble of our favorite heroes & heroines and remember why we became interested in the hobby may it be the cover art, storyline, characters or all. K.E. Runkle