Publication Type: Poster
Abstract: Comic books are replete with culturally-specific messages about crime and justice. Although frequently neglected as worthy of study, comic books are one of the most influential art forms in American popular culture. In particular, they have been the inspiration for a growing amount of major motions pictures each year. Comic book-based movies contain identifiable messages about what the crime problems are in society, how justice should be achieved and what policy responses to crime are appropriate.

The current study provides an examination of the constructions of crime and justice in all adult comic book-based movies released in 2005 and 2006. Once movies marketed for children are removed from the list of comic-book based movies, 11 remained. They are Batman Begins (2005), Constatine (2005), Apuroshido (2005), Sin-City (2005), V for Vendetta (2006) and Superman Returns (2006), among others. Using a cultural criminology framework, we employ textual analysis to explore the themes identified in our earlier study of construction of crime in contemporary comic books (2006). The themes are: the crime problem, the type of nostalgic community the protagonists would like to restore and the style of justice that is to be delivered (a continuum from legal to extra-legal means). In addition, the underlying criminal justice policy messages implied by comic books are discussed as cultural constructions of dominant American attitudes about crime and punishment.