Progress

Sounds like everyone's been making progress on their projects over the break. I would have liked to get more done on Project 3, but there's still two more weeks left, right? Anyway... I've been distracted by my thesis ideas and have started to explore some ideas with Amy and Julie Simon. I am curious to get some outside opinions. So I thought I would post my ideas here. To start my plan is to do a documentary, and I am shooting for either a half hour or a full hour depending on which idea I choose to go with. They are:

The Comics Code:
The Comics Code, established in 1954, came out of congressional hearings on Juvenile Delinquency, which focused much of its attention on comic books and their affects on children. The hearings were initiated in large part based on the research of Fredric Wertham. In his book Seduction of the Innocent, Wertham claimed that comics were linked to juvenile crime and sexual deviancy. The code was a concession made by the Comics Magazine Association of America to self-police the content of comic books. Through interviews with publishers and creators, I would like to discuss the affect the Comics Code and Wertham’s research had on the comic book industry. My sense is that the Code and public outcry against comics as a result of Seduction of the Innocent stigmatized the medium for nearly forty years. Traditional superhero comics were sanitized so they only appealed to children, and the industry was so stifled by the extent of the Code’s censorship that creating literary work was nearly impossible. Comics that did not conform to the Code were pushed underground and became even more subversive and received very limited distribution. Since the late eighties, the Code’s influence has waned particularly with the success of literary works geared toward more adult audiences (including the work of Alan Moore, Art Spiegelman, and Frank Miller). The industry is beginning to put the legacy of the Code behind it, finally gaining legitimacy with the national media, community libraries, and educators.

Or the Big Boyz Bail Bonds Brand:
A few years ago Baltimore-based Big Boyz Bail Bonds began a brand campaign focused solely on ad specialties, most notably their now ubiquitous pink and yellow pens. Nearly half a million pens are distributed throughout the city to bars, restaurants, and convenience stores. The pens have become an instantly recognizable icon of Baltimore life. I would like to document this phenomenon, recount the history of the company as well as the pens, and explore the validity of this as a marketing strategy. I am also interested in expanding the discussion to what this icon says about Baltimore. My hypothesis being that Baltimore has come to accept and even embrace its bad boy image, which has been affirmed by its portrayal in film and television, and the novelty of the Big Boyz pens is just further evidence of that.