Minx was DC’s imprint aimed at teen girls, very first revealed in 2006. It ran for two years before being shuttered in autumn 2008 because of distribution struggles (not reaching the bookstores they aimed for) as well as potentially, lack of interest. I believed I’d sum up its history as well as releases, now that it would have been old sufficient to have checked out itself.
DC was somewhat late to the party, since Scholastic had already introduced Graphix as well as there were tons of women reading manga, however they pitched it as something new they were breaking ground on. They likewise felt it worthwhile to sink $125,000 into working with a marketer (Alloy advertising + Media, likewise a book packager) to introduce the effort in bookstores.
The titles were as follows, all black as well as white, digest-sized, priced at $9.99. The very first round, released across the summertime of 2007, were (in order of release):
The ordinary Janes by Cecil Castellucci as well as Jim Rugg
Re-Gifters by Mike Carey, Sonny Liew as well as Marc Hempel
Clubbing by Andi Watson as well as Josh Howard
Good as Lily by Derek Kirk Kim as well as Jesse Hamm
Confessions of a Blabbermouth by Mike Carey, Louise Carey, as well as Aaron Alexovich
Kimmie66 by Aaron Alexovich
The second wave came out in summertime 2008:
Burnout by Rebecca Donner as well as Inaki Miranda
Water infant by Sophie (credited as Ross) Campbell
The new York four by Brian wood as well as Ryan Kelly
Janes in like (sequel to The ordinary Janes) by Cecil Castellucci as well as Jim Rugg
Emiko Superstar by Mariko Tamaki as well as Steve Rolston
Token by Alisa Kwitney as well as Joelle Jones (the line’s very first female artist, on their last book)
(I have a sampler for this wave that utilizes the tag lines: “Your life. Your books. exactly how novel.” as well as “Designed solely for Generation Now.” which seems to me like it fell with a time warp from the 60s.)
There was a much stronger innovative lineup here, however by then, DC had already decided to move on. That is a incredibly short timeframe to provide a major new publishing effort to catch on, however they may not have discovered the results to satisfy their expectations, compared to the costs.
Work on the line had been going on for a while by the time it ended up being public, which may have driven away some creators who didn’t want to hang around over the 2-3 years it took to get the releases ready. rates were apparently low, as well. They likewise weren’t speaking about rights, which meant somebody may have been able to do much better keeping their own work elsewhere.
Some books meant for the line later came out elsewhere, including
The sequel The new York Five, which appeared from Vertigo as well as then was reprinted with The new York four in 2014 by Dark Horse
All Nighter by David Hahn, released as a five-issue miniseries from Image
Poseurs by Deborah Vankin as well as Rick Mays
Friends With boys by belief Erin Hicks (not officially part of the line, however a rejected pitch for it)
Earlier this year, Little, brown as well as business released The ordinary Janes, which collects the two earlier books with a new sequel (which is what made me believe of doing this). There was likewise supposed to be a Clubbing in Tokyo that never appeared.
The url for the project, minxbooks.net, now redirects to the also-dead imprint of Vertigo, which is toplining the cancelled iZombie series.
The Minx effort was marred, in my opinion, by three things:
First, the obvious lack of female innovative voices. The expectation of “own voices” wasn’t almost as strong then as it is now, however it was still often discussed at the time as a lack. In the very first wave, only YA novelist Cecil Castellucci was included. This is connected with a strong reliance on understood names from the existing comic market instead of discovering new skill much better able to link with the new target audience. (Which may have been why the books seemed to offer much better in traditional comic shops than the target bookstores.
There was a strong similarity in story structure. most of the books had extremely similar plots, about a misfit young lady discovering herself as well as her stamina with a specific pastime or interest. There’s nothing wrong with formula, however these didn’t stand apart from that enough. Conversely (with the exception of the one sequel that was released), there was nothing to draw a visitor from one book to another, each time when manga was putting out long series.
Most off-putting to me was the editorial as well as advertising voice that provided off a “we deserve this” vibe. I may be speaking from my own experiences at DC, however I got the feeling that there was a specific understanding that “those women reading manga should be reading our comics instead.” mainly since of quotes like this:
Of course, teen women are readingnull