This is what I keep hearing, and it completely misses the point.

It sounds like the books were popular among 11 and 12 year olds but not among 15 and 16 year olds they were intended for, and so instead of shifting their focus, DC scrapped the entire project.

This makes the whole shelving issue even more complicated, too. Because the teen manga section at B&N veers younger than the teen fiction section. There is a bigger crossover between Young Readers and Teen Manga, and Teen Fiction and Adult Graphic Novels, than there is between Teen Fiction and Teen Manga - at least at B&N anyway.

Rod, I think you have the right idea. Although the art was interesting in the two Minx titles I read, it wasn’t pretty. So it would not appeal to the manga audience that is used to beautiful, meticulously detailed artwork. I also noted that there was a comical aspect to the Hamm artwork–grotesqueness especially in the male characters who might be presumed to be attractive to a female reader but were not drawn as attractive, and a deliberate awkwardness to the Rugg artwork as well despite a smooth ink line. So on strictly visual terms, these Minx books did not deliver the subtext of sexual beauty that manga artwork does. (I could go on, and will on my own blog at a later date.)

But Minx could have made it on its own terms, given less ambitious sales expectations. Sincere writing, which it had, always finds an audience. It might not be a huge audience, though, and comics are mass products as books often are not. And it takes time to find the readers and for the readers to be willing to try what for them would be a new medium. As others have pointed out, to hook the teenage crowd, you have to hang around for a while. Too bad they pulled the plug so soon.

I think it’s sad the line got canceled so early, really… a lot of effort went into production (I was not personally involved but saw it happen) and it’s just bad to see it go like this.

I suspect that a significant number of comics readers tolerate out-and-out junk in the material they buy because it’s visually diverting, and even a few enjoyable panels amidst the muck can justify the price and time, whereas trying to make it through an incompetently written prose story would make such a reader stop within a few minutes, if he ever started.

SRS

As I look at the line, I probably wasn’t right for it as a creator, so while I was at first really disappointed that nothing came of the pitch, it worked out okay in the end. Still trying to get rid of that student loan, though! It haunts me.

Like many, I’m very sad to see the line go. I think it had a lot of potential. I think better covers could have really helped the books, personally…

I do enjoy some “girl stuff,” such as the more girly genres of anime and some CW dramas past and present, but the majority of the entertainment I’m into is “guy stuff.”

MINX RIP. I hope that DC puts out a better effort in the future.

2. When the Minx line started there weren’t any women working on the titles.

3. I was very unhappy with DC when Spoiler (A long running female character from the Robin comic.) was killed, discarded & forgetten about during that whole terrible War Games arc. That said to me as a reader that DC didn’t care or respect my gender one bit.

Unless you show that your alternative product is superior to, or comparable with that of Kodansha or Seventeen’s you’re toast.
Simple as that.

I wrote a similar piece to this on my reply to the Tokyopop OEL thing.

You know why girls like the original Japanese manga?
The meticulous details the artists put into the comics themselves. You have to know your hemlines, skirt lenths and cuts, jewelry, eyelash makeup… You are competing against artists who are not only artists. they are also highly knowledgable or may even possess DEGREES in fashion trends and product design.
This isn’t a weekend hobby for those people. It’s not fun and games. They take this as seriously as a doctor sees his practice.

Over here, I lament at the abysmally low standards of what we consider today’s “comic book professionals”.
While we do have plenty of talented individuals, it seems nowadays that any monkey with Photoshop knowledge and a few thousand dollars to burn on print on demand can be a “pro” over here.
Those comics industry over there has a system and a level of standards that I don’t see mirrored in the industry here.

Every little detail down to the print in the dress, the manicured fingernails, gestures… you cannot fake that stuff.
You’re up against a culture of artists who can draw anything from a lawnmower complete with all the rivets and fixtures to a well-proportioned Orangutan.
This is an industry that succeeds well in making and marketing comics about firemen, athletes, cooks and doctors.
If a soda can is in the shot, it’s REAL soda can complete with brand name, TM and all the ingredients and nutritional information.
The doctor stories… well researched with REAL medical terms and procedures (not to mention real hospital equipment).

Customers are extremely savvy about this.
They can smell if it isn’t right.
It’s not enough your characters wear jeans. It’s got to be… is it jeans from the 80’s or today?
Is the girl calling on a fashionable NOKIA or just a squiggly box in her hands?
If you’re in Russia, what kind of trees would you draw there?

The proper images evoke emotions and response. If they aren’t there…
well, the experience isn’t complete.

You have got to be on that level or surpass it, that’s the bottom line.

I am sure given the right opportunity, the girls’ market will eventually grow. But it cannot be forced or it cannot happen overnight. (Japanese have had a head start of about 40 years on girls’ manga)
It’s not enough to hire writers from other fields and write comics. You have to know comic book storytelling inside out.

We can start by growing the talent. But will they stick around to learn enough or will they move to other lines of entertainment? That’s the long term question.

Heidi, I think that comparing the Minx line to something like Hanna Montana or even Gossip Girl is an apples and oranges type of thing. Hanna Montana is a cornball show created purely to sell product to pre-teen girls by way of lowest common denominator pandering. Gossip Girl is a slightly more sophisticated enterprise, but the books have still earned a lot of their popularity by trafficking in what are viewed as traditional “girly” areas of interest like fashion and soap opera-style romance. Say what you will about the quality of the Minx books in a general sense, but none of them ever tried to capture their market by grafting plotlines involving how awesome some shoes are or two-dimensional characterization revolving around if that hunky guy looked my way or not.

If anything, Minx strived to be centered on story first and market considerations second, which is a pretty great thing about how comic publishers approach a lot of their product in general. Given that, I think there are plenty of comparisons that you can make to similar media that is made firstly to appeal to teenage girls but has also been enjoyed by a wide range of other folks, including grown men. Mean Girls comes to mind, as does Veronica Mars. To reverse the situation, I wouldn’t find it odd for a grown woman to like Rushmore or The Perks of Being A Wallflower or for someone who is straight to enjoy a book like Boy Meets Boy. Mostly it comes down to whether or not those kinds of stories come across your reading desk/TV set and whether or not they leave a strong impression. Like a lot of the men commenting here, I read PLAIN Janes as a matter of professional curiosity and liked it, and so I read a few more Minx titles after it (of course, it didn’t hurt that DC sent free copies of every new Minx book to Wizard).

But even beyond that, I enjoy YA fiction for both young men and women in general, and I don’t think that’s any weirder than someone who’s way into legal potboilers or playing Call of Duty. They’re entertaining reads in general — often really funny and with situations and characters that are easily relatable to anyone who was ever a teenager. And the best YA lit goes way beyond being just an entertaining distraction. I’d put any of M.T. Anderson’s recent novels up against just about any novel in any genre. Those are some well written books.

Plus, for what it’s worth, I know plenty of guys who watch Sex & the City and like it. They may not love it like a lot of the women who made it a huge success, but then again, my mom and I watched Entourage together for the first time last night, and even though she wasn’t super into it, she laughed when Johnny Drama threw up on that birthday cake.

Plus plus, there is a strong cabal of guys in the comics world who love the Gossip Girl TV show that includes me, Ben Morse, Mel Caylo and Arune Singh, and I think we’re about to count Sean T. Collins in our number as well.