Last month over at Comics Worth Reading Johanna had an entry entitled "Who Reads Minx?" The gist of the post was that the line is not selling well to comics readers, based on industry stats. Here's her take:

If I had to reverse engineer the target market from the material and its marketing, I’d say that the Minx books were designed to sell to people who could be convinced that that’s what teen girls wanted (instead of the teen girls themselves), and who had a predisposition to put stock in the DC brand when it came to comics. Which means direct market retailers who are uncomfortable with the large amount of manga to choose from and would rather stock a smaller line from a publisher they already know (or who prefer American comics over ones with those foreign author names). Alternately, library and similar purchasers, who might be impressed by the reviews and press bought by DC’s extensive marketing budget for this project.

So she's thinking it's about giving teens what buyers think they want - and steering manga readers away from manga. Johanna has the comics market (and thinking) nailed, so I'm sure there are a lot of other people in comics who feel the same way.

I've read almost all the Minx titles now and just received (and read) the first one for 2008. As someone who reads a lot of YA and a lot of comics, I think the problem here might be that Minx titles are for YA readers - not comics readers, nor people who frequent comic shops. These books read like YA novels with illustrations, if that makes any sense, and I don't see that they will necessarily lead teenage girls to comics - or that they have anything in common with manga or manga readers. I think the pervasive idea of comics as capes and nothing else will make Minx readers think that this line is something different and not a gateway to see what else DC has to offer. I don't think this is a bad thing mind you, I just think that if anyone is trying to see Minx as a big comics seller then they are looking in the wrong place (and I count the marketing folks at DC in that equation). I would compare it to YA sales - that's its true competition.

They should shelve these books in the YA section of every bookstore and library - they shouldn't worry about being within miles of manga or comics or even other graphic novels. The Minx titles are YA, plain and simple, and YA readers are going to eat them up with a spoon - as soon as they know they are out there.

My favorite title in the first crop was Cecil Castellucci's The PLAIN Janes. It read very much as her novels, with the one caveat that the so-called villains in the book were rather one-dimensional. She got a lot of flack on this from reviewers but that was the one aspect of the book that read as a comic to me - it's not like the Joker or Two-Face really have that much depth to them. In the end, they are always just bad and that's kind of the trap Cecil had for bad guys as well. I still enjoyed the book though and it's girl power (through art) story.

I'm one of the few who loved Andi Watson's Clubbing and I don't know why - I thought it was a fun mystery; sort of the anti-Nancy Drew. I'm thinking too many people tried to take that one seriously when it wasn't trying to be serious. The others were all okay - the weakest for me was Re-Gifters but that was mostly because I saw the protagonist as a 12 year old when really she was supposed to be a teenager. (The artwork just didn't work and I was frustrated by the whole set-up. My major complaint was that it just read as more aimed at 11-12 year olds whereas the other titles seemed to skew older...I couldn't figure out where DC was trying to go.)

I just read The New York Four, the new title from Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly and again I'm confused by the line's audience. This is a book about four NYU freshmen and follows worries about grades, getting an apartment and juggling men. My main issues deal with the plot though - I had to suspend my disbelief more than once and just couldn't do it at the end. The protagonist seems to skip class with abandon due to an addiction to text messaging but still gets over a 3.5. One of the girls is a slut (of course), one is rich and deeply strange (is she stalking one of her professors, does she have a crush? I have no idea) and one is poor and misunderstood and thus turns to older men to take care of her (of course). They earn a living by - you're going to love this - beta testing the PSAT and SAT for a testing firm. Okay that's possible. At $25 an hour? Okay - maybe still possible. But to prove they are not too tired or stressed and thus might not give reasonable answers to the test, they must meet with a therapist twice a week to check on how they're doing.

What? I mean really - WHAT?

This of course allows the girls to reveal all sorts of secrets about themselves and share their concerns for our protagonist who has now developed a mystery relationship with some guy she only knows via texting and all I'm going to say about that is it made no sense whatsoever and somebody needs to explain why that guy would leave his hot girlfriend for our hero who really does not have all that much going on in the girlfriend department. (She's addicted to her cell phone. Does that sound like good dinner date material?)

I am not embracing this title, which surprises me because I love Wood and Kelly's work on the Oni Press title Local (highly recommended). But several upcoming Minx titles sound good, including the Janes sequel Janes in Love (in which romance is in the air), Burnout (in which romance and ecoadventure/terrorism are in the air, Token where a girl who longs for the romance of Miami in the 40s must cope with the sad reality of South Beach in 1987, and Emiko Superstar where a geek struggles to find herself one summer. What do they have in common? Lots of coming-of-age in every way, shape and form. (I would link to the Minx site and let you read about these books but the site has not been updated since sometime last year. Wow - that is sad. Here's a report from Comic-Con with a rundown of all seven titles for this year and hey - Clubbing has a sequel due out! I must not have been its only fan!)

This line is YA for sure and if you sell that way - and to that crowd of readers - then Minx would go through the roof, I promise.

(As an after thought - I just went through the Booksense Children's supplement for Spring 08 and they don't list a single Minx title on the back page which includes dozens of recommendations of graphic novels for every age from young readers up to teens. Persepolis and Maus are here but no Minx? How are they being missed by booksellers?)