What else matters?”

I think the reasons behind why it’s happening matter. I’m always interested about the motivations of a company trying to exploit an “untapped” market. It’s usually profit and as DC’s a business like any other, this is exactly what it SHOULD do. But I don’t really like DC’s editorial direction right now and as a result it’s sort of hard to put faith in the company and its projects without a good dose of typical Internet Nerd skepticism*.

When I was little it upset me greatly because I didn’t understand why people though girls needed a “special” set of comics or books or videogames. In my heart, I REALLY want to believe that it’s a lack of wider distribution and an ignorance of variety in comics, not their content, that are the biggest reasons we don’t have more people reading them.

*It doesn’t help that the last story I read on Newsarama linked me to the “Occasional Superheroine” blog, which painted a pretty dismal picture of the industry in general and DC in particular. Hopefully the Minx line will actually move away from the crap outlined there and put out strong stories with interesting characters for everyone to enjoy. If that happens, that’s great.

The goal of the “Minx” line is to make money for DC by tapping into an already existing market that DC isn’t (currently) capable of tapping into by themselves. That’s why they’ve teamed up with the makers of the frighteningly popular Gossip Girls series.

DC isn’t really trying to get more girls to read comics, they’re mostly just trying to get the girls that read teen manga - and only teen manga - to start reading DC as well. If a few girls completely new to graphic novels show up as well, fantastic! but that’s a secondary goal, not the main one that the bottom line is counting on.

Re: the name - “Minx” is much less scary than The It Girl - a new series by Alloy. At least “Minx” sounds like she might have some fun doing something other than being looked at.

(Although I will say this for Gossip Girls/, I find their covers and blurbs more intriguing than a significant number of those that I see in comic book stores. But then, I’ve always been rather fond of trashy books for girls - well, I have been since I threw my third or fourth Piers Anthony book at the wall in disgust, anyway.)

What else matters?

Gail

I’ll give them this, some of the premises sound promising (Taken from the link: “Clubbing,” about a London party girl who solves a mystery; “Re-Gifters,” about a Korean-American teenager in California who enjoys martial arts; and “Good as Lily,” about a young woman who meets three versions of herself at different ages), I just hope they can deliver.

Yes, a more accurate statement would probably be something like “It’s time that non-manga comics publishers really tried to reach out to tween girls” and even then, people would suddenly be grand champions of Alison Dare and Nancy Drew when they were never reading them before. Hype is hype, folks. Quit reading everything so literally.

Anyway, I’m glad DC is pursuing a new market with a nice budget and a new approach to comics. Good for them.

First person I would have contacted for a line like this: Colleen Doran. Second person: Jill Thompson. And for all I know, they might have done that. That female creators don’t seem to have that much standing with a part of the comics business seems to have waaaaaaaay different reasons, like sexual prejudice in the office (from what I have read) and out of it.

And no, it doesn’t weird me out in the least who might be writing a book targeted to whatever market, but then, I don’t have that cultural hang-up about those things that so many Americans seem to display.

A good story is a good story is a good story, and I do not care about the genitals, the colour of skin, the religion or the social upbringing of the writer.

Now, I DO get your point, and there is a little truth to it, in that it can be considered niche marketing and there a “street cred” or “genital cred” might get into play.

But whenever I feel like that, I turn the argument around: who hollers when a gay man writes sitcoms about straight people (that would be about half of the writers on Friends?) I mean, hell, how can a gay man POSSIBLY understand the intricacies of the straight lifestyle?

I’m sorry, man, but in my time as Launch Editor I’ve employed gay editors, straight editors, female editors, (no Black or Hispanic editors, but hey, I worked in Germany… not really groups in my native country) my Deputy Launch editor at Future Publishing was a woman and I recommended her to follow up in my position when I left, because she was the best PERSON for the JOB.

Your argumentation, which is a rather American one, rests on the shoulders of the notion that women, Hispanics, Blacks, in fact, ANY minority that predominantly defines itself by its minority status have rules and regulations that nobody else is privy to. And stories with a main character coming from those groups can only be written by the “enlightened” insider.

In publishing, only one thing counts: Can the writer get the JOB DONE?

In this case, that would be: tell an interesting story that has some relevance to today’s reading teeny girl population?

If Andi Watson can, let him do it. If Mike Carey can, let him do it. If Denise Mina comes around and wants to write something that fits within the parameters I listed previously, let her do it.

Again let us come back to the lovely example (for it is so revealing, yes?) of “How Opal Stole Another Writer’s Work”.

That girl got published, NOT because it was a good book, but because she was very cute, young and LOOKED GOOD ON TV. In short, oh what a wonderful poster child for a YA novel targeted at teeny girls. Look here, kids! She’s like you and she can write about your troubles!

Right. THAT was sexism. THAT looked down on the potential readership.

I’m gay and most of the novels and comics I’ve read that were written by and for gay men were crap in my opinion.

As another poster noted above with the Harry Potter example, the Harry Potter series is written by a woman and while the books are read by children of both sexes, I’ve always gotten the impression that the more avid Harry Potter fans are girls and women (possibly because they read more fiction than boys and men do in general).

I’m all for more female readers and authors for comics but let’s stop putting the ideological cart before the horse. A comics line with an eye towards a female audience may very well end up attracting more female writers if the initial output is a success.

But let’s think back to Milestone, actually. If DC comics came out with an imprint today that they said was going to be “aimed predominantly at Hispanic-Americans,” and there was only one Latino working on it . . . I’d be mad.

If DC started a new LGBT imprint, and there was only one gay creator . . . I’d be mad.

And I wouldn’t buy it (in any sense of the word). If you’re going to dip your toe in the “THIS IF FOR GRRRLZ” market–which I kind of hate anyway–then I expect some sort of top-down model.

The difference between our beloved Harry and Minx is that Harry is for EVERYBODY–girls, boys, teens, adults. Minx is supposedly for teenaged girls. Yet women are preposterously underrepresented in the production of the comics.

Doesn’t that just weird you out? At least a little? I can tell you concretely that it bothers me immensely that there was more female creators in ONE ISSUE of Sarah Dyer’s old Action Girl than in ALL of this ENTIRE COMICS LINE.

Please please please don’t do this. There isn’t a direction that prejudice or discrimination is “supposed” to go in

(It’s a pet peeve of mine, is all. Same with “reverse racism.”)

If an editor’s main criteria is PERSONAL TASTE (and I must assume it is, since it is written in capitals, is it not?), then the market a writer is trying to please is a market of ONE.

On a general note, that denotes a very poor qualification for an editor, and I can say that with some experience.

1. MARKET RESEARCH begets
2. TARGET DEFINITION begets
3. PRODUCT POSITIONING begets
4. PRODUCT DESIGN begets
5. PRODUCT MARKETING

Personal TASTE is nice and well, if you are doing high literature and your aim is to win the Nobel, the Booker or the Pulitzer. Not when you are trying to push a commercial product.

What I DO find disturbing is that DC teams up with Alloy for this. I’m not sure if people here have actually READ the utterly worthless (yet, commercially very successful, I am very much aware of that) crap that is “Gossip Girls” and the like that comes from this packaging house. I call them the “Li’l Whore Books”, for they mirror the VH1 “The Fabulous Life” crap that is forced down society’s throat, in which apparently publishers think that what all girls REALLY want is to be Paris Hilton (which may be true, and if it is, we can kiss our civilization good-bye).

Couple that with “How Opal Got To Be A Skanky PR-Grubbing Liar and Thief Of Another Person’s Writing” and you have a huge potential disaster on your hands.

Couple that with the Tag of Clubbing: A Party Girl who solves crime, and that potential starts looking like a certainty.

I say: starts LOOKING like a certainty, not IS a certainty, by the by.

(I will reserve final judgement after at least flipping through the final product, for sometimes something that looks terribly ugly in one sentence can be very good in the end results. Case in point – Daniel Craig as Bond, James Bond).

When it comes to the name, I actually think it was a good choice, and I base my opinion on something that the publisher Axel Springer did in Germany in the 1970s when they launched a comic mag. They researched what kids wanted to say out loud and the ONE word they all seemed to agree on at the time was ZACK! (which in German means, in not so many words: Hand it over to me, NOW!)

If the line is successful, hopefully that will attract more female writers.

-Todd

Karen Berger or Shelly Bond, is that you?!

C’mon, don’t ascribe motives when you have absolutely, positively no proof of what you’re suggesting actually happened. I honestly kind of doubt that Berger, who basically created the most successful imprint at the big two, is so stupid as to never, ever think “Hey, I wonder if a woman wants to work on some of these here comics for girls?” But, hey, what do I know?

Me, I’ll be reading because Andi Watson does great work, Jim Rugg is pretty awesome, and My Faith in Frankie was a lot of fun. Hopefully the line succeeds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnie_the_Minx

the article does say “Minnie is mischievous and impudent, but needless to say absolutely not flirtatious, though the more normal usage of “minx” would be applied to a flirty woman…” but i suppose it might be deliberately provocative…

Here’s the reason there’s not any female creators associated with it: they weren’t looking for any. There’s tons of women out there working, and tons more that want to work, but if you’re an editor you’ve got a shortlist, and they ain’t on it.

Make no mistake, this is not about bringing women into the comics industry, or having more women tell stories. It’s about brining the money of women into the comics industry.

-Steve!