Superman, Batman, The Green Lantern—and Plain Jane? This could one day be a list of iconic characters teens recall from the beloved comic books of their youth, at least if DC Comics has its say. The more than 70-year-old publisher, known primarily for its superheroes, is starting Minx, an imprint aimed at teenage girls, in May. The move speaks to a paradigm shift in the comics industry, as one of the category's oldest superhero houses starts acting more like a trade publisher, responding to a market reality: boys are not the only audience for comics. Whether DC can manage the shift—attracting a segment of readers it had all but given up on—is another question.
Minx, which is planned as a line of 12 paperbacks, is described by DC executive editor Karen Berger as “stories about real girls in the real world.” Targeting girls 13—18, the line is an alternative to YA fiction that touches on the classic themes that come with the territory—social insecurities, parental miscommunication, boys, etc.—but does so in graphic novel format.
Of course for Minx to succeed, it has to stand out among the rash of comics already being published and marketed to teen girls. Since about 2000 this demographic has been reading manga—the Japanese word for comics—in droves. (According to ICv2, a trade Web site that tracks the comics market, manga accounts for about two thirds of the $330-million graphic novel market.)
At a panel during the recent New York Comic-con called 'Capturing the Female Reader,' Berger noted that, in addition to manga, certain adult graphic novels have clicked with teen girls, namely Neil Gaiman's Sandman series (which Berger edited at DC) and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. While these two titles skew widely—Gaiman's dark fantasy follows a being who infiltrates peoples' dreams, while Satrapi's book is a memoir about growing up in Iran during the 1980s—they're both ambitious, highly literary works grounded, to different degrees, in reality.
Assuming girls want more “real” comics, various houses have entered the comics-for-girls fray. DC launched a manga line in 2004 called CMX; in 2005 Papercutz, a publisher specializing in licensed graphic novels featuring Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, was established; also in 2005, Scholastic launched Graphix, a comics imprint aimed at kids 8-13. And these lines of course compete with manga publishers like VIZ, Tokyopop and Del Rey Manga.
So what exactly is DC doing with Minx that other houses are not? For starters, it's pulling talent from various sectors of the comics world: creators run the gamut from indie darlings like Andi Watson (known for his celebrated originally self-published Samurai Jim) to artists like Marc Hempel, who illustrated Sandman. It's the benefit, as Berger noted, of having the “background and contacts” to pull big names from the superhero end as easily as from the indie side.
Blending the aforementioned standard YA themes with darker undercurrents, the titles will, in Berger's mind, include “real touchstones to the world.” To that end, The Plain Janes, the first book in the series, written by YA scribe Cecil Castellucci and illustrated by Jim Rugg (known for his indie Street Angel), opens with a terrorist attack. The teen heroine, Jane, then moves with her parents from the city to a nondescript suburb where she forms a group dedicated to creating anonymous acts of public art as a form of subversive political protest. While Janes is visually and tonally reminiscent of some indie comics—Dan Clowes's style comes to mind—Re-Gifters, the second book in the line, about a Korean-American girl (and martial arts maven) growing up in L.A., retains a subtle manga look.
“We would like to think the eclecticism of the overall graphic novel market is reflected in Minx titles as a whole,” said DC's v-p of marketing, John Cunningham. Certainly DC is hoping Minx titles capture a larger audience than your average successful indie comic, which often sells in the 1,000 to 2,000-copy range. To do so, DC has teamed with teen marketing powerhouse Alloy, to the tune of a $250,000 marketing budget.
Minx's blend of manga with YA fiction and indie comics also seems ideal for Berger to tackle. One of the significant female editors in the comics world, Berger started at DC in 1979 working under Paul Levitz, who is now the house's president and publisher. She launched Vertigo in the '80s and, through it, published some of the house's most celebrated and highly literary non-superhero titles, like Gaiman's Sandman.
To an extent, then, DC is trying to repeat past successes. And that is never easy to do. As Levitz put it, when asked about the potential Minx holds for DC: “You don't know history's verdict when you start something.”
