Comic Book Resources

I will read anything that Jim Rugg is even slightly involved in.

This seems like a cool idea in general - and it'd be nice if it turns out to be successful - but it gets points from me just for Jim Rugg.

I think this is juts a case of DC execs reading this blog and actually listening to good ideas. The market of pre-teen girls? Wasn't there a "Fridays with Greg Hatcher" where he said that was a huge market?

Nice to see at least one of the big publishers is trying to expand their reader base and it looks like they are making a serious investment in it too instead of half-assing it.

Sure beats claiming to be targeting young girls, but tying it into Spiderman in any way possible.
(see any book ever that Marvel has claimed to be for young girls in the past decade).

I just saw this synopsis of the first book at Newsarama:
"It tells the story of Jane, a transfer student in a suburban high school who starts a campaign, “People Loving Art in Neighborhoods.” It’s a call to appreciate the everyday world that comes to involve everything from protesting the construction of a new mall to encouraging pet adoptions from animal shelters.

Jane’s classmates and fellow believers are Jane, who is interested in theater; Jayne, an academic whiz; and Polly Jane, a jock. Each is decidedly not part of the in-crowd. The reason for Jane’s transfer is serious: her family fled to suburbia after Jane survived a terrorist attack that blew up a cafe in fictional Metro City."

Sounds fine (well kinda boring, but it's not aimed at me), until that last line.
Seems kind of jarring.

Not always Spider-Man! Sometimes it ties into X-Men crap that most pre-teen girls are un-likely to find interesting.

Minx looks like much better stuff. Books in this vein have been quietly sneaking out into the teen market for awhile, but the releases have been fairly hard to track down. DC, I suspect, can make good use of ties to Warner Books to make their line much more visible. The distinct art is a plus, too; most stuff trying to target girls right now just ends up looking sort of like crappy Korean knock-off manga.

Am I the only one who finds it a tad creepy that DC named a line targeted at preteen/teen girls 'Minx'?

Minx: (from MW Dictionary)

1) A girl or young woman who is considered pert, flirtatious, or impudent.

2)a seductive woman who uses her sex appeal to exploit men

Still, it's not as bad as Marvel's attempt at an 'Emma Frost' book for teen girls. Now there's a great role model. That even had Greg Horn slut-bomb covers. Wrong, just wrong.

"Slut-bomb" is one of of those terms that should be used more often.

Hey, Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane is awesome! My wife (who, admittedly, is no longer a teen) loves it too, although I'm sure she misses a lot of the references, like a black guy named Luke who wears a yellow shirt. But it's very enjoyable anyway. I do agree that it's probably not the best strategy to get female readers, especially teenage ones. "We'll get Spider-Man fans, and then they'll show it to their girlfriends, and word of mouth will spread!" "Well, sales suck, lets' cancel it."

I am a little amused that there isn't a single female creator in this new line of comics aimed at girls

Except for an editor I just spotted

What, female comic writers? Writing comics for females? That would destroy the comic industry as we know it!

Wait, that wouldn't be a bad thing actually...

Did I read Derek Kirk Kim was involved? Who else? With Kim and Rugg, I'm just glad that Really Good creators are involved. Doesn't matter so much if they have a weiner or not.

DanCJ: Cecil Castellucci is a woman, and a very well-regarded writer of novels for (or at the least about) teenage girls. She used to be part of the Montreal band Nerdy Girl.

I didn't know Cecil could be a girls name. That's better then

From my perspective as a retail bookseller, the thing that impresses me most about this initiative is that DC is collaborating with Alloy Media, which is *the* dominant player in the YA publishing market these days. There's no better thing DC could have done to get these new comics in front of their target audience. Well played.

Excellent point, John.

I totally should have mentioned that above.