Minx at NYCC

From the Minx Panel:

With Carillo were Minx’s founding editor Shelly Bond, as well as writer Cecil Castellucci and artist Jim Rugg of the debut book The Plain Janes.

Discussing the origins of the Minx line, Bond told the audience that three to fours years ago, she “was very inspired” by the numbers of young girls she saw reading manga in the local bookstores, and she wondered what material those girls would have to read when they became young adults. After many discussions inside DC, Minx was created to capture the teenage girls who are looking for “edgy, evocative, fearless plotlines about modern teenagers dealing with modern issues.”

Bond noted that in order to brand Minx, all of the books will be a uniform size, the art will be black and white with graytones, and all titles will be 176 pages. As a bonus, each book will preview upcoming books, and to keep the titles appealing to the budget-strapped young audience, everything will be priced under $10.

Goes into details about The Plain Janes, and mentions in the beginning the main character saved someone's life during a terrorist attack, so we get some heroics I hope.

Also, she answered the complaints about having so few female writers:

Bond confirmed that there will be one book per month until November, and all the titles stand alone, and will be the same price.

When asked why there are not more females creators working on books aimed at female readers, Bond explained that she wanted to get more female contributors, specifically young adult fiction writers like Castellucci. However, at the end of the day, she “bought the material that best represented the intent of the line.” She added that all of the men involved with Minx are known for writing strong female characters, concluding “great writing comes from many different points of view.” Later in the panel, she added that “four female novelists will be working on new Minx books soon.”

Bond also took a moment to give public thanks to Robbin Brosterman, DC’s Senior Art Director, for the beautiful design of the Minx books. All of the books are designed and formatted to be standard mass market paperbacks that will appeal in form and price to what young female readers are already reading.

I'd really like to see this take off (I'm flirting with the idea of pitching story ideas to them). I wonder if we'll see ads for mainstream DC books in the backs of these. It seems like the way to get the Minx target audience interested in the superhero staples at DC.