![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Early thoughts on the minx line
Jun. 18th, 2007 11:24 amPreviously DC announced the start of a new imprint of graphic novels, entitled minx. The minx line is meant in part to attract more teen and YA girls into comics. While still telling quality stories. I don't have access to marketing figures to prove or disprove the first. But with two books out, I can take a look at the latter...
The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg, with lettering by Jared K. Fletcher
The first book deals with Jane who is nearby when a cafe is blown up. Her parents decide to move out to the safe suburbs. So Jane, after dyeing her hair black and deciding to become a new person. So she starts as a freshmen and rejects the popular crowd to try and befriend the "outcast" clique. Who are three girls, Jane the Actress, Jayne the smart kid and Polly Jane the jock. The group eventually gels around committing acts of art vandalism in the local community as P.L.A.I.N. (People Loving Art In Neighborhoods). Making pyramids out of rubble in an abandoned lot, gift wrapping news boxes asking students to sing at school and so on...
The local authorties completely lose their shit over this, enforcing curfews and threatening dire punishments on anyone going along with the P.L.A.I.N. requests. Working as part of P.L.A.I.N. brings the girls closer together and seems to help them grow...
As a story it definately works, though the ending seems somewhat rushed. As well, other than Main Jain, most of the side characters feel somewhat two-dimensional. A good book, that feels like it could have been better served by being in a larger format...
Re-Gifters written by Mike Carey, art by Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel, graytones by Jesse Hamm and lettering by John J. Hill
This book was a no-brainer for me. Carey, Liew and Hempel are the people behind My Faith In Frankie, the greatest love story between a girl, a godling, a dead boy and another girl ever told. Re-Gifters is about Jen Dik Seong or "Dixie". A young Korean girl who uses hapkido to express herself. Dixie is skilled and hopes to win a national championship, but her game is thrown when she begins crushing on fellow student Adam. So much so that she spends her tournament entry money on an expensive birthday gift for him. Which he totally fails to attach any importance to. In fact he re-gifts it to a girl he's crushing on. Who, when she finds out, gives it to her deadbeat brother. He then gives it local teen "thug" Dillenger. Who then gifts it back to Dixie as a thank you for helping him practice his own martial arts...
Again a very good story that feels cramped. Though the characters feel more fully fleshed out than in The Plain Janes. Actually both feel kind of like 80s style teen movies. The Plain Janes could easily be a John Hughes movie, while Re-Gifters is like a mash up of The Karate Kid and Some Kind of Wonderful. Which is far from a bad thing...
The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg, with lettering by Jared K. Fletcher
The first book deals with Jane who is nearby when a cafe is blown up. Her parents decide to move out to the safe suburbs. So Jane, after dyeing her hair black and deciding to become a new person. So she starts as a freshmen and rejects the popular crowd to try and befriend the "outcast" clique. Who are three girls, Jane the Actress, Jayne the smart kid and Polly Jane the jock. The group eventually gels around committing acts of art vandalism in the local community as P.L.A.I.N. (People Loving Art In Neighborhoods). Making pyramids out of rubble in an abandoned lot, gift wrapping news boxes asking students to sing at school and so on...
The local authorties completely lose their shit over this, enforcing curfews and threatening dire punishments on anyone going along with the P.L.A.I.N. requests. Working as part of P.L.A.I.N. brings the girls closer together and seems to help them grow...
As a story it definately works, though the ending seems somewhat rushed. As well, other than Main Jain, most of the side characters feel somewhat two-dimensional. A good book, that feels like it could have been better served by being in a larger format...
Re-Gifters written by Mike Carey, art by Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel, graytones by Jesse Hamm and lettering by John J. Hill
This book was a no-brainer for me. Carey, Liew and Hempel are the people behind My Faith In Frankie, the greatest love story between a girl, a godling, a dead boy and another girl ever told. Re-Gifters is about Jen Dik Seong or "Dixie". A young Korean girl who uses hapkido to express herself. Dixie is skilled and hopes to win a national championship, but her game is thrown when she begins crushing on fellow student Adam. So much so that she spends her tournament entry money on an expensive birthday gift for him. Which he totally fails to attach any importance to. In fact he re-gifts it to a girl he's crushing on. Who, when she finds out, gives it to her deadbeat brother. He then gives it local teen "thug" Dillenger. Who then gifts it back to Dixie as a thank you for helping him practice his own martial arts...
Again a very good story that feels cramped. Though the characters feel more fully fleshed out than in The Plain Janes. Actually both feel kind of like 80s style teen movies. The Plain Janes could easily be a John Hughes movie, while Re-Gifters is like a mash up of The Karate Kid and Some Kind of Wonderful. Which is far from a bad thing...
