Andy Khouri follows up on the Minx cancellation with interviews with most of the Minx creators on the fate of various books. The biggest casualty is David Hahn’s ALL NIGHTER, which is finished but will not be published by DC.
While the comics punditry performs a thorough post-mortem on Minx, reader concern has largely been with respect to announced, in-progress or otherwise unreleased books. Solicited projects “Emiko Superstar” and “Token” will be released as planned, but other works including the completed “All Nighter” will not, and the future of an in-progress second sequel to “The PLAIN Janes” remains uncertain. A sequel to Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly’s “The New York Four” will be published, with details regarding release date and imprint to be determined.
Much more from Cecil Castellucci, Jim Rugg, Mike Carey, and others in the link.
BTW, while Minx postmortems abound, from what we’re hearing, the main reason for pulling the plug was simple: the chains couldn’t support the line. The problem of shelving YA graphic novels — where they go and how they are labeled– is a big part of this, and based on some of the numbers we’re hearing, has affected a lot of the GNs for younger readers that have come out this year.
I wonder how much dialogue goes on between the publisher of these comic collections and the chain store buyers? Seems like the old “round peg and square hole”…
Did the retailers need to provide a more visible and accessible area for teen material? OR did the publisher need to provide more Point of Sale / Point of Purchase signage to help direct the teen reader through the store toward the Minx line?
Wasn’t it Alloy’s job to help with positioning?
God, the fact that Hahn’s book just missed the cutoff date is depressing, but the idea that he did a book that won’t be coming out instead of possibly getting back to new issues of Private Beach is killing me.
It’s a shame really. DC finally started to get the wheels moving on this and then they ditch the car. Alloy was a waste of money. EVERY PENNY spent with ALLOY for the marketing was a waste.
When you launch a new line of books for girls you are supposed to advertise where the girls are. DUH. When you get a project that is developed by a bunch of out of touch people you are bound to fail. It seems that the only people who knew the value of the books were the writers and creators.
As for retail? If you’re talking about the comic shops of course they are’nt going to carry it-they dont have teen girls shopping in their stores and they sure as hell dont know how to market to them. The only real support was coming from the librarians and teachers who finally found something they could buy for girls besides manga.
Instead of killing off the line, why dont they hand it over to Random House? Then the books would finally find the audience they were made for.
Comments are closed.