a new line of graphic novels aimed at teen girls hopes to draw in new readers

‘The Plain Janes'by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg
Minx/DC Comics

With the male 18-34 year old demographic pretty much in its grasp, DC Comics is turning its attention to a whole new audience: teenage girls. This month sees the launch of Minx, a new line of original graphic novels published by DC and aimed squarely at teenyboppers. It’s a smart move, but not a surprising one. Adolescent girls are part of the reason that sales of Japaneses comics, called mangas, have boomed in recent years. While the intentions behind Minx are mostly good, the whole experiment feels like too little, too late.

The line’s first offering is “The Plain Janes,” a mostly breezy coming-of-age story by noted young adult author Cecil Castellucci and artist Jim Rugg that occasionally manages to be weighty and topical. In the opening pages, Jane, a teenager living in Metro City, gets caught in a terrorist bombing at a busy café. She escapes serious injury but is left traumatized by the incident, and so her parents move out of the city and into the suburbs. A budding artist, Jane becomes obsessed with a half-filled sketchbook she found at the scene of the bombing, and she begins a sketch diary in the book. Belonging to a comatose bombing victim whom Jane frequently visits in the hospital, the book becomes Jane’s only escape. At first, she hates her new home and school and longs for the art museums of Metro City, but soon she befriends a group of unpopular girls, all of whom also are named Jane. The Janes are a typical group of young-adult fiction characters. One is a super-smart science whiz, another is a lackluster athlete who’s always stuck on the bench, and the third is a theater geek. The “Main Jane,” as she becomes known, convinces the group to start a guerilla art campaign throughout town. The girls fill the town fountain with dish soap, wrap statues and mailboxes up as presents and encourage everyone at Buzz Aldrin High School to sing together one afternoon. Predictably, the adults overreact. They soon cancel all after-school activities and impose a strict curfew. But Jane and her friends continue their campaign, dubbed “P.L.A.I.N.,” or “People Loving Art In Neighborhoods.” There’s some boy-drama, too: Jane falls for Damon, a dorky sensitive guy who at first doesn’t seem to notice her advances.

The plot of  “The Plain Janes” is about what you’d expect from young-adult fiction aimed at teen girls. The characters are all stock stereotypes, and the relationships between Jane and her parents and her friends are painfully simplistic. It might be excusable if the whole Minx line weren’t branding itself with the tagline “the face of modern fiction.” Kids have a knack for seeing through overly simplified artifices like this, and it’s likely that Minx’s target audience will see right through the paper-thin characters and rehashed plot.

Despite all that, the novel manages to surprise in spots. Castellucci’s use of a terrorist attack as a plot device gives the book an urgent feeling. Castellucci wisely keeps the details behind the attack ambiguous, a move that keeps politics out of the book while maintaining the drama and sense of fear. Headlines scream about elevated threat levels, and kids at the high school ask Jane if there really are armed soldiers patrolling the streets of Metro City.

Although the whole “mean grownups repress free-spirited, artistic-minded teens” plot was beaten into the ground sometime around 1986, it’s got a certain resonance here. Maybe it’s because the Janes’ guerilla art movement isn’t unlike the Aqua Teen Hunger Force marketing campaign that went awry in Boston earlier this year. The book only lightly touches upon the idea that, in a time when everyone is jumping at shadows, even cutesy public art stunts can cause mass panic. But the concept still gives “The Plain Janes” a certain amount of depth.

Also interesting is Jane’s obsession with John Doe, the comatose artist whom she visits in the hospital and sends letters to throughout the book. In one section, Jane and Damon race to Metro City when Jane learns that John Doe has left the hospital. It’s a compelling subplot, one that’s much more fascinating than all the high school stuff, but Castellucci abruptly drops the whole thing when Jane learns the name and location of her mysterious friend.

The words “Art Saves” are emblazoned on the cover of Jane’s sketchbook, and that’s exactly what saves “The Plain Janes.” Jim Rugg’s artwork is top-notch, and his simple, uncluttered style feels like a cross between cartoonists Andi Watson (who also has a book slated for the Minx line) and Dan Clowes, writer/artist of “Ghostworld” and “Eightball.” Rugg’s drawings aren’t dynamic or eye-popping, but they are expressive, especially the faces of his characters. Their expressions are subtle, and Rugg can capture a full range of emotions with an arched eyebrow or a well-timed rolling of the eyes. It’s a nice counterpoint to Castellucci’s sometimes simplistic dialogue.

But the real question here is: will teen girls buy it? According to various reports, DC Comics is spending $250,000 to market Minx, a number that may pale in comparison to most marketing budgets, but is big money when you’re talking about comic books.

There are other odd notes about the Minx launch. The name of the imprint has already attracted the ire of some comics bloggers because of its sexual connotations. And of the first six books slated for publication this year, only “The Plain Janes” has a woman as the lead writer or artist. One would assume that a line of graphic novels aimed at teen girls would boast at least a few female authors, but not so much. There are plenty of female comics pros out there that should have a Minx book—artists like Becky Cloonan and writers like Gail Simone—and their absence seems like a poor editorial decision.

Like most recent efforts by mainstream comics publishers to expand beyond the usual superhero fare, “The Plain Janes” and the rest of the Minx line leaves those who love the medium in a quandary. Marketing the books to teen girls is just DC’s way of cashing in (albeit way too late) on the boom in manga sales across the ocean. However, DC’s efforts to push a line of original graphic novels into the mainstream should be lauded. Some change is better than none, but you don’t get points just for showing up. DC’s one flaw may be in its choice of a target audience. Reading “The Plain Janes,” it’s hard not to think how interesting—and marketable—a line of graphic novels aimed at adults could be. For now, we can only hope.