You MINX, You

The early demise of MINX has been done to death by everyone else already, but that's never stopped me from putting my two cents in before, so I don't see why it should now.

Needless to say, I agree with everyone saying "uh, golly gee, I didn't see that coming" and all the reasons given why: no fantasy, no series, overall just not the kind of stuff teen girls actually read, few female creators, low quality, lack of diversity, goals were apparently too short term, etc.

But I found myself getting inexplicably pissed at DC and RH for the mess they made.

Not just annoyed or peeved, but royally pissed off like I only do when people make the kinds of leaps of logic that make my head want to explode.

At first I thought it was just because they deserve it for such a poorly conceived effort, so I began ranting about that - on other blogs and in probably never to be published blog posts of my own. And I kept ranting until I realized that what I kept coming back to wasn't any of the things above, but this line from Comic Book Resources (quoted by Heidi McDonald, via WFA):

Multiple sources close to the situation agree Bond and DC aren’t to blame for MINX’s cancellation, and that this development should be seen as a depressing indication that a market for alternative young adult comics does not exist in the capacity to support an initiative of this kind, if at all.

At first this sounds like nothing more than pointing the finger at Barnes and Noble and the like for crushing DC's plan to "place MINX titles in the coveted young adult sections of bookstores."

The problem with this is that Barnes and Noble goes where the money is. That isn't to say that buyers can't be idiots themselves (see: how long it took them to move Gabaldon from romance to fiction), but the teen section is not the place where B&N tends to be set in it's ways. It's one of the most frequently rearranged areas of the store compared to it's size. Adding new non-fiction sections, changing the names of sections, adding and removing fixtures, etc. Plus, the fiction and manga section in particular probably has fewer backlist titles than any other part of the store, aside from Current Affairs. And the backlist titles that are in teen fiction? Tends to be very unrealistic fiction or required reading. All of which only makes sense, considering the target audience.

So who exactly, are these "inside sources" blaming here? Barnes and Noble, for not handing over to DC the prime real estate they give to Gossip Girl and the like? Or the teen girls themselves, for having the audacity to choose Fruits Basket and the Gossip Girl spin-off The It Girl over "alternatives" such as Regifters and Clubbing?

Whatever their intention, the ultimate "blame" for the teen market not being open to "alternative teen comics" like the MINX titles lies not on Barnes and Noble, who did very little to promote the Gossip Girl titles until every teen girl and her half a dozen friends came in asking for them, but on the teen girls themselves for being such silly flighty things who inexplicably choose L8r G8r, Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist and Dramacon 3 over The Plain Janes.

The conception and execution of MINX was bad enough, but to put the blame on your target demographic in such a condescending way is a completely different level of low.