I recently attended the National Council of Teachers of English annual convention in New York City. The two-day event gave me lots of ideas for getting teachers and teens excited about new offerings in young adult books.
One panel focused on graphic novels, a genre that has soared in popularity recently. Ten years ago, a panel dedicated to the use of comics in the classroom would have been shocking, but thanks to sites like Comics in the Classroom.net, and initiatives like Maryland's to get comics included in the curriculum. Comics have gone mainstream.
Manga (Japanese serial comics) are the most popular with teens and tweens. But American publishers, including stalwart DC Comics, have broadened their offerings in an effort to capture the teen audience. DC Comics' Minx line, which debuted this year, aims to attract pre-teen and teen girls with its chick lit-meets-comics approach. The most successful of the initial offerings is Plain Janes by Cecil Castelluci and illustrated by Jim Rugg, in which a group of bohemian outcasts plan "art attacks." Others include the martial arts story Re-Gifters and the British-set Clubbing. All of these titles feature strong female characters.
Minx/DC has gotten some backlash, both for their questionable choice of name, and for the fact that Castelluci is the only female creator in a line promoting girl power. There's also some cynicism about targeting this market. As one friend of mine said, "I've been reading comics since I was a teenage girl, little did I know they weren't for me."
