Minxzy!

[revena]

For those of you who haven't heard already (a small portion, I'd guess), DC is gonna be putting out a new line of graphic novels specifically aimed at teenage girls. It will be called Minx. Not surprisingly, there is a lot of interesting discussion going on at the Girl-Wonder.org message board about the article I just linked to, and the proposed line, and various messages being sent by various persons involved in various stages of the whole thing, and... Yeah. It's good discussion! Go check it out!

I can't really get into it yet, myself, because every time I try to think about the subject, I get stuck on the name of the series. Minx. Minx.

If I were trying to come up with a jazzy title for something marketed at teen girls, I think I'd probably choose a word that doesn't have overt (and mostly negative) sexual connotations. I dunno, maybe this is just me, but that just seems... Asinine.

So how could this decision have come about? I have an idea!

Marketer: We need a name that's BOLD and EDGY and SASSY - like those dolls the girls like, what are they called?

Underling: Barbies, sir?

Marketer: What? No! I mean the BOLDER, SASSIER ones!

Underling: Bratz?

Marketer: YES! Those! Bratzzzz! I think it's the "z" that makes them so SASSY. We must harness the power of the back end of the alphabet for our own use! Quick, everyone, what's a name for GIRL that ends in X, Y, or Z?

See? Perfectly plausible scenario.

Comments

[ct]

Makes sense to me. There's a quote out there somewhere, and I wish I could remember what article it's from, where Rob Tapert (one of the head honchos) said that they called Xena "Xena" because it has an X in it.

[revena.livejournal.com]

Hah! Sounds about right.

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

Minx doesn't have sexual connotations to me. There's a well established comic character over here - Minnie the Minx - that goes with Dennis the Menace - and she is naughty, but only in the sense of using catapults and getting detention (and not in an oooh professor sort of way).

[revena.livejournal.com]

Someone brought up Minnie the Minx on the G-W boards, too, but I'd never heard of her before, and I'm guessing that most of DC's American audience is in the same boat I am. Not having a well-known character to connect to in my mind, the first thing I think about when I hear "minx" is the "flirtatious, pert woman" definition.

Minnie sounds like more fun.

[avalonne.livejournal.com]

great concept... awful name.

[revena.livejournal.com]

Well, and there are some flaws with the concept, too - but I think it's an interesting step, and one worth taking.

Just... the name! Augh!

[avalonne.livejournal.com]

I'm just not sure how they're going to manage to pull the stories together without standing on some grand moral soap box (just thinking of the Plain Janes). There's so much that could go wrong.

But just the thought... moral soapbox + the name "Minx" = a hilarious paradox.

[dievalkyrie-99.livejournal.com]

"We must harness the power of the back end of the alphabet for our own use!"

*grin* - I DO believe you've hit it on the head!

**sigh**

Red Sonja will *always* be my hero?

[revena.livejournal.com]

Have you ever read any stories with Big Barda in them? She's my new favorite comic book character - she's big, and strong, and kicks loads of butt. Woo!

[dievalkyrie-99.livejournal.com]

I LOVE big and strong and Kicks Loads of Butt! - the nearest i've found to that *recently* is Such a Pretty Face published by Meisha Merlin, edited by Lee Martindale

I am SO gonna have to check out Big Barda. although I'n semi-scared here........*grin*

[revena.livejournal.com]

There's a post at scans_daily that shows part of her recent appearance in the Birds of Prey comic: Clicky! (http://community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/2680068.html)

It's a bit hard to follow the story just from those scans, but you get an idea of how cool the character is.

[leatherkept.livejournal.com]

Wow, I was reading X-Men and my dad's old Justice League and Neil Gaiman when I was a teenager. I don't think I ever would have picked up something called "Minx". If I want girly comics, I'd have read manga (well, I did, I won't lie... I read Sailor Moon and the CLAMP stuff until grade 7 or 8!).

[revena.livejournal.com]

I was all about the X-Men in my formative years. Which may explain some things.