Lament for Minx

We were disappointed to hear that the DC Comics Young Adult graphic novel imprint Minx has been cancelled. It was a great idea, the book covers were fabulous and from what we've read, the stories were pretty good too. We have great respect for the initiative and the editors behind it. Nobody quite knows whether to blame the publisher or the retailers, but this insightful article from PW Weekly examines the plight of comics publishers entering into the realm of traditional book publishing, and asks the question about whether or not – despite the growth of graphic novels in the marketplace – they are compatible. The author doesn't hold back:

Traditional publishing is a confusing mass of former small publishers (which worked rather the way independent comics publishers do now) that were encompassed by larger ones and then by larger ones until publishers were bloated, sprawling citadels and suburbs with no defining vision, populated with new CEOs who have never worked in publishing, disaffected and dread-filled editors, chummy agents, superstar and attempts-at-the-next-big-thing authors who receive mind-boggling advances, writers whose talent aren't enough to get them book deals because all the money was used up on advances for other authors, and the very occasional author who finds success and can make it stick. And they're all a little nervous about their futures.

In the meantime, here's an excerpt on the kind of excellent book we'll all be missing out on in the future taken from The Plain Janes. Vale Minx!