Taking a Look at CLUBBING and DC’s New Minx Line

According to a quote from Karen Berger in a terribly-titled Wall Street Journal article, the folks at DC have been "looking at the success of manga as a great sign that teenage girls were actually reading comics again." The result of all that looking is Minx, a new line of young adult graphic novels aimed at girls.

The first, PLAIN JANES, was a great surprise. I knew I liked Jim Rugg's art after reading STREET ANGEL. He uses a different, cleaner style that works well here. Young adult author and first time graphic novel writer Cecil Castelucci delivers a fun and engaging story about a girl and how she affects her new town with public displays of art.

RE-GIFTERS is a story of life, love and hapkido by Mike Carey, Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel, the same team that produced the fantastic Vertigo mini-series MY FAITH IN FRANKIE. Fans of that series will not be disappointed. RE-GIFTERS is an energetic and entertaining graphic novel.

CLUBBING is the most recent book in Minx's line, and it's a bit of a mixed bag. London goth "Lottie" is forced to live with her grandparents in rural England and stumbles upon a bizarre and potentially supernatural murder. Andi Watson and Josh Howard are no rookies in this territory. Watson's SKELETON KEY dealt with high school and fox spirits while Howard's DEAD@17 was all mini-skirts and zombies. With CLUBBING we end up with a solidly told mystery by two guys that obviously know what they're doing. Unfortunately, the structure of the story is a bit too predictable. When you feel like you know what's going to happen on the next page, tension goes out the window. Howard's art feels very flat at times as well, with almost every panel drawn from the same angle. There is some interesting stuff going on here but for me CLUBBING just doesn't live up to the bar set by the previous books in the Minx line.