Broken Frontier

Mike Carey helps to launch DC’s Minx line later this month with Re-Gifters. He stopped by with his daughter Louise to chat about that book, the line itself and what it’s like co-writing with a teenaged daughter (or old dad)…

Part One

BROKEN FRONTIER: Since Re-Gifters deals with with main characters of Korean descent, is this book manga influenced?

MIKE CAREY: I would have to say not. You could argue that the format of the Minx books invites comparisons to manga, but that doesn’t mean we’re copying or homaging manga styles. This book is not manga influenced – either in the art or the storytelling techniques.

A lot of manga tends to be ferociously decompressed and Re-Gifters isn’t. Re-Gifters actually packs a lot into its 144 pages. I think by the end of it you’ll feel like you read a short novel. And Sonny’s art is in a similar style to the style he used in My Faith in Frankie, which speaking subjectively, I absolutely adored. Especially when Marc is inking over him.

BF: And switching over to the art team, this is your second time working with the team of Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel. Did you find yourself working more towards what you knew they could do and taking better advantage of them this time?

MC: Definitely. You always find that process. The first time you work with an artist you’re still sort of learning as you go. The second time there is already that foundation there. You can use various shorthand techniques in the script and you can write to the strengths of the art team.

Now having said that, Marc and Sonny don’t have any weaknesses as a team. They are just fantastically well matched. I felt really privileged to work with them a second time, especially in this format where we have such a big canvas to paint on.

BF: Did you choose them right away when you pitched this? Was it an immediate match in your mind?

MC: This process really didn’t start too long after My Faith in Frankie so they were still on my mind. They were the first team that I thought of when the pitch was accepted and, coincidentally, they were also the first team that Shelly thought of.

BF: Great minds huh?

MC: Absolutely. [Laughs] You saw My Faith in Frankie right?

BF: Yes I did. I read it and enjoyed it a great deal.

MC: I still think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done… and Re-Gifters is better. At least in my mind, everything just came together with it.

BF: I think one of the things I loved about My Faith in Frankie was how you separated the tales from the characters’ perspectives. I’m trying to remember correctly without having to go dive into my back issue boxes, but IIRC, you had a number of pages devoted to the main character’s tale, and then there would be a sort of one page aside that was from a side character’s point of view.

MC: That’s right. We split it up into a lot of mini-chapters. I think the shortest one was something like 2 panels long. We had a lot of fun with that, making the story structure wild and unpredictable.

Re-Gifters is more linear in its structure, but even there we have such a large cast that sometimes we’ll jump away from Dixie to see what the other characters are doing and to play games with perspective.

BF: You mentioned the format of this book as a 144 page OGN. Is that going to be the standard format for the Minx line then, to keep them all as "one-shots" instead of the more traditional "ongoing"?

MC: That’s right. Each book stands alone. There will, as the series goes along, be reappearing characters and themes. Certain characters may show up in one book, then come back later in a sequel. But each story will be a self-contained graphic novel.

BF: Did you feel that this particular format was something that you wanted to work with and something that you felt fit with this Minx line and its intended audience?

MC: Oh yeah. I’m very comfortable with the format. It’s not too dissimilar from writing a 100 page graphic novel in a full sized comic page format. Basically with a digest book you’re looking at a panel count of between 1-4 panels per page, so you get slightly less room to maneuver on the page than if it were full sized, but it isn’t significantly less. I tend to regard 5 panels as the functional maximum number of panels in a full sized comic book, going to six on rare occasions.

The great thing about the OGN format is that you have 150 pages or so to tell a story with no set internal divisions. You have total control over the pacing which you don’t have in a monthly book.

BF: And you knew that this was the plan going in when you pitched then, to keep them all as approximately 144 page OGNs?

MC: Yeah. And each book in the line will have twenty or so pages of previews in the back of other upcoming books in the Minx line.

BF: I wanted to talk a little bit about the intended audience of the Minx line. Did you feel that there was a need to reach out to this intended audience of teenaged women?

MC: Well you have this problem with mainstream comics, if you set aside manga. And I do think you have to set aside manga because it is a completely self-contained phenomenon with very little crossover into the mainstream. You have this problem that there are a lot of people out there who will not go into a comic shop. Who will make the pre-judgment that this material is not for them.

The beauty of Minx is that it is a sort of comic outreach project. While not imitating manga or try to fit itself into the manga niche, it will provide an alternative product addressing some of the same audience who are turned on by manga, but getting them to try books that they normally would not have looked for. If it succeeds then it makes itself unnecessary because you’ll get an audience that is turned onto this stuff, who will try it out, and will look for it. At the moment I think if you want to reach markets outside those that already are coming into the comic shops then you have to try different formats, different modes of distribution, and different kinds of storytelling.

BF: You may be a little biased but you do have a daughter (Louise) who is in the intended age bracket?

MC: That’s true.

BF: And now Louise is someone who has become involved as a creator with you. I’m sure you’ve spoken with her about the line, did you see it in her that she seemed more interested in these stories and the ideas that came out of the Minx line?

MC: Oh yeah, very much so. Lou was actually one of Shelly’s market research people. She was one of the people Shelly came to to discuss possible titles and design issues. She used Lou as a resource and Lou was only too happy to be part of that process. I think the pre-testing and audience research aspect that was done in the development of the new line was all very thoroughly undertaken. There were a lot of focus groups and a lot of different kinds of product testing going on and Lou was a small part of that.

And now she’s become a bigger part of the line in another way – as a creator.

BF: You mentioned distribution, is the focus of this line going to be more of the bookstore market than the comic shop?

MC: It’ll be both. It will be, and has already been, picked up by the big bookstore chains as well as by comic shops. So there again is a parallel with manga on the distribution level.

Continued tomorrow…