DC is Working on New Graphic Novels for a Younger Audience
DC has announced that they will be releasing some new graphic novel imprints. However, while a lot of current stories are aimed at older audiences and are very gritty and dark and serious, these new lines will be aimed at a younger crowd. One of these imprints, DC Zoom, will have stories geared for middle school readers and the other, DC Ink, will have a young adult focus. This is pretty cool. I have a toddler, and I’m excited to be able to point to some modern story arcs that will be appropriate in the younger years. Of course, there are iconic storylines like The Killing Joke, but that is not appropriate for children in my opinion. Some of the stories will be told by comic book industry veterans, we should expect the majority of the stories to be told by novelists that already write for young readers. We have learned that Laurie Halse Anderson, Melissa de la Cruz, Michael Northrop, and Ridley Pearson are all working on new graphic novels.
The first stories to come from DC Ink will be a Harley Quinn story, and a story about Aquaman’s love interest, Mera. The sharp-eyed reader will notice that these first two stories revolve around females. Michele Wells, Vice President for Content Strategy at DC, explains, “If you look at readership in middle grade and Y.A. in general, you’ll see a swing on the side of female readers.” However, we have been promised that while they will have a lot of stories about heroines, we will be given stories about everyone’s favorite heroes. Wells continued to say, “You’ll see that Gene Luen Yang book, ‘Superman Smashes the Klan,’ will be for both.” Pearson, who is well known for his Kingdom Keepers series, will even be writing a “Super Sons” story that will revolve around Jonathan Kent and Damian Wayne.
I actually am excited to learn about what more of the stories will be. The novels from Zoom will run $9.99 with 128 pages and Ink books will be $16.99 for 192 pages. Here's a picture for the upcoming Mera novel by Danielle Paige.
Source: New York Times