Minx of Dreams

While we were in Manhattan up to absolutely no good, we happened to meet Andrea Grant, creator and writer of the comic MINX. Immediately drawn to the complex plot line and sexy heroine (based on Grant herself), we knew we had to share her with you.

So we asked her to take a time out from her incredibly busy schedule as the editor of TheFashionSpot and fashionista-about-town to tell us a little bit more about the comic.

Sex and the 405: How did MINX come about?

Andrea Grant: Although it started out as a comic strip in the back of my literary arts magazine, Copious, I started seriously publishing MINX in 2006. I’ve always been obsessed with the lines between fantasy, reality, and dreams. The creation of MINX was cathartic; it happened right after I emerged from a very dark period in my life.

MINX began as an alter ego that I felt safe working with creatively as I sought to find my voice as an artist. Minx is an archetype of the empowered, modern woman that challenges tradition while embracing sexuality and femininity. MINX is a very personal project — both a conceptual self-portrait, and a response to the way that the celebrity-obsessed media often corrupts the truth and distorts the boundaries of fantasy and actuality. The world of Minx is real to me, albeit a hyper-reality.

Sex and the 405: You mix Native American folklore and fantasy in the comic seamlessly. How did it occur to you — are you Native American?

Andrea Grant: I am half-Native, through my Coast Salish father, who is also a Shaman. I would go with him to pow-wows, where I met some tribal elders, who told amazing traditional stories. And I thought that it would be interesting to combine some of these stories with other universal myths in the graphic novel format. What’s great about comics is that the audience accepts the epic and the supernatural.

Sex and the 405: What do you want readers to take away from the comic?

Andrea Grant: The goal is for others to seem themselves in these archetypes, and also to make an impact when it comes to retelling old myths and preserving traditional stories.

There’s an interesting new book by Mike Madrid called Supergirls: Fashion, feminism, fantasy, and the history of comic book heroines which examines how female characters have evolved through the years. They started out as film noir vixens, and then had to battle for equality in the 1950’s, until they finally became empowered again (i.e. She-Hulk and Catwoman, which I grew up reading).

But these characters always seemed 2-dimensional to me: superhero identity vs. true identity. I wanted to create a more emotionally complicated, 3-dimensional character in Minx, who is something of an anti-hero grimly accepting the fact that she has been called to this strange adventure in Dreamtime.

All of my characters are moody and as complicated as any of us, and it’s that streak of humanity that makes Minx unique. She plays with the boys, but she’s definitely a woman.

And here’s a little something-something for you, because we like you that much. A picture of Andrea Grant herself:

You’re welcome.

Special thanks to Colleen Nika for the intro. That girl knows everybody.