A quick search revealed a rabid fan following who had created an extensive collection of art, cosplay portraits, and photos of Nimona opened up next to their mugs of tea. When I finished the book, I immediately realized I was among those fans. When he brushes Nimona aside, she transforms into a shark, because, you know, she is a shape-shifter with infinite powers.
The end result is a complex depiction of loyalty and friendship. Stevenson is the co-writer of Lumberjanes, a comic about five teen girls who fight monsters at summer camp. Stevenson is just years-old, making her the youngest National Book Award Finalist in history. This is similar to your work with Lumberjanes, where for a while, there is an absence of male characters altogether. In what ways does the book Nimona exist entirely outside of gender expectations?
ND Stevenson: My approach to both Nimona and Lumberjanes was to explore and deconstruct gendered tropes by ultimately disregarding them. Like you said, in Lumberjanes , no male characters are introduced until the 4th book. Women are the heroes and the villains and most of the faces in the crowd. What does that free you up to do with your female cast? The real conflict is between Nimona and the Director, with Ballister and Goldenloin almost being casualties of that.
I think the characters could be any gender and the story would unfold the same way. TM: You published Nimona online while you were completing it. Along the way, HarperCollins signed on to publish the physical book. How do you imagine the reading experience is different for readers who followed in pieces online, and those who pick up the page graphic novel?
NS: Serialized webcomics supply a constant stream of content, which is cool, but they can also unfold excruciatingly slowly! I had to make sure the pacing would be right when it was read in a collected volume, but I also had to make sure that each page contained something fun or interesting for devoted webcomic readers who tuned in every update day. I definitely got some crap from people who were mad a fight scene would go for six pages. Three weeks!!! One of the benefits of following it page-by-page like that was probably the community — people would read and re-read each page carefully, so there were jokes about background characters and really tiny details that everyone picked up and ran with.
