'Nimona' is about identity and if who you are is defined by what you look like. It's not a book about body image at all, but I would be lying if I said that wasn't in there even at the conception of it.
Noelle Stevenson
Fantasy is usually considered an escape, but it's also a way to deal with weighty real-world issues from a safe distance and in a context where you usually have some kind of power that you don't have in real life.
People are like, 'Are Nimona and Ballister romantic?' And I'm like, 'No! Of course not.' 'Well, are Ballister and Goldenloin in a relationship?' And I'm like, 'Yeah, okay.'
Question everything. Don't try to emulate someone else's path. Look at what you have, the tools you have, the place you're in; know the rules, and break them.
I feel that kids are smart, and I feel that kids will understand things even if they don't understand them from personal experience.
I've always had a lot of story ideas rattling around in my head, but 'Nimona' felt very tangible very early. I knew the ending. So I just started making more and more pages, and then I made it a webcomic, like, 'OK, I'm really gonna do this.'
I think my lack of 'Pokemon' knowledge and complete confusion at the descriptions makes people think I'm adorable, like a lost baby duckling or your grandmother trying to use an iPad.
'Winnie the Pooh's Grand Adventure' - the movie where Rabbit adopts a baby bird and raises her, and then the bird grows up and flies away and leaves him - I cried.
I went to Maryland Institute College of Art, and I studied illustration there.
I tend to bristle at people praising alt comics as some kind of perfect comics paradigm, because there's quite a lot of misogyny in its history as well. Like, in my first comics class, every single great comic creator we studied was male.
We can make this industry and this environment and comic book shops and comic book conventions and comic books themselves, we can make them a thing that is accessible to everybody so that nobody feels unwelcome, and nobody feels like this isn't their place.
Social media is basically the entire reason I have a career right now. Like everything, my readership for 'Nimona' came because I was active on Tumblr.
'She-Ra' was ahead of its time.
It was not until Web comics that I saw stories about women and stories by women and things that were aimed specifically at female readership. It was just kind of this free-for-all that was achieving something amazing with creativity. That was where I got my start.
I kind of understood inherently - and I wasn't really conflicted about this - that comics were not for me or by people who looked like me. That was just something that I accepted about the world.
Even in stories that I like, with a female character that I love deeply, it always feels like there's something that she has to prove to the male characters before she can even get started.
I think comics has this rap of being misogynistic, and that's certainly not untrue.
I think almost anyone is capable of doing things that are evil or hurtful or harmful.
Like a lot of young women, I went through an entire period where I hated female characters - I didn't want to read about them! I thought I was going to be the cool girl who was not like other girls.
I am very interested in female characters and bringing a new perspective to mediums where not necessarily that's been valued at all.
I really liked Quentin Blake, who did all of Roald Dahl's stuff. I don't think I really got Quentin Blake as a kid, but as I grew older, I really appreciated the kind of knowledge and the skill that went into those seemingly effortless drawings, and I really wanted to capture some of that in my own work.
Usually I start with a concept, which I then sketch out so that I can get a feel for the character. The character doesn't really become real to me until I draw them.
It's easy to feel like you don't have any control over yourself or your life or your body as a teen - everything is changing so fast, and a lot of it feels so outside of your power. I think that's why a lot of teens form really strong attachments to fictional characters or celebrities, draw their own characters or write themselves into fan fiction.
I've always liked shape-shifter characters. I gravitated towards characters like Mystique from 'X-Men,' Zam Wesell from 'Star Wars,' and Tonks from 'Harry Potter.'
I didn't get into comics until college, and it was sort of an accident.
I was a junior at school, and I had just taken my first comics class, and we were doing an exercise for this other class where we had to create our own characters,and 'Nimona' just kind of came out of that. I decided that I liked her so much that I wanted to do a comic with her.
I think technology is changing and growing, and the best approach to have is to be self-aware and aware of what's going on around you and also have some idea of who you are and how to make that ever-changing climate work in your favor.
'Nimona' was originally a vague idea I had when I was in high school, when I was just getting into shapeshifting characters. It was a straightforward superhero story at the time. Nimona was named Nightshade, and she had an eyepatch for some reason. There was nothing really special about it, though.
Not long after I started posting the first 'Nimona' pages online, a literary agent reached out to me, and I ended up signing with him before I returned to school for my senior year.
I've been a huge animation fan since I was a kid, so the idea of seeing my characters in full motion on the big screen is completely mind-blowing.
I always have a tendency to take on too many things.
I'm very lucky to have been given a lot of freedom in my career, but it's also fun to play in other people's playgrounds!
Some comics are made to be displayed digitally, and it doesn't degrade them.
'Runaways' was exciting because it was something brand-new and fresh, and I'm hoping to be able to bend the rules in my own way of what a Marvel superhero story can be.
The good thing about doing a comic that's entirely my own voice as a debut is that people approached me with similar jobs, with stuff that they knew that I could do justice to because they had read what I'd already done. It meant that I was getting jobs that I was actually interested in, and I didn't have to prove myself on someone else's property.
I personally always have a hard time relating to queer characters in media because I didn't really see myself in them. They were kind of pigeonholed early on as the gay character, and they would naturally end up with the other gay character who would emerge at some point as their love interest.
I don't think naturally I tend toward anything that's really distinctly branded as adult. I feel like I sort of write for myself as I would've been at 12 or 13 years old.
I know that when I was a kid, and I was reading whatever I could get my hands on, I didn't associate myself with the girl characters.
It took me a really long time to get past all of that internalized dissociation with being female that I was being given by media.
The first movie I saw was 'Prince of Egypt' - that was the first movie I saw in theaters.
There's a whole world of people out here whose experiences are not being reflected in the media that they're reading. And that does affect the way we view ourselves... and the people we think we can be.
I've always kind of gravitated toward characters who are a bit distant from the narrator or the point-of-view characters, so that's kind of important to me, to set up a different character who would be the point-of-view character for the story.
I was always looking for the female characters in sci-fi and fantasy who were more than just the girlfriend.
I love the female characters in 'She-Ra.' There isn't another show quite like it.
It seems like everyone in my peer group has more 'Pokemon' knowledge than I do.
Support the female voice in all its forms. Support other female creators and work to make an environment that is inclusive and allows female-led projects to thrive organically.
Hopefully, comics will be enough to support me after I graduate.
I swear slightly more when there aren't children around, but not that much.
Kids aren't dumb - they might not get something, but they're going to figure it out.
There are some things that are more appropriate for different audiences. But the goal with all ages is to create comics that anyone can read, that don't talk down to kids. Kids can handle a lot more than people think.
