Nimona

Nimona
Cover of the print edition
Author(s)	Noelle Stevenson
Website	http://gingerhaze.com/nimona
Current status / schedule	Concluded
Publisher(s)	Print: HarperCollins[1]
Genre(s)	Comedy, drama, action

Nimona is a fantasy webcomic by the American comics writer and artist Noelle Stevenson. Stevenson started Nimona while a student at Maryland Institute College of Art. The webcomic was first published in June 2012 and doubled as Stevenson's senior thesis.^[2] Nimona has been published in the form of a graphic novel by HarperCollins in 2015. An animated feature film adaptation, produced by 20th Century Fox Animation and Blue Sky Studios, is scheduled to be released in 2020.

Conception and development

Stevenson initially published Nimona on Tumblr. She was inspired to create Nimona's character based on her experiences with cosplay: Stevenson always preferred cosplaying as male characters rather than female characters and therefore wanted to create a female comics character that was more "butch".^[3] Nimona started off as a collection of one- and two-page comics. Because of this, the webcomic was somewhat experimental for Stevenson. Though she knew how the webcomic would end from the very start, she never expected the project to gain any wider recognition.^[4]

In an interview with Comics Alliance, Stevenson described her feelings upon completing Nimona as both satisfying and "a little sad."^[4]

Release and adaptations

Nimona has been published online as a webcomic since June 2012. HarperCollins published the webcomic as a young adult graphic novel in May 2015.^[5][6] In August 2016, Stevenson published an audiobook version of Nimona through Audible.com. Featuring voicework by Rebecca Soler, Jonathan Davis, Marc Thompson, January LaVoy, Natalie Gold, Peter Bradbury, and David Pittu, the audiobook has a runtime of two hours and seventeen minutes and is supposedly entirely unabridged.^[7]

In June 2015, 20th Century Fox Animation acquired the rights for an animated feature film adaptation, with Patrick Osborne set to direct it.^[8] The film will be produced by Blue Sky Studios.^[9] In June 2017, Fox scheduled Nimona to be released on February 14, 2020.^[10]

Plot

Nimona is set in a mash-up universe that combines fantasy and science fiction tropes.

Lord Ballister Blackheart is a knight turned mad scientist, who was ousted from the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics after his rival, Sir Ambrosius Goldloin, cheated during a joust and destroyed Ballister's right arm. Blackheart, seeking revenge against Ambrosius and the Institution, is visited one day by Nimona, a young rambunctious shapeshifter who volunteers to be his sidekick. She claims to be a young woman who was enchanted as a child by a witch, allowing her to shape-shift into any kind of animal. Ballister hires her, though he is disturbed by her bloodthirsty tendencies in contrast to his own code to never kill.

After the two raid an Institution laboratory, Blackheart discovers experiments being done to contain the corrosive substance jaderoot. Seeing an opportunity to discredit the Institution, Blackheart and Nimona plant tainted food around the villages while spreading rumors that the Institution is behind a jaderoot plague. As their heists grow larger, the Director of the Institution grows impatient with Goldloin, who has been going easy on Blackheart out of respect for their rivalry. She orders him to kill Nimona or her forces will kill both Nimona and Blackheart. Goldloin secretly warns Blackheart of the deal, but refuses to acknowledge his betrayal that started their feud.

Taking a day off at a science expo, Blackheart and Nimona meet the eccentric scientist Blitzmeyer, and inadvertently discover that her Anomalous Energy Enhancer halts Nimona's shapeshifting and healing powers. As a trap for the duo, the Director provides Goldloin with advanced armor and opens a jousting tournament in hopes of stoking Blackheart's ego and bringing him out into the open. During the festival, Nimona causes another illness outbreak while Blackheart takes control of the intercoms and incites a villager uprising against the Institution. He is captured and Nimona contained into a secure arena, where they fight Goldloin and his own armed knights. The two defeat them all and escape, but in the process Nimona is decapitated and, in healing her seemingly fatal injury, reveals her true monstrous form.

Back at their base, Blackheart confronts Nimona over her deception and she runs away. Meeting with Blitzmeyer, Blackheart comes to suspect Nimona may be a mythical shapeshifting monster thought dead. As he goes out and heals the victims of his planted illnesses, Blackheart is captured by the Institution's knights and imprisoned. He is guarded by Goldloin, demoted to common guard and finally apologizing for his actions. The two are led by the Director to their top secret weapons laboratory, including Nimona, who had come to Blackheart's rescue but was captured in a cell made for containing jaderoot. The Director takes a blood sample from her to be replicated into a weapon, but it turns out to still be under Nimona's control, mutating into an enormous attacking beast.

With the creature on the rampage, Blackheart goes to Blitzmeyer to retrieve her device that nullifies Nimona's powers, while striking a deal with Goldloin that he will only kill the monster and not Nimona. Blackheart also retrieves Nimona from the lab in hopes she can convince the beast to calm down. She halts the creature, but finds out about the nullifying device that is preventing the two from re-merging, and becomes convinced Blackheart is trying to kill her. Unable to change her mind and forced to kill the beast half of Nimona, Blackheart and Goldloin flee as the laboratory collapses and is flooded with jaderoot.

With the Institution's leaders dead and their experiments revealed, the populace begins a move toward reform. Blackheart and Goldloin are hospitalized, where they are visited by Blitzmeyer, and a doctor Blackheart realizes is Nimona. The story concludes with Blackheart stating that he has not seen Nimona in many years, and that he and Goldloin are now living together.

Reception

Nimona has been well received, with Slate awarding it the Cartoonist Studio Prize for being considered the "Best Web Comic of 2012".^[11] A blogger writing for Comic Book Resources compared Stevenson's artwork to that of Kate Beaton, Eleanor Davis and Faith Erin Hicks.^[2][12] Io9 commented that Nimona's "light, sketchy style" helped to set up the comic's tone and favorably compared it to the Venture Bros.,^[13] as well as calling it one of the "Best New and Short Webcomics of 2012".^[14] Nimona was rated as the best webcomic of 2014 by Paste Magazine.^[15]

The Nimona graphic novel was nominated for a 2015 Eisner Award and was a finalist for the 2015 National Book Awards.^[16][17]

Reviewing the German-language print version of Nimona in 2016, Timur Vermes of Spiegel Online described the webcomic as "entertaining", but he criticized Nimona's parody nature, stating that Stevenson "likes her heroes too much". According to Vermes, as the story grows more complex, the logic of the world begins to fall apart. The reader's attention to these deficiencies are diverted, however, through "wonderfully" staged and colored action scenes.^[18]

See also

• Portrayal of women in comics
• Lumberjanes, Stevenson's other comic

References

External links

• Official website