''Nimona'' is a

science fantasy file:Warhammer40kcosplay.jpg, Cosplay of a character from the ''Warhammer 40,000'' tabletop game; one critic has characterized the game's setting as "action-oriented science-fantasy." Science fantasy is a hybrid genre within speculative fiction ...

graphic novel A graphic novel is a self-contained, book-length form of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and Anthology, anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comics sc ...

by American

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators/artists in that they produce both the litera ...

ND Stevenson. The story follows the

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, a

shapeshifter In mythology, folklore and speculative fiction, shapeshifting is the ability to physically transform oneself through unnatural means. The idea of shapeshifting is found in the oldest forms of totemism and shamanism, as well as the oldest exist ...

who joins the disgraced

knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...

Ballister Blackheart in his plans to destroy the over-controlling Institute. Blackheart's intent to operate under his code of ethics contrasts him with the impulsive Nimona. Stevenson began working on ''Nimona'' while attending the Maryland Institute College of Art, revisiting a character he had created in high school. Stevenson published ''Nimona'' as a

webcomic Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on the internet, such as on a website or a mobile app. While many webcomics are published exclusively online, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or ...

from 2012 through 2014, initially through

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, developing the story and the art style as time progressed. The finished work ultimately doubled as his senior

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. After an agent reached out to Stevenson,

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released ''Nimona'' in print form in 2015. It has been translated into at least 16 other languages and adapted into an

audiobook An audiobook (or a talking book) is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements. Spoken audio has been available in sch ...

. ''Nimona'' accolades include an

Eisner Award The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are awards for creative achievement in American comic books. They are regarded as the most prestigious and significant awards in the comic industry and often referred ...

, a Cybils Award, and a Cartoonist Studio Prize. Reviews and academic analyses have highlighted themes of

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are non-heterosexual or non- cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against LGBTQ people in the late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to ...

ness and fluidity of identity and how they oppose and subvert traditional controlling institutions and exclusionary systems. An animated film of the same name was released on

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on June 30, 2023, to critical success and was nominated for the

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at the

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, but lost to '' The Boy and the Heron''.

Plot

Nimona is a shape-shifter, usually a human girl, but able to grow and shrink and take any human or animal form. She insists on being the sidekick to Ballister Blackheart. Blackheart was once a knight for the Institution but lost an arm in a joust with Ambrosius Goldenloin – now the Institution's champion – so he was kicked out. Blackheart seeks to destroy the Institution but operates under his own code of ethics. Nimona pushes to make his plans more violent and often kills people. They discover the Institution is using jaderoot, a poisonous plant used for dark magic. Blackheart has Nimona impersonate a TV news anchor to publicize this and plant poisonous, but nonfatal, apples in markets to spread fear. The Institute's director orders Goldenloin to kill Nimona; instead, he meets Blackheart in a tavern, begging him to send Nimona away instead. Blackheart meets Dr. Meredith Blitzmeyer, who has made a device powered by "anomalous energy". When Nimona is near the device, she cannot transform. Goldenloin continues to refuse orders to kill him; it is hinted that Blackheart and Goldenloin were more than just friends. He agrees to kill Nimona and capture Blackheart. At a public event, the two spread more poison, and while people panic about its effects, Blackheart speaks and convinces people to rebel against the Institution. He is captured by Goldenloin and used as a trap to lure Nimona. Her head is sliced off during the fight, but she lives and they escape. Blackheart questions her powers, and she lets slip that her earlier story – that a witch cast a spell on her as a child – was made up. They argue, and Nimona leaves Blackheart. Blackheart learns that his poison has caused deaths. He sneaks into a hospital to treat poison victims but is captured. Goldenloin guards him, having been demoted from champion. The two talk, and Goldenloin admits that the jousting incident was not an accident. The Director offered him the position of champion on the condition that he win the joust against Blackheart and gave him an explosive lance to ensure his victory. He initially refused; however, after losing the joust, he activated the lance in desperation. Blackheart is brought to an Institution laboratory, where the Director reveals their occult experiments to develop weapons. Nimona is imprisoned there; she had attempted to rescue Blackheart but was captured in a self-repairing vessel built to contain jaderoot. They take a blood sample out, but Nimona still has control over the cells, and they turn into a colossal beast that escapes to kill the Director and ravage the city. A flashback shows Nimona trapped by villagers. She claimed to be one of their children, but they believed she was a changeling impersonating a child who died; it is never confirmed which scenario is the truth. The Institution took Nimona and experimented on her. Blackheart tells Goldenloin about Blitzmeyer's device, which he uses to fight the beast. The human form of Nimona learns that Blackheart revealed the device and turns on him. Blackheart defeats the beast, but the fight damages the lab and activates its automatic purge system. Blackheart escapes, carrying Goldenloin, but Nimona does not. The disasters make clear the Institution's use of jaderoot, and Blackheart becomes a hero. While watching over Goldenloin in the hospital, a doctor calls Nimona a monster, and Blackheart insists she is not. When the same doctor returns moments later, Blackheart realizes that the first "doctor" was Nimona. He chases after her, but she disappears into the crowd. Blackheart and Blitzmeyer find a lab together, and Goldenloin and Blackheart become closer. Blackheart never sees Nimona again, to his knowledge, but wonders about every stranger and animal who looks at him.

Development and publication

In a course at Maryland Institute College of Art, ND Stevenson received an assignment to create a new character, and revisited an idea from high school of a female

. According to Stevenson, he created Nimona by combining this shapeshifter with a

Joan of Arc Joan of Arc ( ; ; – 30 May 1431) is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the Coronation of the French monarch, coronation of Charles VII o ...

-inspired character that he was drawing at the time. Nimona's look was based on his own experiences with

cosplay Cosplay, a blend word of "costume play", is an activity and performance art in which participants called cosplayers wear costumes and Fashion accessory, fashion accessories to represent a specific Character (arts), character. Cosplayers often i ...

; Stevenson preferred cosplaying as male characters rather than female characters, and wanted "to do a costume that people who weren't interested in looking particularly buxom or sensual might want to dress as". Other characters and a story followed as Stevenson revisited the concept several times over his junior year, and later received approval for the comic to be his senior thesis. Stevenson initially published ''Nimona'' online on

. The comic began as a collection of one- and two-page comics. Stevenson says that he "had no idea what ''Nimona'' was when I started it" and that it was experimental, but that he knew very early how it would end. According to Stevenson, an

agent Agent may refer to: Espionage, investigation, and law *, spies or intelligence officers * Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another ** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuran ...

reached out to him shortly after he had posted the first few pages. Stevenson was still at school when he learned his agent had sold ''Nimona'' to the publisher HarperCollins. The

ran from June 2012 to September 2014. Stevenson described completing ''Nimona'' as both satisfying and "a little sad".

published the completed comic as a

young adult In medicine and the social sciences, a young adult is generally a person in the years following adolescence, sometimes with some overlap. Definitions and opinions on what qualifies as a young adult vary, with works such as Erik Erikson's stages ...

in May 2015. The work has since been translated into several other languages, including Chinese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, and Turkish. In August 2016, an

version of ''Nimona'' was published through

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. It features voicework by Rebecca Soler, Jonathan Davis, Marc Thompson, January LaVoy, Natalie Gold, Peter Bradbury, and David Pittu, has a runtime of two hours and seventeen minutes, and is unabridged.

Analysis

Reviews and academic analyses have presented ''Nimona'' as a depiction of identity, particularly fluid identity. Nimona's form is unsettled and indefinable, though Mihaela Precup said that Nimona's queerness was mostly hinted at through linguistic markers and fashion choices. Precup noted the "subversive potential of a specific kind of queer cuteness", while James J. Donahue said that ''Nimona'' shows the fluidity of identity construction to a young-adult audience along with empowering moments. Ballister's perceived identity also shifts from a supervillain to a hero, challenging clichés around good and evil. ''Nimona'' has been highlighted as promoting alternate perspectives on gender and allowing readers to come to terms with their own identities. Nimona's monstrous nature has been discussed as representing how institutions perceive queerness as the "ultimate other" that threatens stability. Multiple analyses have viewed the Institution as one that persecutes queerness and establishes heteronormative hegemonic ideologies through

structural violence Structural violence is a form of violence wherein some social structure or social institution may harm people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs or rights. The term was coined by Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung, who intr ...

. ''Nimona'' presents a potential to challenge and abolish these systems. In this way, the comic has been compared to ''

The Legend of Korra ''The Legend of Korra'' (abbreviated as ''TLOK'' and also known as ''Avatar: The Legend of Korra'' or more rarely simply as ''Korra'') is an American animated Fantasy television, fantasy action drama television series created by Michael Dante ...

'' and ''

Steven Universe ''Steven Universe'' is an American animated television series created by Rebecca Sugar for Cartoon Network. It tells the coming-of-age story of a young boy, Steven Universe (character), Steven Universe (Zach Callison), who lives with the Crys ...

''. One paper on the work concluded that it is "the blurring of boundaries", especially when it comes to institutions, bodies, and motivations, that allows for these institutions to be undermined.

Reception

Awards

''Nimona'' won an Eisner Award, a Cybils Award, and a Cartoonist Studio Prize. It was also nominated for another Eisner Award and a National Book Award. The hardcover collection of ''Nimona'' became a

New York Times bestseller ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. John Bear, ''The #1 New York Times Best Seller: intriguing facts about the 484 books that have been #1 New York Times ...

. , - ! scope="row" , 2012 , Best Web Comic , Cartoonist Studio Prize , , , , - ! scope="row" , 2015 , Young People's Literature ,

National Book Awards The National Book Awards (NBA) are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. ...

, , Stevenson, at 23, was possibly the youngest NBA nominee in any category this year. , , - ! scope="row" , 2015 , Young Adult Graphic Novels , Cybils Award , , , , - ! scope="row" , 2015 , Best Digital/Webcomic ,

Eisner Awards The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are awards for creative achievement in American comic books. They are regarded as the most prestigious and significant awards in the comic industry and often referred ...

, , , , - ! scope="row" , 2016 , Best Graphic Album—Reprint ,

, , Reprint by Harper Teen ,

Reviews

''Nimona'' received acclaim. Lauren Davis, reviewing the book for

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, rated ''Nimona'' as one of the "Best New and Short Webcomics of 2012", while ''

Paste Magazine ''Paste'' is an American monthly music and entertainment digital magazine, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with studios in Atlanta and Manhattan, and owned by Paste Media Group. The magazine began as a website in 1998. It ran as a print publi ...

'' called ''Nimona'' the best webcomic of 2014. A review for

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recommended ''Nimona'' specifically for teenage readers. Reviewers noted the

setting which mixes magic with technology and highlighted the conflict between Blackheart's code of honor against Nimona's desire to kill and steal. Iain A. MacInnes, a scholar who focuses on U.S. popular and youth culture, said that ''Nimona'' added to the varieties of

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

aesthetics in modern media. The artwork has been described as light and sketchy and compared to that of

Kate Beaton Kathryn Moira Beaton (born 8 September 1983) is a Canadian comics artist best known as the creator of the comic strip ''Hark! A Vagrant'', which ran from 2007 to 2018. Her other major works include the children's books ''The Princess and the Pon ...

, Eleanor Davis, and Faith Erin Hicks. Stevenson produced ''Nimona'' a page at a time, resulting in a development of art style over time. Alex Browm, reviewing the book for

Tor.com ''Reactor'', formerly ''Tor.com'', is an online science fiction and fantasy magazine published by Tor Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers. The magazine publishes articles, reviews, original short fiction, re-reads and commentary on specul ...

, said that while the art in the first two chapters was "clunky", Stevenson's technique improved as the work progressed, and by the fifth chapter, Brown said it was "an absolute joy to look at."

Film adaptation

In 2015,

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acquired the rights for an

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adaptation. It was being produced by Fox's subsidiary

Blue Sky Studios Blue Sky Studios, Inc. was an American visual effects and computer animation animation studio, studio, which was active from 1987 to 2021. It was based in Greenwich, Connecticut, and was founded on February 22, 1987, by Chris Wedge, Michael F ...

, with Patrick Osborne to direct and Marc Haimes to write the script. On May 7, 2019, after

The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was founded on October 16 ...

's acquisition of Fox, the film was delayed from February 14, 2020, to March 5, 2021; it was later delayed again to January 14, 2022. In February 2021, Disney announced that it was shutting down Blue Sky Studios and that the film adaptation was canceled. After its cancellation, and again amid the controversy of Disney's involvement in Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill, several former Blue Sky staff members spoke to media about the film. They stated that, when canceled, the film was "75% complete" and that it was to include an "I love you" scene between Blackheart and Goldenloin and a same-sex kiss. Staff also stated that they received pushback from Disney leadership, centered around the film's LGBT themes. On April 11, 2022, it was announced the film had been picked up by

and Annapurna Pictures with DNEG Animation on board as animation studio and a June 30, 2023, release date. Nick Bruno and Troy Quane served as the film's new directors, having worked on the project since 2020, with Robert L. Baird and Lloyd Taylor rewriting the script and

Chloë Grace Moretz Chloë Grace Moretz (; born February 10, 1997) is an American actress. She began acting as a child, with early roles in the horror film ''The Amityville Horror (2005 film), The Amityville Horror'' (2005), the drama series ''Desperate Housewives' ...

and Riz Ahmed returning to voice Nimona and Ballister Blackheart, renamed "Boldheart", respectively, along with Eugene Lee Yang as Ambrosius Goldenloin.

References

{{reflist

External links

Official website
archived on the

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