Nimona

Nimona has been well received. It has won an Eisner Award,[4] a Cybils Award,[5] and a Cartoonist Studio Prize.[6] It has also been nominated for another Eisner Award and a National Book Award.[18][19] The hardcover collection of Nimona became a New York Times bestseller.[20]

A reviewer for io9 called Nimona one of the "Best New and Short Webcomics of 2012", commenting that its "light, sketchy style" helped to set up the comic's tone, and compared it favorably to The Venture Bros.[9][22] Nimona was rated as the best webcomic of 2014 by Paste Magazine.[23] In a 2020 article for CNN's Underscored, Daniel Toy described Nimona as a "modern fantasy epic" that will "delight teen readers."[24] A columnist for The Mary Sue said that Nimona and comics like it "promote alternate perspectives on gender".[25] Reviewing the German-language print version of Nimona in 2016, a writer for Spiegel Online described the webcomic as "entertaining" through its "wonderfully" staged and colored action scenes.[26]

A writer for Comic Book Resources compared Stevenson's artwork to that of Kate Beaton, Eleanor Davis and Faith Erin Hicks.[3] A reviewer for Tor.com said of the art, "Stevenson’s artistic style is VERY unique and VERY quirky, and I mean that with the highest praise... The first two chapters of Nimona are pretty clunky, but in a twee rather than off-putting way. By the third chapter she starts to take some real chances with her art, and by chapter five it’s an absolute joy to look at."[2] Additionally, Emma Patton in the Children's Book and Media Review journal described Nimona as intentionally featuring the "cliches of good vs. evil stories" in order to expose the triteness of the clitches themselves, and noted that one of the most important themes is identity.[27]

Associate Professor Mihaela Precup considered that mainstream publications which reviewed the comic did not note "any of the queer references," which she described as an "important part in the book’s positioning of monstrosity," and highlighted what she called a "subversive potential of a specific kind of queer cuteness." Precup also stated that the queerness of Nimona is "mostly hinted at through linguistic markers" and noted in her fashion choices as well, while describing Nimona as a "cute monster girl" and saying that the book shows that violence is located in "institutions that control and persecute."[28]

Molly Clare Barnewitz produced her Master of Arts thesis on animal and other non-normative bodies in queer comics, focusing on Nimona and On Loving Women. Barnewitz said that "Nimona depicts the threat posed by fluid and non-normative identities to heteronormative hegemonic institutions, ultimately demanding that the binary systems that persecute queerness be abolished." Barnewitz said that the comic "attack[s] exclusionary systems that place queerness as the ultimate other". She described Nimona as an example of the possibility of "reading comics through a queer lens," while noting that the story "evokes traditions of fairy tale and cyborg science fiction," focuses on shifting identity of Nimona and Ballister as they fight the over-controlling Institute, and says it breaks down "socially constructed binaries."[10]

Associate Professor James J. Donahue, in a paper in The Oxford Handbook of Comic Book Studies, said that "Stevenson has used her graphic novels to demonstrate the fluidity of identity construction for a young-adult audience", that it "present[s] empowering moments... [that] are always grounded in the celebration of community." He adds: "...these genres often encourage reading practices based on the acceptance of social norms. In response, Stevenson’s work engages in a form of disruption aimed at challenging normative reading practices, be they literary or social, opening up safe spaces for her readers’ own efforts at coming to terms with their identities."[29]

Heather Wright wrote a Master of Arts thesis on a broader topic, examining the "transformative power of queer world building and intervention" by using children's cartoons like The Legend of Korra, Steven Universe, and Nimona, how this functions, and can be adapted. She argued that the actions by Ballister and Nimona against the Institution "foreground the potential, and process, for undermining institutions." She also states that Stevenson suggests that a way to "take back power" is to disrupt institutions and the conditioning they engender through "fluidity." This is reflected, Wright argues, in Nimona's "original" form being "fluid, unsettled and indefinable," and hence, a construction, like gender, with Wright relating this to Judith Butler's theories about gender. She concludes that Nimona stated that "the blurring of boundaries," especially when it comes to institutions, bodies, and motivations, allows for "hegemonic ideologies and institutions" to be undermined.[30]