Nimona

Nimona is so much fun but also pretty moving in places. Lord Ballister Blackheart is a supervillain and Nimona is a young sidekick looking for a position with a supervillain. Perfect! Except that Blackheart isn’t really looking for a sidekick, especially not a trigger-happy, shapeshifting teenager. Nimona wants chaos and destruction and the death of their enemies, but that isn’t really the done thing. Blackheart would rather not kill anyone, definitely not his nemesis Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin, who was once his friend.

I do like stories told from the supposed villain’s point of view. Things aren’t usually so black and white and you soon start to see the side of the good isn’t necessarily all that good. It has a play around with some of the superhero tropes and fits in plenty of laughs as well as a more serious side, which I won’t spoil for you.

Nimona is not drawn with muscles, physics-defying boobs or anatomically improbable proportions, she’s pretty much an average human being, within the constraints of the style. It’s something that’s quite rare, even these days, so deserves a shout out. Although the other main characters do tends towards the tall and spindly.

Nimona started off life as a web comic and, whilst the full story has now been taken offline, you can read the first three chapters on Noelle’s website. It’s a delightful story and really recommend it to anyone not sure where to start with graphic novels (as well as you die-hards of course).

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Book Source: Purchased