Noelle Stevenson

It seems like everyone in my peer group has more 'Pokemon' knowledge than I do.

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 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.

'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.

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.

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.'

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.

'She-Ra' was ahead of its time.

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.

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.

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.

Just make the comics you want to see, and people will notice.

I was going to be a storybook illustrator or an editorial illustrator. I ended up in a comics class by mistake because all the others were full, so I was like 'I'll stay for one class, and then I'll go take something else, because I don't care about comics.' I got pulled in really fast; I discovered I had a voice in comics that I didn't know I had.

It was definitely a very appealing prospect to be in a company, especially as an art student: we had it hammered into us that the odds of us finding a job, especially fresh out of school, was very slim, and we could expect to work as a bartender for the next three years after we graduate.

It felt like a huge risk when I first started putting my comic online. It was very scary to put myself out there that way and to open up something that I cared about very dearly - and to be the only creator involved with it.

The reason I wanted to do a webcomic was that I could be my own boss, and I could call the shots myself.

I really want to see normalization of queer sexuality - as well as the lack of sexuality.

The first time I shopped at a comic shop, it was because I had been published in a comic book. As I became more involved in comics, I started going more and more, usually to support my friends or lady-friendly comics.

It's not hard to figure out when you're not welcome.

I do more research about 'Lumberjanes' than I did for a story of medieval knights.

I didn't get into comics until college, and it was sort of an accident.

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.

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 think comics has this rap of being misogynistic, and that's certainly not untrue.

'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.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

I went to Maryland Institute College of Art, and I studied illustration there.

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 think almost anyone is capable of doing things that are evil or hurtful or harmful.

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.

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.

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.