‘Nimona’s’ ND Stevenson on the Power of Transforming Myths
She-Ra reboot — can draw his bustling life into a frame, one panel at a time.Filling the pages of candid, witty webcomic I’m Fine I’m Fine Just Understand with expressive line-drawn vignettes, or, say, early sketches for his award-winning science fantasy graphic novel Nimona, Stevenson, who is trans and married to fellow author/creative Molly Knox Ostertag, chronicles his own adventures in simply getting through the day.It’s a safe space, he writes, “to post little comics and updates about transition, mental health, career, and life in general.”“I just feel like comics is something that I kind of can’t not do,” Stevenson tells Metro Weekly, zooming in — before the current WGA and SAG strikes — to chat about Netflix’s new animated feature adaptation of Nimona, starring Riz Ahmed as interstellar knight Ballister Boldheart and Chloë Grace Moretz as the beloved, shape-shifting title character.Traveling the globe on behalf of the film, directed by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane, Stevenson has recently devoted several amusing pages of I’m Fine I’m Fine to recounting his “adventures from the Nimona press tour.” The webcomic travelogue marks a full-circle moment for the artist and the character who helped lead him out of a self-described time of darkness.“I think the character specifically was at that particular time in my life,” Stevenson recalls. “I was 19 and in a very transitional period, as I think most young adults are at that age.