I was always looking for the female characters in sci-fi and fantasy who were more than just the girlfriend.
Fantasy is usually considered an escape, but it's also a way to deal with weighty real-world issues from a safe distance and in a context where you usually have some kind of power that you don't have in real life.
'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.
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.
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.
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.
