Will I love Nimona?

No list of magic would be complete without Nimona. Everyone’s talking about the Netflix adaptation, but if you ask me, the original graphic novel is not to be missed. A wonderfully quirky romp that somehow achieves moments of intense poignancy and beauty, this is a book for everyone.

This book was one of the first queer graphic novels I read outside of manga, and it’s still one of my favorites. I love magical monsters and characters forced to make morally grey decisions.

It’s also amazing how science is weaved into magic; I never knew exactly what would happen next. While the movie adaptation is also wonderful, the book will always hold a special place in my heart.

Graphic novels are a source of wonder to me, mainly because I long to be good enough at drawing to create my own. Indeed, my greatest ambition is for an artist to love one of my books enough to adapt it. So I can’t write a list of fierce-girl books without mentioning Nimona: a shapeshifter who thrives on mayhem and will literally set the board on fire if you beat her at fantasy-world Monopoly. Nimona proves how much emotion and humor it’s possible to pack into a relatively slight number of pages, and also that girls don’t have to be… show more.