Norville is one of Tweedle's Knights of the Hunt. He is among the pack of the creatures (fellows?) who, in wolfman-form, are sicced on the Mopey Tortoise airship as the latter vessel travels from Paris to England, in an attempt to kill everybody on board, but especially passenger Tarvek. The attack fails, and the entire pack except Norville is wiped out. When offered ✣ the option, Norville goes along with the whole "don't fight to the death" idea, and gets tossed in the ship's brig.
That's the last we see of him for some time, but he finally resurfaces (and we learn his name) when it's revealed that he is accompanying ✣ Tarvek and Gil as their resident Tweedle-expert as they return to the Continent to battle a Polar Ice Lord invasion. His at least temporary loyalty is bought by Gil feeding him ham sandwiches, and he cheerfully shares information and advice. (Like "kill Tarvek!") It should be noted that he is in human form during all this, the first time that a Knight has appeared thus without wearing armor.
When he arrives at Mechanicsburg with Gil and Tarvek, he meets Krosp and the two of them start going at it like, well, cats and dogs ✣ . (Though Krosp doesn't actually realize that Norville is a Knight until he later sees him transform.) They temporarily stop when told to knock it off by Agatha, but then get into it again and exactly as Agatha warned them, blunder ✣ into the maw of a device created by Othar and Kjarl, which (as designed) teleports them into a nearby cold-storage chamber where they bond over a feast of sandwiches.
Later Krosp invites Prrriti along when he swipes ✣ a jar of fishy pickles so Norville can properly construct cheesydog sandwiches.
Possibly Relevant Outside Information[]
It's rather obvious he's a homage to the animated TV franchise Scooby-Doo, with "Norville Rogers" being the sandwich-loving Shaggy's seldom-used given name.
As noted above, Norville and Krosp take an immediate dislike to each other. While Krosp hisses and exhibits other traits associated with feline hostility, Norville repeatedly shouts "Hey!" at the cat. This may be a reference to a Far Side cartoon from March 25, 1992, portraying a scientist testing his new canine decoder; he discovers that every dog bark translates as "Hey!"
During the aforementioned teleporting, the final panel of the page features the "title" Krosp and Norville's Incredible Journey! This could be a mash-up reference combining the titles of the novel The Incredible Journey (perhaps one of the film versions is being referred to instead) and the movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.