Alan Evans (a.k.a Albone) creator of the webcomic Rival Angels takes the hot seat…
Q1: What is ‘Rival Angels’ about?
A1: Rival Angels is about four girls trying to make it in professional wrestling and find that surviving their battles with each as room-mates is a completely different matter. The four girls in question are Ultragirl Sabrina Mancini, Lil Dragon Sun Wong, The Definition of Technician Krystin Moline, and self-proclaimed Miss Rival Angels, Aphrodite Brooke Lennox.
Q2: What’s so attractive about female wrestling? Besides to obvious!
A2: Female wrestling is niche-y. That niche brings the passionate fans of female wrestling and intrigues those that may not be fans of pro wrestling. Personally for me as a storyteller, I knew it would be much more interesting to tell the story of several female wrestlers than male ones. If you are aware of pro wrestling, you already know that 85% of the exposure is on the male side. This is my chance to explore that under-served segment.
Q3: How realistically does ‘Rival Angels’ reflect the sport of female wrestling?
A3: Rival Angels reflects pro wrestling in that it’s very loud and showy in the wrestling aspects. The over-the-top characters and the larger than life characters. However, one huge difference is that the matches are real, like in Mixed Martial Arts. None of the matches are pre-determined, so obviously that’s a huge difference.
Q4: Strong female role-models or gratuitous T&A? Which is it?
A4: Strong female role-models in the mold of the characters that Joss Whedon tends to write, like in Buffy or Firefly. The girls are very real, with real problems, fears, hopes and desires that readers can identify with and also with such broad appeal that readers of any age can appreciate.
Q5: How do the characters real life challenges compare to their challenges in the ring?
A5: Sometimes the challenges, like living together as room-mates, is the greater challenge! These four young women share a space with 1 bedroom and 2 baths so tensions can get high. Plus, they’re all essentially going for the same job and there’s not guarantee that they’ll all make it into the pro ranks of Rival Angels. As anyone will tell you, supporting friendships and maintaining relationships is a tough act but throw in a combat sport like this and the problems begin to mount up quick.