From time to time the subject of why I ONLY draw Sun, Sabrina, Krystin and Brooke comes up. I don’t think it’s an unfair question. There have been many stories…just about any other fighting game/movie/anime//manga that I’ve ever seen, I’ve almost always wanted more. More of the main character’s fights, secondary character fights, etc. Anime like WANNA BE THE STRONGEST or Manga like GIRLS OF THE WILD’S don’t show as much action as I’d like. In most of those stories, the fighting action is the frame to which the story is told, but it’s almost always secondary to some sort of revenge mission to saving the world! And so, I’ve tried to include most of the Upstart Girls (Sun, Sabrina, Krystin, and Brooke) but even then, I’ve felt compelled to clip some of the matches.
Why?
There’s a few reasons really. First of all, I’m not WWE Monday Night RAW. They are the best at putting out a weekly 3-hour, live-action show. To think that I could compete with that is crazy. What I can do is get into the heads and lives of 4 of the characters in Rival Angels. I’m not a fan of the passive characters who sit around and watch the world go by. They need action! So, I have more fun writing about these ladies than trying to book the entire roster.
More importantly, it takes me 8-10 hours to pencil one single page. There was a time where I could fit 3 pages in a week, but those days went away when I was blissfully back in the world of full time employment. 16-20 hours is all I can spare during a usual week. I love Rival Angels so I don’t mind the time commitment but the reality is that I can only do so much. I could hire out some of that work but Rival Angels isn’t there financially. There was also a time where I was going to solicit funds to try and get some of those other matches up, but even if I did raise the funds to cover that expense, it would still tumble headlong into the time availability, meaning, not enough time for it.
Which leads to frequency. If I’m only updating two times a week, that means a 10 page match is going to take longer than a month to run. That’s a heck of a long time to tell a story segment and I don’t take that lightly. I know if I’m going to keep you invested in Rival Angels for that amount of time, I need to make it count. That means, skipping on that Kyra Gold vs. Cheerleader Serisette match because at the end of the day, it doesn’t advance the story of the main characters, Sun, Sabrina, Krystin and/or Brooke. Therefore, it gets the bum’s rush.
As I write the last season of Rival Angels, I find it harder to justify these peripheral matches unless they somehow advance the overall storyline. It’s not a decision that’s taken lightly. I still want to show everything! But with the crunch of story, and time (both in producing and updating), it just makes sense to get to the heart of the story. Even then, I still have a lot of story left to tell with Sun, Sabrina, Krystin and Brooke.
Thanks for being along for the ride.
-Alan
