*****UPDATE****
New Lindsey Page in the VOTE section! Make sure you vote and check it out!
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Tune in every Thursday to the ongoing adventures of Lindsey Jun Yeoh! Lindsey is our exclusive VOTE only series that you can read by clicking the big vote button over there on the right. Or you can wait until the image appears in the ad box at the top of the sidebar.
Lindsey and the Insiders is written by David A. Rodriguez and features art by newcomer Rodrigo Verdun. Help support Shadowgirls by voting for us and get to read the sure to be awesome adventures of Lindsey! You can catch up on pages you missed in the Lindsey Archives.
Webcomics fall into all sorts of categories. They range from autobiographical to furries-in-space…and sometimes even autobiographical furries. But there are only two kinds of webcomic creators…Professionals and Hobbyists. Professionals treat their webcomic as a business and everything they do supports that. And Hobbyists…do not. Hobbyists play fast and loose with deadlines, have no real plan moving forward and sort of take wild stabs in the dark. Occassionally they will fall into moderate success with this method, but it almost always takes a change in attitude before that happens.
For the last several years, we have been Hobbyists. That isn’t to say that Shadowgirls didn’t have professional level work, because I believe very strongly that it does. Our production values are pro all the way…our approach, however, was totally hobbyist. And even though it was unintentional, it doesn’t make it less true. So, after we managed to get through the last season, it was time for us to take a step back and not only decide what sort of webcomic we wanted to be but also what it would take to get us there.
Which brings us to today; at this overhaul and relaunch of Shadowgirls. While there are a lot of cosmetic changes you are going to find in the coming weeks, you are also going to see a lot of structural changes in how we approach the business of making webcomics. From our newly acquired producer who has assembled a schedule and plan for us, to the exclusion of any non-Shadowgirls material from the main site. Sure, we’ll still have two weeks between each episode, but those two weeks will have only direct Shadowgirls material by US. No fill in artists. No other comics or comic strips. Anything like that will appear in its own section of the site or, like the new Lindsey story, be a extra you can get by voting. But the Shadowgirls site, is just that. And we aim to keep it that way. A massive amount of work has gone into making sure that we no longer experience a delay in our production and posting schedule. And this relaunch is a symbol of our commitment to not just the work…but to truly becoming professional webcomic authors.
As webcomics go, Shadowgirls really did start out ahead of the curve. We believe that it is now time for us to live up to that promise. I thank the fans that have stayed with us through these delays and welcome the ones that we hope will find us in the coming weeks.
I look forward to what the next four years will bring for all of us. Welcome to Season Two.
David A. Rodriguez
Wow. I can’t believe we’ve made it this far. After nearly four years and multiple iterations our first real, custom made for Shadowgirls website is a reality. And we could not be happier with it. Today you will find a recap page of most of last Season to get you all refreshed and ready for our official relaunch on Monday. But do not despair! Because there are lots of things to keep you busy while you wait.
1. Read the archives!
2. Tell your friends to read the archives!
3. Vote! And read page 1 of the all new Vote Only comic Lindsey and the Insiders!
4. Register on our site at our brand new fully integrated forums and start talking about what’s coming.
5. Peruse our recommendations.
6. Take the official Shadowgirls Facebook quiz or join our Fan Page!
7. Join our Twitter Feed! (Which I’m sure will be interesting at some point.)
We still have a few bugs and things to work out before Monday, so please bear with us and DO enjoy yourself during the pre-show.
The newest webcomic to cross my screen out of the collective is Mysteries of the Arcana. I will admit that I did not know what to expect when I started, and it stayed that way for the whole run of the series so far. It’s called ” A tarot based romantic, fantasy adventure.” And I confess that if it means something beyond the frame used for each comic it escapes me, but the convention of presenting each page that way is fairly interesting. A young woman is transported to a fantasy world and is sucked into a fight against enemies of the realm. But that isn’t nearly as cool as the surreal cast of characters that keep tripping across the screen.
Mysteries of the Arcana is full of surprises and worth the time. Give it a look!
Today we’re doing something new on Shadowgirls and plugging a comic that has long been a friend of ours. And that is Rival Angels by Alan Evans (Albone). I actually received a copy of a convention special of Rival Angels at Wizard World Chicago and I was really interested even then. When I was a young lad, my father, brother and I would look forward to Friday Night’s Main Event from the WWF and watch it every Saturday morning too. There was nothing about wrestling that I didn’t know or wouldn’t watch. I EVEN watched G.L.O.W…which was this totally badass, all-female, wrestling show. (Oh Farmer’s Daughter, how I miss you.) And Rival Angels manages to invoke the best of that show and WWF and all the memories of Friday Night’s Main Event.
The series centers on a young Wrestler who’s been called up from the “farm league” to the Rival Angels league, named Sabrina Mancini (aka Ultragirl.) The owner of the Leauge thinks that Ultragirl has huge marketing potential and she plans to give her a big push. This has caused friction with some of the veterans and the 3 rookies that Sabrina is bunking with. The personalities of the characters are appropriately broad considering the subject matter and I found myself completely enthralled with Sabrina’s rise to superstardom in the league. (Not to mention her spunky asian roommate Sun “Lil Dragon” Wong. Who I suspect is related to Lindsey.)
While the out of ring stuff is interesting and makes you root for your favorite, what Rival Angels really captures is the feel of the ring. From the good announcer/bad announcer, to the managers, to the cheaters, the crazy moves the back and forth matches, out of the ring and the KICK OUT’S! Just when you think it might be over someone freaking kicks out at the end of the end of page and challenges Shadowgirls for most aggravating page endings!
Alan does a great job of capturing everything that wrestling is about. He has created larger than life personalities given them signature moves and factions and put them to work in the webcomic ring. Oh, and its all girl wrestling. ALL GIRL. So…yeah. That does it for me. It’s time for a return to G.L.O.W. and I give Rival Angels a thumbs up and hope you check it out too!

