Mike Spring
At the 2025 New York ComicCon, I was lucky enough to interview MMA superstar Ronda Rousey about her new graphic novel, Expecting The Unexpected, which is an action-packed thrill ride about a pregnant assassin that also doubles as a romantic comedy (of sorts.) Ronda was a real pleasure to talk to, and her book is quite good, so it was great to hear directly from her what it was like writing a graphic novel for the first time:
Question: Can you tell us where the genesis for Expecting the Unexpected came from?
Ronda Rousey: [I got tired of waiting] for someone to hand me my greenlit Ddream project. And so it made me think, okay, what’s a role that no one could play better than me? And so it just came from me being like, okay, if I want to be a storyteller, what’s a story that I could tell better than anyone? And I always wanted, you know, to do like a martial arts type type of film, you know, like Bruce Lee, Jet Li, that’s the kind of actor I always wanted to be, not an Oscar winner, you know?
I was kind of dealing with my own anxieties of becoming a mom and and so I love the idea of, okay, a chick finds out she’s pregnant, has to fight her way to the abortion clinic and through all of the threats, the close calls to the baby along the way made her realize, you know, what she wanted to do by the time that she got there. And so that was kind of like the idea of it and then I once I started writing it, I didn’t know that I was writing a goofy, romantic comedy.
She’s like this super assassin badass that is really just a really dorky nerd, you know, movie references all day and no one’s getting them and it makes you feel lonely. Until finally, she meets the guy that understands the references, you know? And so, you know, that’s kind of me and my husband’s relationship in a way, you know? But we still speak the same language in that way. That’s awesome.
Q: What’s it been like getting into the comics world?
RR: Well, you know, this is a realm where people, rightly so, are very gatekeeping, because I think a lot of people come into it with not very pure intentions and just trying to profit off in the medium. And so that’s why I was kind of the most wary about that like, “Oh, Rhonda’s just coming in for a cash grab.” And I was like, I can make money way easier, okay?.This is not my plan.
Q: So were there any challenges writing the graphic novel and what was the most rewarding experience?
RR: I think the most challenging thing was with the action scenes, keeping the geography of the room consistent. And the one thing I noticed reading; reading comics that a lot of times in action, I lose track of where we are in relation to everything else in the room. And because I wanted the action to be so step by step, especially because I want to have like graphic sequences and things like that, where your mind doesn’t just fill that in. You have to actually see the movement of it. And I think some of the the fights, I think the most challenging one was probably the bathroom fight in the gym because you’re going from one stall to another stall to another stall. And how do you know when you’ve traveled into the next stall? And she’s fighting one guy at a time, but they’re switching off. So how do I differentiate one person from another and one stall from another? And so that’s something I had I was bugging the colorist, and I was like, their jackets are too similar. I need to make one guy look completely different and make one bathroom stall completely different. So they really really humored me with that, and hopefully it flows really well.
Expecting the Unexpected is available now from AWA in comic book stores and online.
