Fasten your seatbelts! Today, Mad Cave Studios announced Speed Republic, a fantastic new racing series. Witness Sebastian Valencia’s great effort to cross the finish line in one piece and claim the life he desires! Speed Republic is written by Ryan K Lindsay (Eternal, Everfrost), with art by Emanuele Parascandolo, colors by Michele Monte, and letters by Joamette Gil.
In the future, Europe has united under one man, The Autocrat. He rules the apocalyptic landscape from corporate monopolies with a vision of unity that is gospel to some but hollow to others. To distract the 99% from their poor and empty lives, they are given the opportunity to compete in the Grand Race. A marathon street race through Europe where only one driver can make it to the end and win a life of luxury. Our hero, Sebastian Valencia, enters with the hope that winning this race can make up for his wasted past, but along the way, he starts to question what kind of future he is actually buying into.
“Speed Republic is one of my favorite things I’ve ever written because it’s a story that touches on a whole bunch of narrative elements I love,” said Ryan K Lindsay. “It’s about a future society breakdown, a completely detached megacorporation monolith, family, a sense of purpose, and of course epic pulse-pounding car race shenanigans. I felt as much influence from haunted John Carpenter futures as I did esoteric emotional vignettes from the Coen Brothers. This is a story about one man trying to help his family, and maybe himself, in a world that won’t and doesn’t truly value the concept of doing such things. Creating this landscape, in which to tell this story with Emanuele has been a dark delight, and I hope readers lose themselves in the swirl of this comic.”
“Working on Speed Republic has been one of the best experiences I’ve ever had so far. The collaboration between Ryan, Chris, Michele, and I was nothing short of a perfect synergy to me, and it made me grow as an artist and as a worker in general,” said Emanuele Parascandolo. “Probably, the thing I’ve loved the most has been reading and picturing the characters that Ryan had created: they felt so real that they immediately took shape in the panels, and trying to make them as expressive as possible has been a total blast for me.”
Speed Republic #1 hits shelves on Feb. 2, 2022.