Secret Wars: To Me My Ghost Racers!

Marvel’s Ghost Rider is a character inexplicably tied to the 1970’s. The best treatments of the character have embraced this silly premise of a dude with a fire-laced whip riding a motorcycle beating up dudes. The upcoming Ghost Racers storyline is mixing the character up with a few friends, but keeping in tune with the psychedelic 70’s roots of the hero. The tale is one of those wackier Secret Wars tie-ins along the tune of Where Monsters Dwell – a previously announced Secret Wars comic with dinosaurs and World War I. The upcoming Ghost Racers comic book see’s a horde of Ghost Riders from several different eras teaming up together to kick butt.

The relatively new Ghost Rider Robbie Reyes is confirmed to play a role in the story alongside author Felipe Smith. Juan Gedeon is tackling pencils for the series that’s launching in June. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the fantastic cover for the comic illustrated by Francesco Francavilla. While the details on plot for the series are limited as of this moment, Smith went to Newsarama where the story was announced for a fantastic quote on how to depict the visuals of racing when writing for another artist in a static medium. This advice will really come in handy for authors looking to write excellent craft and fans interested in taking a peek behind the curtain of the process within comics.

I see this a lot in articles; people commenting on how hard it is to depict motion (and racing) in comics as a medium. I can’t say that I really agree with that statement [laughs].

But I guess the key to doing it correctly is the pacing of your panels, the sizing and distribution of them across the page, and what moment of the described action you chose to depict visually.

The amount of things you choose to show and not show in a sequence is what determines how quickly the reader’s eye moves through the page and goes to the next one.

Races (and successful action) are fast-paced, and the key is guiding the reader’s eye quickly through the sequence, and then slowing his eye down during certain moments for visual payoffs.

Ghost Riders launches in June.