Speed Racer: Tales from the Road – High-Speed Noon- Comic Review
- Blake Donaldson
- 1 minute ago
- 3 min read
Publisher:
Mad Cave Studios
Creative Team:
Writers: Fred Kennedy, Anthony Cleveland, and Ariel Rakhlin
Artists:
Maggie Mae Martinmaas, Andrea Adiletto, Marco Lucchina
Colorists:
Jacqueline, Glatz, Marco Pelandra
Letterers:
Matias Zanetti, Nathan Kemph, and Buddy Beaudoin
Release Date: April 8th, 2026
Where to Buy:
Price: $6.99 Physical/Digital
REVIEW
I was on board with this most recent Tales From the Road one-shot as soon as I saw the “Featuring Winners of Mad Cave Studio’s Talent Search!” seal on the cover. I love learning about up-and-coming creators and seeing them get their shot to share their creativity with a larger audience and books like this are exactly why.
While I have seen a decent handful of reruns of the Speed Racer anime as a kid, I really became a fan with the Wachowskis’ 2008 film. That’s why in the first tale of this issue, High Noon, I was interested to see Snake Oiler, a character I have only known as a somewhat two-dimensional, snake-themed bad guy, be written as a more fully realized character. Writer Ariel Rankhlin’s Snake Oiler contains multitudes. He can be cocky and over-confident, especially on the heels of his recent defeat by Speed Racer, but only towards other racers. To anyone else though, he’s thoughtful, kind, even a little vulnerable. The balance of these two aspects of his personality gives him the air of a scrappy underdog, a charming scoundrel that you just can’t help but root for. This is only solidified by artist Maggie Mae Martinmaas’ talent for expressive character work. Even if all the dialogue was removed from this issue, I think I still could’ve easily understood what was going on by each characters’ facial expressions and body language alone. I also really enjoyed the metaphorical b-plot of the rattlesnake and scorpion fighting nearby in the desert during the race. I’m officially a Snake Oiler fan!
Next up, Anthony Cleveland’s First Spark introduces us to Twinkle Banks (aka T-Banks), a badass, blue-haired stunt driver with a tragic backstory. While the main setting of this story establishes T-Banks’ personality in the present day, her origin is shown in a series of flashbacks from throughout her childhood. While these flashbacks tend to jump back and forth to the present, and even amongst themselves, Andrea Adiletto and the entire art team on this story do an effective job of using character design elements and varied color palettes to keep them all separate and easy to follow. All in all, First Spark establishes an impressive foundation for having only 8 pages to work with and left me hoping to see her show up again in the pages of Speed Racer or Racer X down the line.
Finally, Spritle and Chim-Chim star in No Respect, written by none other than Fred Kennedy, who’s become a recent favorite of mine after reading his hit comic Florida Hippopotamus Cocaine Massacre. Spritle is the embodiment of the “annoying kid brother” archetype and as such, would be very easy to write in a way that makes him unlikeable, if not completely insufferable, especially in this current iteration that is also a Viewtube influencer obsessed with creating content. Yet somehow the No Respect team manages to avoid any pitfalls of those tropes to tell a quick tale of a loveable scamp and his monkey who find themselves in the right place at the right time to take out a couple thugs Home Alone-style and save the day. Kennedy, artist Marco Lucchina, and the entire art team put together a story that felt like it easily could’ve been an excerpt from a larger all-ages graphic novel of similar adventures.
One thing that really stood out to me in this issue overall was the lettering. The sound effects especially energized every panel that had them, whether it was Matias Zanetti’s SPLSHHH of an oil gun shooting, Nathan Kempf’s BOOM of a pink hot rod exploding out of a building, or Buddy Beaudoin’s THWISH of flying candy pieces soaring through the air. Letterers truly are the unsung heroes of comics in my opinion and that’s on full display here.
While the flagship Speed Racer and Racer X comics continue building the overall story arcs of the characters in this world, the Speed Racer Tales From the Road one-shots are building out the world itself into an exciting place to revisit each month and this entry was no exception.
Go, Snake Oiler, go!
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