Speed Racer: Mega 64’s Derrick Acosta Talks Helping to Build a New Anime Universe (Exclusive)

The anime world’s popularity can’t be denied, and the medium is becoming so big that it cannot be contained on the screen or via the pages of manga. Specifically, North American comic books are getting in on the anime action by creating new universes focused on classic characters. Such is the case with Mad Cave’s current Speed Racer line of comics, which has started laying the foundation for a new world of Speed. Recently, we had the opportunity to chat with content creator Derrick Acosta, co-creator of Mega64, about his upcoming work on Speed Racer: Tales From The Road and helping to forge a new anime universe.

Speed Racer: Tales From The Road is an anthology comic book series that explores the unseen parts of Speed’s life, along with his allies and enemies that make up Mad Cave’s new world. Acosta talked about the comic book publisher initially approaching him, “So when I got involved with Mad Cave, they told me we’re doing Speed Racer, but we’re also gonna be doing this anthology series to build out the world, and you pretty much have free rein, anything you wanna pitch. So I came up with a bunch of story ideas. I went back and watched the original Speed Racer, and I read all the current run that they had provided with me to really like get familiar with the world and try to isolate some lesser featured characters. One thing they told me is like, ‘You can pitch a story about Speed, you can pitch a story about Racer X, but that’s the story everybody wants to tell. So if you can tell a story about a different character, it’s much more likely to get approval and make it into the issue. Ultimately, I went with the bad guy.”

Acosta decided to explore a major villain from the comics, Dante Ferno, highlighting what the antagonist does when he’s not threatening Speed on the racetrack. “The story is kind of about what Dante Furno does in his free time. How does he relax? This super-powerful villainous guy, what does he do for fun? And it’s still pretty villainous. You also get to see who Dante Furno’s friends are. I came up with a character for this story who is a guy that Dante presumably likes to hang out with every once in a while.”

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The Horror of Speed

The Mega64 creator isn’t a stranger to the world of comic books, as he previously was a part of the comic book anthology special known as Fobia. A horror issue that focused on spooky stories, Acosta had horror in mind in his initial pitches to Mad Cave, “There was one story that I really loved from the original anime. And it was, of course, you know, it’s a spooky story. It’s about a ghost car. This ghost car was hunting down people in the city and so it was kind of like a mystery that Speed had to figure out. And then there was a robot that drives the car. But then you found out, you know, there was a very human explanation. It was almost like a Scooby-Doo episode of Speed Racer. In America, we have stories about haunted roads and phantom cars, and I thought that all of that could somehow fit into the Speed Racer world. Maybe someday still can, who knows. Fingers crossed.”

In Derrick’s perfect world, the content creator wouldn’t stop forging a new path for Speed Racer. When asked about what other anime characters he’d love to write for in the future, Acosta wanted to lean into the supernatural: “I’ve always had this special place in my heart for Vampire Hunter D and the sequel that they did in 2001. I know that there are novels, and I think that there might even be some manga, but that would be like a dream come true if that were ever an opportunity. And anything like weird and just spooky and kind of like goth and dark, I would be very happy to participate in.”

When it comes to tackling more “traditional” superheroes that hail from North America, Acosta would love nothing more than to dive into the world of a Hanna Barbera/Adult Swim star, “My answer would be Space Ghost. Definitely. I grew up watching Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, and I always thought he was just some goofy joke character. And then they did a run of serious Space Ghost comics that I collected, and it was actually so bad ass. I fell in love with him all over again.”

Speed Racer: Tales From The Road Issue #2 will release next month on January 21st, 2026. You can pre-order the comic by visiting Mad Cave Studios here. You can also check out Mega64 by clicking here.