Ghosted #5 is in stores today! Now that the first arc is wrapped up, we wanted to check in with Josh about this first arc and the future of Ghosted.
Hey Josh, well Ghosted #5 out now and wraps up the first arc.
I know. It’s pretty crazy to be here. I’m really excited to show people what we have planned for the rest of the series. We’re building a pretty rad book that will have lots of pay offs for our loyal readers. Can’t even begin to express how thankful I am for this book, Skybound, our team and our fans.
How close to your initial rough is the entire arc? Any sudden brainstorms halfway through that changed the course of the story?
The last page of Ghosted #5 has been planned from the beginning so not much there changed. BUT there were a few character beats that changed as I wrote. Like I learned to love Robby Trick. Originally Trick was going to die a brutal death after being possessed, but as I started to build the plan for the ongoing I realized how much I liked writing Trick and wanted to keep him.
There is one other major plot point that got moved until later issues because of the ongoing, and there is a big clue to that in issue one.
But I mean really… not much changed. One line was changed in issue 5 after we knew for sure it was an ongoing.
What ideas ended up on the cutting room floor?
There was going to be more with the doorway to hell that Trick found in issue two, but we just ran out of room. I’m going to get back to it and what it really meant in later issues. Trick finding it wasn’t just because of how haunted the Trask Mansion was and because he stole something. There is something bigger at work there. Why that secret passage was in the Trask Mansion?
Markus is pretty well and screwed at the end there, but have we seen the last of him?
We never actually see Markus die, do we? We know Markus is immortal… and those ghosts are pissed at him and going to torture him, but what actually happens to him… that would be telling…
The first five issues wrap up pretty nicely. Will you stay with five issue arcs? How self-contained will the arcs be?
It’s going to be a mix. Some arcs will be five issues and some will be four to make room for a few spotlight issues we have planned. The first being an Anderson spotlight issue with issue 11. The arcs will each spotlight a crime or gig Jackson has to pull off but will all be building to a larger story that ties directly back into what happened with the Trask Mansion and the first five issues. The Trask Mansion was destroyed but… can a building have a ghost?
Anything you can tell us about the upcoming storyline?
The Spirit Crow Casino discovers that Jackson is still alive and are pissed. Before Jackson was in jail he tried to rip off the Spirit Crow family for millions of dollars and it cost him the lives of his whole team. When they find out Jackson is alive they try to hunt him down.
Jackson learns that a cult has been keeping demon possessed women from their homes, and have taken the one of the granddaughters of the Spirit Crow’s owner. They know that Jackson has experience with the supernatural and want Jackson to find her and get her back. What the cult is doing with the possessed women is twisted and will shock you.
And we see that Jackson is haunted by more than just his past…
It’s going to be a bloody and scary ride. And of course more haunted houses!
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Thanks Josh!
Josh is on Twitter, where he routinely runs trivia games and rewards fans with variant covers. In fact, he’s doing it tomorrow (11/07) at 10am and one at 1pm, both PST. Give him a follow. Josh is also on Tumblr, where he posts cool background info on Ghosted, great artwork, and lots of other good stuff. Check it out.
