Escape Isn’t a Choice. It’s Survival.
Welcome to The Mall. Where your life is the merchandise.
Mad Cave Studios is proud to announce XERO, a defiant, genre-bending original graphic novel from debut writer Vaho and artist Felipe Flores. This haunting dystopian journey blends pop art, manga, and philosophical horror into a searing meditation on late-stage consumerism, false comfort, and the cost of waking up…
The adventures of Xero center on his search for his half-forgotten and pregnant girlfriend, Donna. What’s worse is that he’s stuck in a doomed reality he doesn’t even know he’s trapped in: a subterranean Mall designed to incubate humans until they are sacrificed. As Xero pursues Donna, he unravels a monstrous conspiracy spanning back before an apocalypse he does not even know happened.
Xero discovers that his life in the Endless Mall is really just a waiting game in a sacrificial bubble. His plunge down the rabbit hole will lead him further away from his droll, comfortable life and challenge him to fight against this mega-structure and the malevolent forces behind it.
“Felipe drew a few panels of a recurring dream he had, and I got to build a universe from it!” said Vaho. “He’s granted me access to an ether of ideas I never knew existed. What an absolute honor it’s been working with him and Mad Cave in bringing Xero to life.”
“Xero is a pure comic book,” said Felipe Flores. “We went to Mad Cave and told them we wanted to make a maximal piece of pop art, with each page referencing a different era and style. We wanted to revive the compressed storytelling of the Bronze Age while weaving in and out of Manga, Video Games, and Film—to tell a story that can only be done in comics. Surely, a publisher would need to be mad to allow us to create such a thing.”
Xero pulls readers into a world where nostalgia is weaponized, freedom is a lie, and identity is currency. Filled with Easter Eggs that true comics and pop culture buffs won’t want to miss, this story doesn’t just explore dystopia—it rips it wide open, asking: what if you were the product all along?
The OGN is sure to resonate with fans of Severance, Neuromancer, We Live, and Descender—or anyone ready to escape the system before it eats them alive. Xero will be available in bookstores and comic shops on October 7, 2025.
Get the latest news on Mad Cave Studios on social media, or visit www.madcavestudios.com to check out the full lineup of new releases, licenses, and celebrated creator-owned titles!
Author Profile
- I'm Al Mega the CEO of Comic Crusaders, CEO of the Undercover Capes Podcast Network, CEO of Geekery Magazine & Owner of Splintered Press (coming soon). I'm a fan of comics, cartoons and old school video games. Make sure to check out our podcasts/vidcasts and more!
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