“How long have I been playing this game? …How long have I been in this arcade?”
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…
XERO
Writer: Vaho – Artist: Felipe Flores
Release Date: October 7th, 2025
Synopsis:
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.
Writer, Vaho
Founder of Lose Face Productions in Berkeley, California where he produced black-box theatre productions of contemporary plays. After performing in the Bay Area theatre scene for several years, Vaho relocated to Los Angeles to work with illustrator Felipe Flores to create “XERO”, their first graphic novel.
Vaho has a B.A. (Honors) in Philosophy from the University of Victoria, British Columbia. He was born in the Republic of Georgia, but grew up in Australia and Canada.
Artist, Felipe Flores
Felipe Flores is a Long Beach, California-based illustrator and cartoonist. His art career started in the Los Angeles DIY music scene, where he designed flyers and album covers for bands, including Cosmonauts and Tijuana Panthers. Through his connections in local music, he became head editorial cartoonist for OC Weekly. He has an interest in the esoteric, designing Tarot Card Decks from Christina Ricci and Paramount Pictures for Insight Editions.
Drawing from touchstones like The Matrix, Dark City, and THX-1138, 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?
Xero will be available in bookstores and comic shops on October 7, 2025. 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.
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