Mad Cave Studios is getting positively electric with a new graphic novel biography of inventor Nikola Tesla, titled Thomas Edison Rulez. Just kidding, it’s actually titled Nikola Tesla, and it’s writtern by Sergio Rossi, with art by Giovanni Scarduelli, letters by Giulia Gabrielli, and translated by Lucy Lenzi.
The framing device for the new book finds, per PR, “two collaborators attempting to make sense of Tesla’s life” and blends the fictionalized biography of the man with bigger “cultural reflection.”
Here’s the official synopsis:
Who was Nikola Tesla? A brilliant inventor or a visionary uncoupled from his time? In this fictionalized exploration of his life, two filmmakers set out to settle the debate. Growing up in poverty in the mid-19th century under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Tesla studied and became an engineer on his own strength. He emigrated to America, where he was employed in the laboratory of the famous Thomas Edison, the inventor of the phonograph and the light bulb. But corruption and competition among Tesla’s colleagues–chief among them Edison himself–led to the “War of Currents,” a heated race for control of the world electricity market. Tesla came out on top of that race, but a strange and tragic confluence of events and prejudices led to his public downfall. With more than two hundred different patents and inventions over his lifetime, including the remote control and fluorescent lighting, Tesla is remembered today as one of the most important innovators in modern history. Sergio Rossi and Giovanni Scarduelli’s funny, heartfelt retelling speaks not only to the inventor’s legacy, but to our relationship with technology and the very concept of “genius.”
Mad Cave teases that Rossi has a background in “physics, science communication, publishing, and comics history,” meaning there’s a bit more here than drawing a Wikipedia page. And this is just the latest collaboration between the publisher and Italian publisher Becco Giallo, bringing English translations to the US.
Nikola Tesla hits stores on August 11, 2026, but you can check out a preview below.
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