Tesla has become cultural shorthand for genius… but the shortest version rarely tells the whole story. This summer, Mad Cave Studios’ comixology Originals line presents Nikola Tesla, a witty and unexpectedly human graphic novel from writer Sergio Rossi, artist Giovanni Scarduelli, letterer Giulia Gabrielli, and translator Lucy Lenzi that looks past the mythology surrounding one of history’s most iconic inventors.

Framed through the conversations of two collaborators attempting to make sense of Tesla’s life, the book blends fictionalized biography with cultural reflection, examining innovation, ambition, authorship, and the narratives history leaves behind.

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.”

Rossi, whose background spans physics, science communication, publishing, and comics history, brings both technical insight and narrative nuance to the story, while Scarduelli—known for his visually rich biographical work—renders a dynamic portrait of a figure whose life was as volatile as the inventions that helped reshape the modern world.

Part of Mad Cave’s growing slate of English-language releases in collaboration with Italian publisher Becco Giallo, Nikola Tesla moves beyond traditional biography, blending historical portraiture with cultural interrogation in a smart, emotionally grounded examination of invention, ambition, and the uneasy mythology of genius.

Nikola Tesla goes on sale August 11, 2026, in paperback (ISBN: 9781545827659 | $19.99) format.