Design and creative director Raphael O’Selle has spent five years developing XIAI, a sci-fi comic universe rooted in memory, ancestry and identity, launching openly online ahead of a Kickstarter campaign for Book One in September 2026.
The question came from watching. Raphael O’Selle grew up on Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Paprika and The Animatrix, and understood early what animation could do for philosophy, identity and imagined futures. “I’ve always loved sci-fi,” he says. “I just realised one day that the futures I loved rarely included us. XIAI is my attempt to change that.”
XIAI is a sci-fi comic universe set in a world where ancestral memory has become dangerous. In this world, remembering the past is forbidden because memory carries knowledge, and knowledge threatens systems built on control. At the centre of the story is Aevi, a character who begins to hear the voices and experiences of the ancestors. That awakening sets off a chain of events that forces her to confront both the power of what she carries and the forces determined to suppress it. Five years of writing and world-building preceded the project’s official launch in January 2026, when it began its public life as a comic, characters and environments brought to life through sequential art by a small team of collaborating artists.
The project is being built openly: trailers, character reveals and behind-the-scenes progress are shared publicly as the world grows, inviting audiences to witness the construction of a new universe from the ground up. The first major milestone is a Kickstarter campaign launching in September 2026 to fund Book One, with the long-term goal of expanding into animation.
“Stories shape how we imagine the future,” O’Selle says. “I wanted to build one where our history, our memory and our identity are part of that future.”
XIAI is, as O’Selle frames it, part of a larger movement in speculative storytelling where creators are building futures shaped by culture, heritage and memory. His contribution is one that began with a question he stopped waiting for someone else to answer.
Raphael O’Selle is a design and creative director with a decade of experience in advertising, now channelling his storytelling expertise into comics and animation.
Website: xiaicomics.com Instagram: @xiaicomics
XIAI, ongoing. Concept artwork by Kapumax Omega. © XIAI. Kickstarter for Book One launching September 2026.
