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Black Mask Sell New Calexit Comic At SDCC To Benefit ICE Victims

Black Mask sells a brand new Calexit comic at San Diego Comic-Con To benefit the victims of those targeted by ICE

Published Wed, 23 Jul 2025 12:31:04 -0500

Article Summary

Calexit: Battle Of San Onofre #1 debuts at San Diego Comic-Con from Black Mask Studios and Matteo Pizzolo.
All profits from the new Calexit comic go to Alliance San Diego's Immigrant Relief Fund for ICE victims.
The story follows Zora Donato, radicalized after a DHS raid, mirroring current headlines on immigration.
Calexit comics combine activism and fiction, featuring real organizers and local political candidates.

Calexit: Battle Of San Onofre #1 by Matteo Pizzolo and Butch Mapa, debuting at San Diego Comic-Con from Black Mask Studios, is using its fictional story to help these victims and raise money for the families impacted by the current US administration's ICE raids. Profits from sales will be donated to Alliance San Diego's Immigrant Relief Fund. It tells the story of friends radicalized by a DHS raid at their workplace, and though seemingly ripped from today's headlines, the story was written last year before the current wave of deportations. It can be bought from Exhibit Hall Booth 5536 at the show.

: Calexit at SDCC

Zora Donato was working at a Dunkin Donuts in Oceanside when a Homeland Security raid inspires her to join the Oceanside Resistance and fight back against DHS Occupying Forces entrenched in a newly-declared independent California.

"With Calexit, I do my best to keep the dystopia optimistic and constructive. I focus on characters struggling to do the right thing for each other in a world gone mad," said Pizzolo. "I wrote this character-origin story last year, and it's heartbreaking to see real world events devolve at such a rapid clip and mirror the comic's dark speculation. We're doing what we can with the tools at our disposal, raising money for an organization that is on the frontlines, helping people."

In addition to Calexit: Battle Of San Onofre #1, San Diego Comic Con also marks the debut of new volume Calexit: The Battle Of Universal City.

Previously, Calexit: All Systems San Diego in 2018 was a fundraiser for the San Diego Rapid Response Network and host of Indivisible's voter registration drive. Character Emmie-X became a face of the California 2018 Get Out The Vote campaign. Pizzolo has also contributed his writing royalties to forming a SuperPAC called Become The Government. Each issue of Calexit features a non-fiction section of interviews with activists, organizers, and candidates in local elections. All three candidates covered in Calexit's non-fiction sections prevailed in their primary elections.

Black Mask Studios will be exhibiting at San Diego Comic Con this week at booth 5536 and selling Calexit: Battle Of San Onofre #1 as well as the entire line of Calexit books and stories.

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