NEED TO KNOW
John Cusack discussed his upcoming debut graphic novel, Momo, while attending San Diego Comic-Con 2026
“There’s no bull, and there’s no committee,” he said of being an author as opposed to acting
Momo is scheduled for a Sept. 29 release
John Cusack is elaborating on why he’s shifted from film to writing fiction.
On Friday, July 24, the 60-year-old Serendipity star opened up about his new book Momo and the artistic freedom that the project has brought while speaking to Variety during the 2026 San Diego Comic-Con.
“I always thought they were the closest things to film, really,” he said when asked what intrigued him about translating his ideas into a graphic novel.
John Cusack, ‘Chi-Raq’ press conference, Berlinale International Film Festival Berlin, Feb. 2016
Credit: Matthias Nareyek/WireImage
“You’re picking out shots, they’re so cinematic,” Cusack continued of the writing process.
Momo, which was illustrated by Ignacio Noé, is set to be published by Mad Cave Studios. The novel is described as “a wild, genre-bending road trip with cosmic stakes” that follows two fugitives forming an unlikely alliance in 1972 as they set out to recover an ancient artifact for TV legend Jackie Gleason, mixing sci-fi with political satire.
“I thought, I wanna tell a story, but I didn’t wanna negotiate telling a story, really,” he said of the process. “And when you ask somebody to put $20 or $30 million into a bank account [for a film], they wanna have an opinion and they’re afraid and all that stuff.”
“This was just like, I wrote it, and I said, ‘I like the story,’ and then I got this beautiful, wonderful artist, Ignacio Noé, to do the illustrations and so nobody edited anything I wrote or that he drew. And so it’s really a piece of work that was just done by two people [who] did a great job putting it out.”
Cusack said he and Noé being able to release the project on their terms is something that just “doesn’t happen today,” adding that the project was “an anti-algorithm thing.”
“There’s no bull, and there’s no committee,” he said. “There’s no computer up in Seattle that’s poll testing it.”
Later in his interview, the High Fidelity alum also shared that if fans loved Momo enough for a studio to have it greenlit for film production, he would love to star in the adaptation.
Cusack is making his graphic novel debut with Momo, but the actor previously co-wrote a 2016 collection of essays titled Things that Can and Cannot Be Said.
The 2012 star also isn’t the only famous member of his family who has taken a step back from the spotlight.
John Cusack in ‘Say Anything’ – 1989
Credit: Gracie/Kobal/Shutterstock
In May, his older sister Joan Cusack made her first appearance on a red carpet since September 2015 when she attended the Toy Story 5 London premiere — ending an 11-year hiatus.
Months earlier, John had an interesting take on the film industry when asked during a December screening of his 1989 movie Say Anything if he would ever do any sequels.
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“I was lucky that I never had the desire, or no one asked me to do any sequels,” John said.
“There’s one that I think would be interesting to do, which would be 1408. Just because … I think today, you know, most movies suck,” he laughed.
Momo is scheduled for a Sept. 29 release.
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