John Cusack stepped into the spotlight at San Diego Comic-Con, showcasing his latest creation, a graphic novel titled Momo.
“I’ve always believed graphic novels come closest to filmmaking,” Cusack, now 60, explained to Variety on Friday, July 24. “Crafting a graphic novel involves selecting shots in a cinematic way. I had a story to tell, and I wanted to do it without the compromises filmmaking often demands.”
He elaborated further, noting that, “In the movie business, when someone invests $20 or $30 million, they naturally want a say and often worry about various factors. With this project, I simply penned it and thought, ‘I love this story.’”
Cusack authored Momo independently. This heist-meets-road trip adventure, with a sci-fi twist, is set in 1972 and will be released by Mad Cave Studios.
While many of the biggest names of the ’80s launched their careers in that vibrant decade, a number of their peers from the era have chosen to lead quieter lives today. Icons like Tom Cruise, famous for his iconic scene in Risky Business, and members of the Brat Pack made their marks in the 1980s. Explore which stars rose to fame during this unforgettable decade — and discover where they are now!
“I got this beautiful, wonderful artist, Ignacio [Noé], to do the illustrations,” he said on Friday. “Nobody edited anything I wrote or what he drew, and so, it’s really a piece of work done by two people. … It was just me and Ignacio’s story, and that doesn’t happen today. It’s an anti-algorithm thing, like, there’s no committee and there’s no computer up in Seattle that’s poll-testing it.”
Cusack debuted his first graphic novel at SDCC on Friday.
“It’s not ‘on brand.’ It’s more like a brand-buster,” he told Forbes ahead of his panel. “It is based on a true story. It’s all in recently declassified files that I managed to obtain.”
Cusack, who hinted to Forbes that he is already working on a sophomore book with Noé, further detailed his motivation for pivoting into the literary industry.
Several A-listers have decided to say goodbye to Los Angeles and grow roots elsewhere. Years after This Is Us came to an end, for example, star Chrissy Metz relocated from the City of Angels to Nashville. “I was in L.A. for 21 years, but my family is in Florida, where I’m from, and during the […]
“Back when I was starting to make movies, you would find people who had aspirations to do something totally unique, not just installments in a franchise or something that fit their business strategy,” he stated. “I wanted to do something like movies from a different era, and no matter what happens, if someone reads it and likes it, I count that as a success.”
Cusack has notably been acting since the 1980s, beginning with his breakout role in John Hughes’ Sixteen Candles. He later starred in films such as Say Anything, High Fidelity, Must Love Dogs, Serendipity and America’s Sweethearts.
In the years since his film success, Cusack has stepped back from the stoplight.
“I was lucky that I never had the desire, or no one asked me to do any sequels. There’s one that I think would be interesting to do, which would be 1408,” he quipped during a Say Anything screening last year, per People. “Just because … I think today, you know, most movies suck. There’s still the horror psychological, you know, that Rod Serling kinda stuff. That’s still pretty pure. If you can pull off something like that, it’s fun.”