John Cusack is embracing a new creative chapter, and the longtime actor says stepping into the world of graphic novels has given him something he rarely finds in Hollywood: complete artistic freedom.

While attending San Diego Comic-Con 2026, the Serendipity star spoke with Variety about his upcoming graphic novel Momo, explaining why he decided to tell his latest story through comics instead of film.

Cusack said graphic novels have always reminded him of movies because of how visual the storytelling feels.

“I always thought they were the closest things to film, really,” he said. “You’re picking out shots, they’re so cinematic.”

Illustrated by Ignacio Noé and published by Mad Cave Studios, Momo is scheduled to arrive on September 29. The story follows two fugitives in 1972 who join forces to recover an ancient artifact for television icon Jackie Gleason, blending science fiction, political satire, and an unconventional road trip into one genre bending adventure.

For Cusack, the biggest attraction was being able to tell the story without studio interference.

“I thought, I wanna tell a story, but I didn’t wanna negotiate telling a story, really,” he explained. “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.”

Instead, he and Noé were able to create the book exactly as they envisioned it.

“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. Nobody edited anything I wrote or that he drew. It’s really a piece of work that was just done by two people who did a great job putting it out.”

Cusack described the experience as something increasingly rare in today’s entertainment industry.

“It doesn’t happen today,” he said, calling the project “an anti algorithm thing.”

“There’s no bull, and there’s no committee. There’s no computer up in Seattle that’s poll testing it.”

Although Momo marks his first graphic novel, it is not his first published work. Cusack previously co wrote the 2016 essay collection Things That Can and Cannot Be Said.

He also revealed that if the graphic novel eventually becomes a movie, he would happily return to the screen as part of the adaptation.

Beyond discussing his latest project, Cusack reflected on his film career. During a December screening of his 1989 classic Say Anything, he was asked whether he would ever revisit one of his older movies with a sequel.

“I was lucky that I never had the desire, or no one asked me to do any sequels,” he joked.

However, there is one exception.

“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 said with a laugh.

Cusack’s Comic-Con appearance also comes as his sister, actress Joan Cusack, has recently become more visible in public again. In May, she attended the Toy Story 5 premiere in London, marking her first red carpet appearance since September 2015 after an 11 year absence.