Z2 Comics is reviving Johnny Cash's self-funded 1976 comic book
Hello, I'm Johnny Cash gets a 50th anniversary edition with new covers from Chip Kidd and Tim Bradstreet, plus fresh interviews. It will arrive on this year's Local Comic Shop Day.
Before Gene Simmons bled into a Marvel comic, and before "rock star does a graphic novel" was a whole cottage industry, Johnny Cash was already there, writing his own book. Z2 Comics, working with the Cash estate, is republishing Hello, I'm Johnny Cash, a long-forgotten comic co-written by the Man in Black with Billy Zeoli that self-funded back in 1976, a full year before Simmons' infamous stunt.
The original ran through Spire Christian Comics, with art and cover work from Archie Comics legend Al Hartley, an odd-couple pairing that somehow makes total sense once you know Cash actually cared about the medium and wasn't just slapping his name on merch. That's the pitch here: this wasn't licensing; it was Cash using comics as a direct line to young readers, at a moment when celebrities barely acknowledged the format existed.
The 50th anniversary edition (out September 23, 2026, timed to Local Comic Shop Day) reproduces the 1976 book faithfully and adds two new variant covers from Kidd and Bradstreet, plus a new interview with John Carter Cash and historical context from writer Alex Segura.
"It was fairly unusual for musicians to have licensed comic books back in the late '70s," Carter Cash said in the announcement, adding that seeing it reissued decades later "says as much about the fans as it does about him."
Z2 president Josh Bernstein leaned into the framing hard, saying, "Before Gene Simmons and KISS poured their blood into a Marvel Comic... there was Mr. Johnny Cash." Whether or not you buy the direct lineage, it's a fair point that celebrity comics didn't start with a publicity stunt — they started with someone actually trying to say something.
Hello, I'm Johnny Cash is available for preorder now at z2comics.com, hitting shops on September 23, 2026.
Source: Z2 Comics
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