8 Graphic Novels & Comics Written by Celebrities

There was a time, not so long ago, when comics writers toiled in obscurity, famous among comic fans but little known outside the hallowed bullpens of publishers large and small. Lately, though, that’s begun to change: people like Neil Gaiman and Robert Kirkman have managed to attract a broader fame and notoriety that was previously only possible if your name was “Stan Lee.” Those big names have brought new readers into the fold, and there’s been an unexpected side effect of that newfound respectability: celebrities and artists from outside the comics field have been courted as writers, if they didn’t actually come knocking.
There is certainly a unique set of skills involved in writing a graphic novel, and it’s not at all the case that anyone can do it—but we can think of more than a handful of famous outsiders who have managed to bring new ideas and unique perspectives to the comics page, not to mention bringing in new readers. Just this month, actor Ethan Hawke’s Indeh hit stores: it’s an elegiac history of the bloody period of the Apache Wars, handled with surprising sensitivity. B-ball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabar, a Sherlock fan, has a book starring Holmes brother Mycroft coming in August. There will be others, no doubt: maybe a lot of others. Here are some of the best, weirdest, and most interesting graphic novels from celebrity writers.

Kevin Smith and Daredevil: Guardian Devil
Filmmaker, comedian, podcaster, and general nerd-about-town Kevin Smith has legit comics cred, having expressed his obsession with comics and pop culture (particularly Star Wars) in all of his films, going back to 1994’s indie game-changer Clerks. He even owns Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash, a comic book store in Jersey. So it’s not at all surprising that he’s managed to parley that interest into a few writing gigs, beginning with a Chasing Amy/Dogma crossover way back in the late ’90s. While there are a few books that we could have selected here (Green Arrow: Quiver and Batman: Cacophony are easy runners-up), it’s his first superhero work that’s the most influential.
A premiere book of the now-defunct Marvel Knights imprint, Daredevil: Guardian Devil was intended as a stand-alone story intended to reintroduce (or, hopefully, introduce) readers to the character. The whole line was intended to bring in top talent to reinvent some of Marvel’s heroes, particularly the b-listers. Smith’s story involved a baby given to Matt Murdoch for protection, a child that the teenage mother claims to be some kind of messiah. There’s more to it then that, of course, with traditional bad guy Bullseye showing up, the death of a major supporting player, and an ending that takes on some very meta shadings. The Marvel Universe as a whole soon took cues from the more serious tone of Smith’s book, bringing the company a newfound jolt of energy following a near-disastrous bankruptcy. It also served as the beginning of a much longer series, which only got better under Brian Michael Bendis. Years-long delays on a couple of later projects lost Smith some of the goodwill that he’d earned, but this series, in particular, set a high bar for celebrity graphic novelists to come.

Felicia Day and The Guild
Day is been an actress, comedian, and writer who has appeared on great nerdy shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dollhouse, Eureka, and Supernatural, but her biggest claim to fame is probably The Guild, the webseries that she created (and starred in) way back in 2007, when “webseries” were barely even a thing. Running for six seasons, the show remains one of the most popular of its type, and is still genuinely funny. It follows Codex (AKA Cyd Sherman), part of a gamers’ guild whose comfortable lives of online-only social interaction are shattered when the Wizard Zaboo, a guild-mate, shows up in person at Cyd’s house. Day took things a step further in the graphic novel tie-in: also called The Guild, the book serves as a prequel to the series, and, with the aide of artist Jim Rugg, goes a bit deeper into the personal lives of the Knights of Good. Given her geeky inclinations, it’s hard to believe that we won’t see more of this sort of thing from Day.

Brian Posehn and Deadpool
Another avowed nerd, comedian Posehn has movie credits that go back to The Wedding Singer, with TV roles on Mission Hill, The Sarah Silverman Program, and about a zillion other things in the intervening years. Unlike some other part-time graphic novelists who have worked on one-and-done projects or the occasional one-shot, Posehn had a sustained and very consequential run on Deadpool, running to more than 40 issues, alongside co-writer Gerry Duggan. Marvel puts out a lot of Deadpool stuff, but Posehn has been active on the core book, which began with the resurrection of dead presidents and the need for a special kind of merc to put down America’s former leaders, and provided a happy ending for Wade Wilson (for a time) before killing him off (for a time). While some of the celebrities on this list could be called dabblers, Posehn really paid his dues.

Anthony Bourdain and Get Jiro!
The two volumes of Bourdain’s Get Jiro! (co-written with Joel Rose, with art by Langdon Foss and José Vilarrubia) are surprisingly bonkers. I’m not sure what you’d expect from a celebrity chef/reality TV star/guy-who-swears-a-lot, but Jiro! absolutely involves cooking, so there’s that. There are no recipes, though: it takes place in a future that you might think of as the food-ageddon. Los Angeles is ruled over by two rival warlords, both of whom happen to be super-chefs. Despite having no real discernment or taste, cowed masses fight for years over reservations to the very best restaurants. Jiro is a sushi chef who will happily slice off your head for ordering something as gauche as a California roll (the sequel is appropriately subtitled Blood and Sushi). It’s weird, violent, and uniquely fascinating as you could ask for from a sci-fi take on modern foodie culture from a guy with his finger on that particular pulse.

Jennifer Love Hewitt and Music Box
TV star, director, country singer, and brand-unto-herself Hewitt loses a couple of points for only contributing the concepts to Music Box, the graphic novel that bears her name, but she gains a few back for contributing something a little different to a marketplace that’s has enough sci-fi and superheroes (just kidding: it’s never enough). Hewitt brought her Ghost Whisperer cred to bear on the well-reviewed anthology collection, full of stories about the creepy happenings brought about by the titular cursed music box. I’m not sure how much overlap there is between Jennifer Love Hewitt fans and hardcore comic geeks (there’s zero shame, after all, in wearing out your Party of Five DVDs and haunting your local comic store every Wednesday), but hers is a name that surely has gotten a few new pairs of eyes looking at comics.

Gerard Way and Umbrella Academy
Emo alt-rocker Gerard Way wrote his first comic at the age of 16, well before co-founding My Chemical Romance, so he’s not just moonlighting, and it shows. The first Umbrella Academy book won the Eisner Award for Best Limited Series and did well enough that there was talk of first a film, and now, a television series. The book takes place in an alternate 1977 in which John F. Kennedy was never killed, and features a sort-of super-team composed of seven children adopted by an alien who collectively make up the parts of a modern Messiah. Before one of them goes bad. It’s got a little bit of a Hellboy vibe, with its own very unique voice, which makes it a bit of a rarity among celebrity-penned graphic novels, which tend to riff on existing tropes. Unlike several other celebs on this list who weren’t above getting a little help in the form of co-authors, Way’s the sole credited writer on Umbrella Academy, which has art by Gabriel Ba. He’s also written The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys and has a couple more volumes of Umbrella Academy coming, which suggests that Way is as much of a celebrity comic writer as he is a graphic novelist who happens to do other stuff.

Samuel L. Jackson and Cold Space
It’s hard to imagine Jackson would have ever have had time to work on a comic book, what with his contributions to Afro Samurai, voice work (including the audiobook of the poignant bestseller, Go the F**k to Sleep), appearances in almost every Marvel movie, getting those snakes off of that plane, and a million other things. No wonder he’s always so keyed up: you’d have to be with that kind of schedule. Nevertheless, he’s a big fan of comics (if that’s not proof that it’s cool to read them…), and wrote Cold Space with his Afro Samurai collaborator Eric Calderon, working with illustrator Jeremy Rock. Cold Space “stars” Jackson as a profiteer named Mulberry, trapped on a planet torn by civil war. Not only does Jackson co-write the book, but his likeness is the model for the main character, with parallels to way that Jackson was cast as Nick Fury because the character in The Ultimates was modeled on the actor. If you’re going to get Samuel L. to write a book, you’d be foolish not to ask him to play the lead character.

John Lewis and March
Calling congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis a “celebrity” absolutely feels like it’s doing him a disservice, but he’s nevertheless probably among the last people that one would expect to write a graphic novel, especially one as successful as March. One of Lewis’ inspirations as a young activist was a 1958 comic called “Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story” (well worth grabbing if you can find an old copy), which he describes as his entry point into comics and this trilogy. In the books, Lewis tells of the civil rights movement from his own perspective, centered around the events of the Selma to Montgomery march in 1965. By talking personally rather than broadly about his life and those years, Lewis and co-author Andrew Aydin go well beyond the standard history lesson. The story is inspiring, the black-and-white art (by Nate Powell) is gorgeous, and the book places one of our unlikeliest graphic novel writers among the very best.
Who’s your favorite celebrity graphic novelist?