Johnny Cash's 1976 Gospel Comic, Drawn by an Archie Artist, Returns for Its 50th Anniversary

In 1976, Johnny Cash did something no one else in country music was doing. He put his life story into a 32-page evangelical comic book called“Hello, I’m Johnny Cash,”priced under fifty cents and published by Spire Christian Comics, an imprint of Fleming H. Revell. What makes it truly strange and wonderful is who drew it: Al Hartley, an artist who spent close to thirty years at Archie Comics. That means Riverdale’s clean lines and wide-eyed expressions carried Cash’s real story of addiction and faith, including a memorable panel with a spilled pill bottle.

The script was written by Billy Zeoli, an evangelical film producer who sent Gerald Ford weekly devotionals. Spire published 59 titles, at least 19 of them Archie books, so this comic was part of a larger moment in Christian publishing. Now, for the 50th anniversary, Z2 Comics is reissuing the book on September 23 for $9.99, limited to 1,000 copies, with new covers by Chip Kidd and Tim Bradstreet and an essay by Alex Segura. New back matter from John Carter Cash confirms that his father and Zeoli talked the entire story through with Hartley on tape, so the comic reflects Cash’s own account of his life.

Fifty years later, it’s still a one-of-a-kind artifact: a country legend’s honest testimony, drawn in the language of Saturday morning cartoons. If you grew up on Cash and comics, this one lands right in the middle of both worlds. Would you track down one of the thousand copies, or do you still have the original stashed in a box somewhere?