Rock and roll and comic books have a lot of crossover appeal to each other’s fans. Beyond just the fans, though, many rock musicians would love to write their own comic books. Here are six famous rock musicians who did just that.
1 Gene Simmons. Simmons was a big Marvel Comics fan growing up, and he naturally jumped at the opportunity for KISS to have its own Marvel comic in the late 1970s. KISS has had a number of other comic book series over the years from both Image Comics and Dark Horse Comics, but in 2007, Simmons launched his own line of comics from IDW Publishing. Simmons came up with characters and plots for three miniseries that other writers then scripted, Zipper, Dominatrix, and House of Horrors. Simmons’s son, Nick, wrote his own comic, Incarnate, which the family promoted on their reality show, Gene Simmons Family Jewels.
2 Claudio Sanchez. Since 2004, Sanchez, the front man for the progressive rock band Coheed and Cambria, has used his comic book The Amory Wars to elaborate on the lyrics from Coheed and Cambria’s albums.
3 Glenn Danzig. Danzig, founder and front man for the Misfits, then Samhain, and now Danzig, is a longtime comic book fan. Since the early 1990s, he has had his own publishing company, Verotik, which he has used to publish adults-only horror comic books.
4 Rob Zombie. Like Danzig, Zombie, the founder and lead singer of the band White Zombie and a multiple Grammy Award nominee, is a lifelong comic book and horror fan. He has directed a number of popular horror films, and in 2003 he got into comic books as well, with the horror anthology Spookshow International. He has also written a number of comic books with former rock musician Steve Niles, who is now a renowned comic book creator.
5 Gerard Way. Way, the lead singer of My Chemical Romance, actually wrote a comic book when he was just sixteen years old for a small independent comic company. It was not until 2007, though, that Way returned to comics in a big way with the critically acclaimed miniseries The Umbrella Academy (with artist Gabriel Ba) for Dark Horse Comics, about a group of superpowered siblings who are reunited years after a tragedy tears them apart. It won the Eisner Award for Best Limited/Finite Series. He has since written a sequel and is planning a third.
6 Scott Ian. Ian has been the lead guitarist for the heavy metal band Anthrax since the band began in 1981. He has always been a vocal supporter of comic books, and in 2009, he got the opportunity to write one for DC Comics, starring the popular character Lobo. Lobo: Highway to Hell was created by Ian with noted comic book artist Sam Kieth.