GRANT MORRISON

Shifting identities: the comics star tells us about their debut novel

- Jonathan Wright

THE LAST TIME GRANT MORRISON completed a novel - at least until Covid-19 hit they were 18 years old. Set in Glastonbury, and imagining the Arthurian world colliding with the present day, it was, says Morrison, "super [Alan] Garner-esque". Nothing wrong with that - most novelists have juvenilia locked in a drawer. Yet, despite enjoying a glittering career in comics, it has taken Morrison over 40 years to finish another, Luda.

In part, it seems, this gap is down to Dennis Potter. "He had this amazing withering quote," says Morrison. "He said, 'The novel, it's just 'he said, she said and descriptions of the sky!' I was like, 'Oh my god!' And that kind of described my writing, frankly. So that's why I was much happier to work in comics and media that had pictures, where I wasn't actually responsible for descriptions of the sky."

Morrison's laughing as they say this, but an interest in the form endured. The problem was that they would embark on novels that would "get to page 250 and then die on the vine". What was different about Luda? The pandemic for one thing. Where usually Morrison spends time travelling for work, they found themselves at home, "focused". And while Morrison is careful to acknowledge the horrors of the pandemic, and the scale of loss, a part of them nonetheless enjoyed the weirdness of lockdown: "It was like being in an eclipse. Something was edited out of the world."

UNDER THE GLAMOUR