"He's Quick on the Draw - That's Grant" - The Govan Press November 12th 1976

Post date: Apr 14, 2013 1:39:13 PM

The text of this newspaper report from 1976 has been floating around on-line for a few years, but here's a scan of the actual clipping. Featuring a 16 year old Grant Morrison, Marvel's Iron Fist and a couple of Grant's own creations, it appeared in Grant's local weekly newspaper The Govan Press in 1976. The revelation that Grant had already 'contributed work' to Marvel UK is probably a reference to a 'Draw a Comic Strip' competition from a 1976 issue of The Titans in which Grant was listed as a runner-up (mentioned in passing in Dez Skinn's Comics International #73), though I've no idea if any of his art was actually published. Anyone out there with a stash of The Titans they can check for me?

The character on the right could well be Luch (or Lugh) of the Long, a sword and sorcery hero created by Morrison and inspired by Celtic legend and Barry Windsor Smith's Conan. The guy on the left with the 'M' on his chest is Monad, alias Scottish marine biologist Iain Kincaid. Monad, whose powers derived from his emotions, spent his only unpublished and incomplete adventure tackling the thorny issue of the Northern Irish Troubles, According to Supergods, Morrison completed 25 pages of the strip before abandoning it, with some of the ideas developed in Monad going on to inspire Morrison's first-long form work; the Captain Clyde newspaper strip which began in 1979.