Lilah Sturges on her new graphic novel’s blend of ‘ghosts, plus murder, plus queerness’

Writer Lilah Sturges and her wife moved from Austin, Texas, to Portland in April, not expecting to encounter a summertime multi-day heat wave. Last week, as the forecast was predicting the blistering temperatures that have gripped the city since Friday, Sturges took a philosophical view of how the move has been going.

“The political situation in Texas was getting a little toasty, along with the temperature,” Sturges said. “We hate the heat a lot, and we came to Portland, where it’s never 100 degrees.”

Laughing about the local temperature reaching triple digits, Sturges said, “So far, I absolutely love it here in Portland. There are actually a lot of people we know here, and there’s a thriving comic books community, one that I was very excited to join.”

Prior to relocating to the Rose City, Sturges, 53, had built a career writing comics and graphic novels for a variety of publishers, such as Vertigo/DC Comics, Marvel and IDW, as well as writing “Dune: The Official Movie Graphic Novel” and co-writing the Eisner-nominated “Jack of Fables.”

Her newest book is the graphic novel, “The Science of Ghosts,” a page-turning tale illustrated by El Garing, that focuses on a parapsychologist named Joy Ravenna, whose research explores the paranormal. In the graphic novel, Ravenna tries to solve a murder that may have been committed by … a ghost?

Like Sturges, Ravenna is a transgender woman, and the graphic novel explores some of the issues Ravenna faces dealing with her ex-wife, who has unresolved feelings about Ravenna going through a transition while they were married.

At a time when some lawmakers – in Texas, for example – have been proposing laws that seek to limit the rights of LGBTQ+ people, Sturges said a graphic novel like “The Science of Ghosts” seems especially relevant.

“I think it makes it so much more important, because what changes minds is a combination of things, and part of what does that is stories,” she said. “I think stories humanize people, and humanize ‘the other,’ in a way that nothing else really can.”

Writing a story that invites readers in, Sturges said, can make readers think, “Well, that’s a just a person. That’s not someone I need to be afraid of, or concerned about. So, in that way I feel like I’ve done something really meaningful.”

With “The Science of Ghosts,” Sturges said, “I wanted to tell a story with a transgender protagonist that had nothing really to do with the fact that she was trans. Her transness informs the story, but was not the point of the story. It has always been important to me to share that queer people and trans people have rich, fulfilling lives outside of just being queer and trans. That’s not all we are.”

Some people may have a narrative about trans people, and think “that we spend a lot of time being trans,” Sturges said. “When actually, we have lives, just like anybody else. Being trans is just part of who we are.”

Sturges also wanted to tell a story that involves some of her favorite elements. “I love murder mysteries, and I love ghosts, I love anything to do with the paranormal,” she said. “I grew up in the ‘70s, and there was this show called “In Search Of …,’” that Leonard Nimoy hosted.

“I loved that show so much,” Sturges said. “The Science of Ghosts” blends “ghosts, plus murder, plus queerness. So, you know, I’m there.”

In terms of who her audience for “The Science of Ghosts” might be, Sturges said, “Sometimes I vacillate between whether I want my work primarily to be seen by trans people who can claim it, or if I want the work to be experienced by the cisgender, heterosexual folks of the world, who can get some insight into what it’s like to be trans. I’m happy either way. Whichever way it works out. Whichever way it does the most good. And also, at the end of the day, it’s a fun story about ghosts. It’s not probably going to change the world, but it might change a little part of someone’s mind somewhere, and that would be great.”

Sturges also felt a strong personal connection to “Dune: The Official Movie Graphic Novel,” which adapts Denis Villeneuve’s movie “Dune.”

Transforming an epic film into another medium was, Sturges said, “Both very difficult and extremely easy. It’s extremely easy in that I am a lifelong ‘Dune’ fanatic. I read the original novel when I was 12 years old. I’ve seen the David Lynch film dozens of times. So, when I found out that (media company) Legendary was doing the ‘Dune’ adaptation, I basically told my editor that I was going to write it. Like, there wasn’t going to be any kind of process, where they were going to determine who was going to write it. I was like, ‘No I’m writing it, sorry no one else gets to, it’s mine.’ And they kind of went along with it. I could almost write the thing from memory. I had an absolute blast doing it.”

It was challenging to compress “such a voluminous story into a relatively small book,” Sturges said. “But it’s a fun problem to have. And I’m working on the second one right now.”

Sturges’ busy schedule also includes collaborating on “a very big science fiction graphic novel thing with Lev Grossman. The first book comes out in 2026, and we’re working on it right now. It’s something really, really special, and I can’t wait for people to see what we’ve cooked up. I think it’s just one of the most fascinating and fun and sort of exciting things that I’ve ever worked on. Lev is such a wonderful collaborator to work with, he has the best imagination. So we’re having a rollicking time, and I think it’ll show up in the finished product.”

As if all that wasn’t enough, Sturges is also writing a novel, set in Portland. “There’s so much more cultural density here than in Austin,” Sturges said.

The novel is prose, not a comic or graphic novel. “I’ve forgotten how difficult it is, because in comics you don’t have to describe anything,” Sturges said, since illustrations help tell the story.

“I only have to write the dialogue, and tell the artist what to draw,” Sturges said with a laugh. “In this novel, apparently, I have to describe everything.”

— Kristi Turnquist covers features and entertainment. Reach her at 503-221-8227, kturnquist@oregonian.com or @Kristiturnquist

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