Jack Kirby made me believe in magic. He immersed me into the cosmic depths of his imagination and infused raw power into every panel he created. I was affected from my first glance at his work and I instantly became a lifelong fan.
I felt that magic again this past Christmas when my good friend Jeff Smith gave me his copy of The Demon #1 as a gift. This issue has been the Holy Grail of my collection for years, and although I did manage to get my hands on all fifteen of the subsequent issues of the original series, that first issue was always out of my reach.
Jack Kirby’s The Demon is my all-time favorite comic book series, and it earned a coveted place in my collection of long boxes. This series had it all – arcane sorcery, witchcraft, history, legend, mystery, the occult, weird happenings and a infernal anti-hero unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. And nobody made magic like the King!
Cracking open this issue took me back to the magic of late 70s summers. Riding my bike to the local used book store, I’d frisk their spinner rack in search of Bronze Age comic books, and anything interesting I could get my hands on. I discovered The Demon around that time and it became my quest to collect the entire run. Each issue I found just got me more and more hooked. I was finally able to collect most of the run except for this elusive first issue. And now after all these years, my favorite comic book run is complete.
Thanks so much, brother! This is just what Merlin ordered!
