You’ll have Jason Blood on your hands…
Remarkably, Jack Kirby has only gotten a couple of Absolute Editions from DC over the years, both centering on the Fourth World.
That’s set to change in the late summer of 2026 with the anticipated publication of The Demon by Jack Kirby: Absolute Edition.
Dig the info, tucked into DC’s latest solicitations:
THE DEMON BY JACK KIRBY: ABSOLUTE EDITION
Written by JACK KIRBY
Art and cover by JACK KIRBY
Part man, part elemental fury, Etrigan the Demon was bound to Jason Blood by Merlin to defend Camelot! Now a demonologist in the streets of 1970s Gotham, he must face a barrage of gothic terror—Morgaine le Fey, Klarion the Witch Boy, and more!
Collecting The Demon #1-16, featuring nearly 200 pages of original pencils and inks, as presented by the Kirby Museum with brand-new essays by the creators that carried forward the legacy of Etrigan, a brand-new foreword by horror legend Stephen Bissette, and more!
$125.00 US | 632 pages | 8 1/8″ x 12 1/4″ | Hardcover | ISBN: 978-1-79950-902-8
ON SALE 9/1/26
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A few thoughts:
— The cover art is labeled NOT FINAL, so it’s subject to change. Doesn’t mean it will, though.
— Absolute Editions pretty much focus on modern comics, going back only as far as the Bronze Age. I guess that means the only other Absolute left to do would be Kamandi, though Super Powers would be a lot of fun. I don’t think there’s enough material there, though.
— This is the second month in a row DC has popped an unexpected Bronze Age Absolute Edition into the solicitations. Last month, it was Neal Adams’ Batman.
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MORE
— BATMAN BY NEAL ADAMS: ABSOLUTE EDITION Coming Summer 2026. Click here.
— DC COMICS to Publish FIVE Facsimile Editions in March. Click here.
December 22, 2025
OMG!!! This is a MUST have!!!
…dare I say, an “Absolute” must.
December 22, 2025
Demon is one of my favorite DC Jack creations. Even though I’m fairly certain I saw him first on Brave and the Bold. Now where I’m not clear, are Absolute editions b/w original artwork scans? Or, a combination of colored and original?
December 22, 2025
Here you go, Buck: https://13thdimension.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-what-defines-treasury-tabloid-facsimile-deluxe-artists-editions-and-more/
December 22, 2025
@Buck – Absolute editions are the stories printed in color as you’d see regularly. Only they are printed in an oversized format.
Artist editions are the formats that you’d see scans of the original artwork.
December 22, 2025
And that’s where the confusion sets in. When it says “…nearly 200 pages of original pencils…” I think un-colored & inked/un-inked.
December 28, 2025
It actually still might be black and white still. Have the old hardcover and there’s a bunch of extra pages showing un-inked artwork and even alternate takes of scenes that were changed during production. It could be that this absolute includes a whole bunch of these as bonus content, which goes a long way towards justifying a double dip to me, along with the essays
December 22, 2025
For my money, The Demon is Kirby’s best artwork. A lot of that has to do with Mike Royer’s inking. For much of his career, Kirby was not served well by the inkers he was paired with (the first five months or so of the Fourth World books hurts my eyes to look at because of Vince Colletta’s inking, as well as Murphy Anderson redrawing all of the Superman and Jimmy faces in Jimmy Olsen). But because Royer inked the entire run of The Demon, this series has a visual consistency that a lot of Kirby’s other work does not have (and is also much truer to Kirby’s pencils). I also really like that Kirby’s artwork had become much more graphical and stylized during this period of his career which, to me, makes it feel more modern than a lot of his other work. Really looking forward to getting this one and seeing the artwork at a much larger size than normal (I love the Absolute format–the comics equivalent of IMAX).
December 22, 2025
Love Kirby’s Demon but I don’t like the reprints, the recoloring is always garish.
I wish it would be re-printed from the actual pencil and inks.
December 22, 2025
I agree with Buck. The wording is a little ambiguous and I would like to know more. Maybe they are going to produce the color pages of the usual Absolute format, but include a generous sampling of pencil-only pages.
I would also like to know about the “brand-new essays by the creators that carried forward the legacy of Etrigan” – perhaps this would include John Byrne and Matt Wagner. I wonder who else?
I also agree with Daniel – “The Demon” has a visual consistency that the Fourth World books just missed (as much as I love them!). There is a thematic consistency, too, and
a sense of completeness that’s missing from many of Jack’s projects. “The Demon” has an ending, a real conclusion that is satisfying.
December 22, 2025
Bill Stout has said that he ghost inked an issue, FYI.
December 30, 2025
@Michael – I was wondering if Bill Stout had mentioned which issue he had inked? I’d be interested in comparing it to the inking of the other issues.