It is now Day 20 of Howard Simpson’s month-long Jack Kirby Tribute. Open to all creatives, you can find participants’ Kirby Tributes on your favorite social media platforms by the hashtag #KirbyArtTributes.
Today’s prompt is Etrigan the Demon. One of Kirby’s post-Fourth World titles he created for DC, this was something very different. Rooted in the kinds of word-of-mouth stories about the supernatural that Kirby heard growing up, plus classic Universal monster movies and the like, Kirby also gave it a tie-in to Merlin and the Arthurian legends. The title character was a demon pressed into service on the side of the angels, and another unique angle on it was that Merlin had set things up so that he was a demon possessed by a man (as opposed to the other way around).
The Demon’s original run lasted only 16 issues, but apparently the concept was such that it caught the eye of a number of subsequent comics creators, and over the years that followed they all took their shot at doing something with the character.
I’d never tried drawing the Demon before. It was fun trying to get that expression!
Enjoy, and please feel free to tune in again tomorrow!