Exorcism Island, the new series from Jordan Thomas and Chris Matthews on Comixology, is the sort of high concept idea that it’s surprising nobody thought of before. In short, instead of having to deal with exorcisms one by one, the church has created a remote island where they can ship those demonically possessed and deal with them all at the same time. And while it is as wild (and violent) as you might expect, there’s a lot more going on in the series thanks to multiple timelines, nuanced views of the church, and the tropical setting.
“Most of the rules were fairly embedded from previous exorcism stories,” Thomas told Comic Book Club over email. “I’m a big horror fan in all mediums – comics, film, TV, prose – so, I had a big body of possession rules to pull from and I just built my version of what I liked best and what made sense and what was most interesting based around the tradition of Catholic demonic possession stories.”
To find out more about the book, read on.
Comic Book Club: I love the use of color to delineate the different timelines – but from both writing and art perspective, how difficult was that to construct?
Chris Matthews: I think the main difficulty was on Jordan‘s side. Especially during the opening few pages. For me it was just a question of finding colours that fit the different locations over the series.
Jordan Thomas: Once we settled on the concept of every different location and time period having its own colour it was just a case of Chris drawing the issue and us going through and establishing which scenes were linked and ensuring we didn’t mess it up between issues!
Similarly, the houses forming a cross on the island is such a striking image… What led to this? Or was it just an “aha!” moment?
Matthews: If I remember right, Jordan had the image pop into his head one night while laying in bed. After that it was just up to me to match his idea.
Thomas: That was the original image that popped into my head randomly and led to everything else. It was always the key image the whole first issue was built around, with our opening being a literal count down with less panels on each page until we arrived at the splash page of that image.
This is jumping back, but the basic concept of Exorcism Island is both simple and complicated, as you explore in the first issue… What was it like laying out the rules for this world?
Thomas: I think most of the rules were fairly embedded from previous exorcism stories. I’m a big horror fan in all mediums – comics, film, TV, prose – so, I had a big body of possession rules to pull from and I just built my version of what I liked best and what made sense and what was most interesting based around the tradition of Catholic demonic possession stories.
In a certain way, this flips the script from your requisite exorcism story in that the focus is on the priests, not the victims. What led to that choice?
Thomas: Hmm… I don’t know really. I tend to just go with my gut when I write and that’s how the story flowed for me. It was these people put in this terrible, hopeless situation and seeing how they dealt with it was very interesting to me. I think the best pure exorcism story has already been told, so shifting focus to characters affected by the possessed and came naturally. Plus, what’s scarier than one possessed person? Thirteen! I wanted the possessed to feel like this overwhelming force, where we do get an idea of them as individual characters but they all kind of share one vicious personality.
You have your demonic entity point towards molestation scandals that have plagued the church. Under no circumstance do you have to give it to them, but do these demons have a point?
Thomas: I suppose the things that hurt people the most are the insults and attacks that have truth to them. If you have a nasty argument with someone, people always go after the weakest areas, the things they know will hurt the most, and demons are probably going to be the absolute worst for wanting to go after people in this way to get a reaction.
What can you tease about what’s coming up in the series?
Thomas: We’ve got some really fun, terrible characters readers are yet to meet. We delve more into some of the history of what’s going on and the potential conspiracies around some of it, and just continue to really put our poor characters through the ringer.Chris: There‘s the addition of a few great characters throughout the series, so stay tuned for those, but my favourite character joins the story in issue 2. Other than that, Jordan continues to write some more great but horrible moments.
Exorcism Island #2 hits Comixology on November 18, 2025. You can check out a preview of the issue below:
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