30 Days of Night Review

written by: SAH

For anyone who likes horror stories, vampires or good creepy tales, this comic book, available now in trade paperback edition, is worth reading. This very short, but well produced story revolves around a simple concept and, as stated by one of the characters in the story, " I can't believe [no one] ever though of this before."

The story by Steve Niles is based around some basic principles -- vampire, darkness and isolation are scary -- and Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost town in North America, is for 30 days a year, covered in unbreaking darkness.

As I'm sure many of you know, vampires like the dark. And the vampires in this tale not only like it - they love it. And, what is also important to note is that these are not your Hollywood/Ann Rice vampires. These suckers are ugly, brutal and have mouths filled with razor sharp pointy teeth -- more like piranha than your stereotypical vampire.

In addition to a brilliantly simplistic story, this book is filled with some of the rawest creepy art around by Ben Templesmith.

It is good, it is creepy and it reads very fast. In fact, my only complaint is that it's too short -- way too short. I felt like there was a lot more there, but we didn't get to see or hear it. I suppose in some ways, that's the point - it is certainly meant to be fast-paced.

If this sounds good to you so far, I suggest hunting down a copy. It may be tricky as they are selling as fast as they are printing, but it's probably worth it if you like this sort of thing.

In what I consider to be an interesting side note, the comic book has been looking for a publisher for a long time. It actually started as a movie script. After shopping it around and being rejected many times, the author finally decided to do it as a comic book and publish it himself. He hooked up with an artist and they have managed to crank out the sleeper hit of the year. As an epilogue to the tale, the hit of the comic has brought more movie deals to their doors than they could shake a stick at. And the bidding ended when Sam Raimi bought the rights for a cool million dollars. He will now of course be turning it into a movie (which was the author's goal all along). And, if we are lucky, it will be a damn good one. I have no doubt about Raimi's comic book adaptation skill (Spider-man ruled), I just hope he chooses to make it an R film for adults and not a PG-13 film for the kiddies. If he goes with the former, it should rule - if he tones it down and goes for the latter, it will kill the feel of the story and probably end up being lame. I guess only time will tell.

If you like fast-paced horror fiction and bloody vampire tales - check this one out.

I give it a B.

Check out Steve Nile's website for more on 30 Days of Night.

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