30 Days of Night by Steve Niles, Ben Templesmith Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of 30 Days of Night
Book Review: Return of the vampire...
Summary: 4 Stars
Set in a town called Barrow in Alaska, "30 Days of Night" tells a story of desperation and isolation with the townspeople at the mercy of an invading horde of vampires.This is a good book. The title is good. The plotline for this book is good. But, "30 Days of Night" suffers slightly because of its weak characterisation.
Steve Niles makes little attempt at developing his characters and therefore, it is very difficult to feel any empathy towards any of his characters - good or bad.
The artwork throughout is heavy on style with inspirational moments. Ben Templesmith's incendiary artwork is appropriate to the book's nightmare theme - though it is, at times, visually incoherent. Nonetheless, the art is still very impressive.
The book marks the welcome return of the vampire as man's fearsome and practically unstoppable nemesis, therefore, "30 Days of Night" is a welcome break from the proliferation and monotony of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which has (apart from Blade, another vampire slayer) monopolised the vampire market for far too long.
Book Review: Great idea, but lacking the required bite
Summary: 3 Stars
What a fantastic premise this book has. How astonishing that no one thought of it before. A mob of vampires descend upon an isolated Alaskan town just as it enters a month-long period of sunlessness. Just imagine the possibilities.But sadly that is exactly what the reader is left doing. Imagining what might have been. For the story is over way, way too quickly. After a wonderfully unsettling opening chapter, promising ample horror ahead, the story loses all sense of momentum. The '30 Day' period reads like 3 days at most. And the conclusion...without giving too much away, what was clearly intended to be a powerful and emotional climax feels hollow, as though the writers were short of time and used it simply because they couldn't find an appropriate ending.
Even so, for its brilliant opening, and the wonderfully vivid, nightmarish artwork throughout, this is well worth a look. And while the end result is more than a little disappointing, the prospect of Sam Raimi taking the concept to the big screen is mouth watering indeed.
Book Review: Dark, violent, bloody, and frantic. Just like my breakfast.
Summary: 5 Stars
Personally I absolutely love this graphic novel. The art is wild and frantic, leaving you wondering what you are looking at a couple of times. This is the perfect feel for this excellent altho rather short horror story. It also makes a great candidate for a movie, which seems to have been noticed as it is indeed being remade for the silver and bloodstain screen.The only possible fault I could find in this is that the story moves so fast as to leave you with no real connection to the characters, but other than that it's absolutely brilliant! I'd go as far as to say this is essential reading.
Movie news - http://movies.go.com/movies/numbers/30daysofnight_2003/
Official website - http://www.steveniles.com/thirtydays/
Book Review: Not quite there
Summary: 3 Stars
Being new to comics, I bought this and the sequel Dark Days (as well as some Alan Moore), as an introduction into this medium. Although I was blown away with the Alan Moore comics such as Watchmen, this comic left me feeling a little unsatisfied. Yes, the artwork is amazing, what looks like a combination of photos, pencil and crayong run through a computer to great effect, it is the story that lets it down. Firstly, for what is supposed to be 30 Days in darkness, it is far too short. The story does appear to jump from the introduction to a rather short mid section, to the end, with you as the reader having to imagine the pieces inbetween. It is quite pacy in this sense, having finished it in an evening, and wanting more, but it nice that the story is driven in this way. However, what really suffers and what is missing the most is some juicy characterisation. Like a bad horror movie, you are left with the feeling of not caring for the characters, and when the killing starts you don't really 'feel' it. This and some rather shocking dialogue, cheesy to say the least, adds to a feeling of disatisfaction. I'd still recommend it for the artwork alone. Worth a look.Book Review: A vampire tale for six year olds! Two stars for the premise only
Summary: 2 Stars
I am relativley new into the world of graphic novels and when i stumbled across this i was originally sold by the premise. Vampires descend on an isolated Alaskan town that is in constant darkness for thirty days. It would be an understatment to say that i was disappointed. The dialouge is minimal and without an ounze of originality and the artwork completley fails to create any of the atmosphere that you should expect from such a story. In the right hands this could have been spectacular, definatly a missed oppurtunity.