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: Beautiful and Ghastly.
Summary: 5 Stars
Ben Templesmith has a wonderfully unique style that is both Disgusting and cartoonish at the same time. Steve Niles is a fantastic writer. Put them togeather, and you have some sort of bizarre frankenstinean mishigosh of author and illustrator parts. but, get them to work togeather (as they so often do), and you have a shockingly nice book.Book Review: Best comic in a long time!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a must have! A really great story with art that fits PERFECTLY. It's dark, gloomy, and really cool! Rarely does a story come along that's as enjoyable as this. Plus all of the extra's guarentee satisfaction. You can't go wrong! You now have the utmost recomendation from me.Book Review: Best vampire idea ever.
Summary: 2 Stars
Steve Niles, 30 Days of Night (IDW, 2003)
30 Days of Night was already a cult hit when it got optioned for film (and got David Slade, of the recent and deeply disturbing Hard Candy, attached as a director). Now, expect it to explode. But does it deserve to?
I'll say this: it has the potential to be a great, great movie. Niles has come up with an interesting story, though one that needs a good deal of fleshing out (which would explain the existence of a number of sequels); we meet certain interesting characters for a very short amount of time, and then never see them again, and there are all kinds of fun things that could be done with the plot. And the desolate, windswept plains of Northern Alaska as a setting... okay, I'm getting ahead of myself.
The setting is the desolate, windswept plains of Northern Alaska. (Bet you couldn't guess that, huh?) The town suffers a month-long darkness every once in a while thanks to the rotation of the Earth (think of this as the flipside of Erik Skjoldbaerg's fantastic film Insomnia). Just after the sun sets and ushers in one of those month-long nights, the town is attacked by a band of vampires. The local sherriff and a band of survivors have to fend them off until the sun rises again.
This is a very good premise. A bit more fleshing out, and you could have a great story. However, the artwork is mediocre in its finest moments, and it doesn't have many finest moments. And with the art making up so much of the experience of a graphic novel, it's tough to recommend this one.
As I write this, release on the film is set for October 19, 2007. (Keep checking IMDB, and watch the way release dates get played with over the course of a year.) Perhaps we'll see that potential realized. **
Book Review: Best vampire story I've seen.
Summary: 5 Stars
Set in Barrow Alaska just as the the sun sets for the last time for 30 days, this book follows a young sheriff and his deputy wife fending off vampires invading their town. When a vamp learns that the sun in Barrow goes down for 30 days a year via a newspaper article 20 of them move into the town. People get slaughtered left and right forcing the survivors into hiding. The dark water color art is perfect to show the blood of the victims. This book is an excellent but, unfortunaly, a fast read. It is well worth your money.Book Review: Bloody and Brilliant
Summary: 4 Stars
Gore soaked, and lit in shadows, 30 Days of Night is one of the best vampire based comic books ever offered. Forget Joss Wheaton's lovable camp, or Morbius's dark brooding in the pages of Spider-Man. No, the vampires here are remorseless, brutal, and above all else cunning. They stop at nothing, and want only death. They are not harmed by wooden crosses, holy water, or stakes, nor are they stopped by running water.
The only thing that can stop them is the sun. Unfortunately for the residents of Barrow, Alaska, the sun has just set and will not rise for 30 days, and the vampires have arrived in mass, to kill, too feed. Though I will not offer spoilers I will say the ending is surprisingly touching, leaving a sweet, melancholy note to the entire affair.
Steve Niles's script is very good, better than most on the market, and Ben Templesmith reminds me very much of Bill Sienkiewicz, who's better known work includes Eletrka Assassin. Eclectic and energetic, the art is interesting and visually captivating.
Over all, this isn't the run of the mill graphic novel, and it has a very underground feel to it. It edgy and fun in a very dark way, and recommended to underground comic fans especially.
This graphic collects 30 Days of Night #1-3 and has the script for issue #1.