When vampires attack... (30 Days of Night - Steve Niles)

Member Name: daemonicragnorak

Product:	30 Days of Night - Steve Niles
Date:	30/06/09 (6 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Artwork is really well done and story is much better set out in the book

Disadvantages: The ending worked better in the film

At the most northern settlement in North America, Barrow, each year they have a period in which the sun does not set and have 30 days of night in the winter.

With no sunlight and no method of leaving the city for a month the people of this town have to suffer terrible hardships with the harsh winter storms; this year they will suffer a new hardship, vampires.

The plot for this runaway hit of a comic is that a group of young vampires have learned about a town, which suffers a month of darkness, providing them with an ideal opportunity to feast on human blood.

Unaware of the vampire threat the city is almost wiped out, with the few remaining trying to remain hidden and survive until sunlight comes back in 30 days time.

This book is written by Steve Niles who is a well established horror comic writer, haven adapted I am Legend from novel to comic, as well as other titles. This book is a good showcase of horror in comic books, it will never be as gripping as a good novel or a film, but at no point does this book ever seem tame.

The sense of horror is really added to by Ben Templesmith's artwork, while keeping the town looking good he manages to make the town seem dark, dangerous and unforgiving. Another thing to mention about the artwork is that he makes the vampires look much more scary than you see in most everyday vampire film, if you have seen the film then you will be aware that they have a full set of razor sharp teeth.

They have since made a film of this and padded out a lot of the story which takes away from the book a little bit, as all adaptations do. However one good thing in the film is that the dramatic conclusion of the story works better on film with the ability to see the action throughout, whereas in the book the scene seems rushed.

If you liked the film then this is well worth a read, also if you fancy a different type of vampire story. With a refreshing story, great artwork and a very low price tag you wont be disappointed with this title.

Just one final mention, this is comic 1 out of a series of 10 (so far), and having read all the rest too I can say that this book is just the tip of the iceberg, the tip of a very well produced comic-series-iceberg.

Summary: Part one of a long running and good series - Where it all began