Complete 30 Days Of Night

30 Days of Night #1

by Steve Niles

30 Days of Night, the surprise hit that revitalized horror comics and became the #1 trade paperback of the year, gets the deluxe treatment in this special limited edition collection! This oversized, slip-cased edition containing all three issues, all three scripts (with Templesmith's original sketchbook material), the never-reprinted story from Wizard Edge, the pitch book that sold the movie, a brand new short prose story by Niles (illustrated by Templesmith), and more! This book has everything the legions of 30 Days fans crave! New cover by Ben Templesmith.

Genres: Horror, Graphic Novels, Comics, Vampires, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Fantasy

176 pages, Hardcover

First published January 10, 2004

About the author

STEVE NILES is one of the writers responsible for bringing horror comics back to prominence, and was recently named by Fangoria magazine as one of it's "13 rising talents who promise to keep us terrified for the next 25 years."

Niles is currently working for the four top American comic publishers - Marvel, DC, Image and Dark Horse. He got his start in the industry when he formed his own publishing company called Arcane Comix, where he published, edited and adapted several comics and anthologies for Eclipse Comics. His adaptations include works by Clive Barker, Richard Matheson and Harlan Ellison.

Steve resides in Los Angeles in his bachelor pad with one cat. While there's no crawlspace, there is a questionable closet in one corner and no one is quite sure what is hidden in there...but we have an idea.

--from the author's website

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure what to think about this one.
I mean, it's short and there's honestly not much to it.



There's a town in Alaska that's getting ready to go through this 30 day thing where the sun doesn't rise. That sort of stuff just doesn't compute with me. At. All.
I don't like cold weather.
Anything under 70 degrees (21 celsius to the rest of the world) is cold, by the way. That's right, Bing, you can take that White Christmas and shove it up your ass.
Snow? No, thank you.
As far as I'm concerned, you could have stopped this tale at the word Alaska and it would have been a sufficient horror story.



But I guess not everyone feels that way, so they tossed some vampires in to mix it up.



And that's pretty much it. Vampires show up, people die, there's no good way to kill them, and a bunch more people die. The hero makes a BIG SACRIFICE and the sun comes up.



I don't even know what I thought about the art. It was, oddly enough, equal parts stunning and annoying. I'm leaning towards cool, but if the story had been any longer...eh?
Part of me thinks the movie must be better than the comic, simply because this is so short that I didn't have the time to care about any of the characters.
Anyway, I've been curious about this one for a while so I'm glad I finally read it.


Yet another in my Halloween Horror gift basket! Thanks again to my fangtastic friend for sending me this lovely signed copy!

[Nataliya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Trippy as hell. That’s the best way I can describe the art here. And I have no idea why, but I liked it.

I mean, look at this:

But the story — that did nothing for me. Required zero brain power. Vampires, remote Alaska town, people die gorily, big heroic sacrifice to save the survivors. Zero character or plot development, plot holes galore, quick resolution that comes out of nowhere. Odd pacing, no tension. Meh.

I think I’ve been spoiled by a few lovely comic books I’ve read before — Saga and Zidrou and Slaughterhouse-5 — and therefore expected better.

2 stars, both for the trippy creepy art.

———
Buddy read with Dennis.

——————

Also posted on my blog.

[Sam Quixote · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of those books where I know the author isn’t very good but the title is so well known at this point that I feel obligated to read it as a fan of the comics medium. At least 30 Days of Night is short!

Vampires invade the small Alaskan town of Barrow which goes for weeks without any sunlight - hey, perfect for vamps, eh? The townsfolk and the vamps tangle, and that’s that.

Paper-thin characters, barely any plot, unengaging dialogue, no pacing, crap art: this thing is the whole package if that package is a garbage book!

30 Days of Night is a plain terrible comic, horror or otherwise - an instantly forgettable, boring load of rubbish. If you take nothing else away from this review it’s to stay away from any books with Steve Niles’ name on the cover, famous title or not!

[Alejandro · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 30 Days of Night begins here!


This is first TPB in the series.


Creative Team:

Writer & Co-creator: Steve Niles

Illustrator & Co-creator: Ben Templesmith

Letterer: Robbie Robbins


30 DAYS OF NIGHT

Barrow, Alaska, is a town where from November 18th to December 17th, each year, they have thirty days of night, since due its position in the globe, the sun isn’t visible over there during that period.

Surely it’s an inconvenience alright, but when you add to this situation, vampires, real blood-sucking vampires, definitely becomes one hell of bloody cocktail.

But even a town like Barrow, so far from the rest of civilization, thanks to the modern technology (the story is set in 2001), they count with cell phones and internet…

…however, for that, always there is the preparation time…

Sheriff Eben Olemaun and her wife, the Deputy Sheriff Stella Olemaun, are clueless why all the cell phones have been stolen and burned in a hole, along with the odd vandalism to each computer, but the final movement of this strange game…

…the destruction of the town’s electric generator…

…checkmate.

This is how it is meant to be: Humans, like bottles, waiting for their caps to be popped.

The dinner is served.

And a modern classic is born!

A new franchise with a movie adaptation, along with several follow-up comic book series and prose novels.

I strongly recommend, if you liked this first TPB, to read too the following two: Dark Days and Return to Barrow, to have a better overall appreciation about the general story.

[Paul Haspel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thirty days of each winter in Barrow, Alaska, come and go without the sun putting in an appearance; it is below the horizon for all that time. Perhaps it was inevitable, therefore, that some enterprising screenwriter or graphic novelist would come up with this eminently “pitch-able” story idea of the kind that could be offered to producers at a Hollywood story conference: “Hey, what if a bunch of vampires attacked that town at the top of Alaska where the sun goes down for a whole month?” It is indeed the kind of premise that might get other screenwriters and graphic novelists across Greater Los Angeles saying to themselves, “Why didn’t I think of that?” And story writer Steve Niles and illustrator Ben Templesmith certainly take the idea and run with it – or fly on bat-wings with it – in their 2003 graphic novel 30 Days of Night.

Greys, blacks, and blurry lines predominate in the visual style and colour scheme of 30 Days of Night, with the story beginning on November 17, 2001, just as the sun is about to set below the horizon for the last time until December 18 – 30 days of night. The story’s main characters, the husband-and-wife team of sheriff Eben and deputy Stella Olemaun, always watch that November sunset together every year; but this year, their annual reverie is interrupted by the discovery that someone has stolen the mobile phones of every person in the town, dropped them in a hole in the ground, and set them all on fire. It works fine as foreshadowing – though the picky reader might wonder how all the cell phones in a town of 4,000 people could be stolen and destroyed in a single day.

The scene then switches to New Orleans, where a wise woman whose expertise extends to things supernatural has managed to intercept online communications between someone named Roderick Barlow and someone else who goes only by the initial “V.” The correspondence of the two relates to “nineteen attendees” who plan on “gathering for an event” in Barrow – an event that could be “truly one for the ages” (p. 15).

Further foreshadowing occurs when a mysterious visitor at a local restaurant asks for a glass of whiskey and a dish of raw hamburger meat, and starts making trouble when his request is not fulfilled. The vampire-savvy reader senses at once that this character is the Renfield of the piece – the human servant who facilitates the depredations of his vampire master.

Indeed, vampire and horror allusions abound here: Roderick Barlow has a first name straight out of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1838), along with the same surname as the malevolent vampire of Stephen King’s novel ’Salem’s Lot (1975); and the initial “V” calls to mind Vlad Tepes, the bloody-minded 15th-century Wallachian voivode whose sanguinary exploits inspired a set of vampire legends that Bram Stoker incorporated into his novel Dracula (1897).

With power down and communications cut off, the vampires make their move. A large panel on page 26 describes what Eben, looking through long-range binoculars, sees: a group of vampires, pale-skinned and dark eyed, their mouths a tableau of razor-sharp teeth. In response to Stella’s “Eben? What is it? What do you see?”, Eben replies simply, “Get in the car. We have to warn the others while there’s still time.” For his part, vampire leader Marlow, informed that their progress toward the town has been watched, says, “Good. I wouldn’t have it any other way. The chase makes the blood taste sweeter” (p. 27).

What follows is nine pages of carnage, as the vampires kill and feed on the helpless people of Barrow. It is not that the presentation of the violence is overdone or deliberately gross-out gory – indeed, the relatively blurry lines mean that the killings are usually a vague explosion of red, hinting at rather than clinically depicting the mayhem – but it just got repetitive. It was at this point, for me, that 30 Days of Night almost became One Day of Putting the Book Down Permanently.

But the book becomes more interesting when Eben and Stella, who have led a small band of survivors down into an old industrial furnace on the outskirts of Barrow, start trying to figure out how they can survive the vampire invasion. Simultaneously, the wise woman in New Orleans is sending her son north to Alaska to try to gather information on events in Barrow.

And Eben and Stella start to get a sense of how the vampires can be killed when their leader, “V” – it turns out to be short for Vicente, not Vlad (pity that) – arrives in Barrow. Marlow tells Vicente that he has planned out everything most carefully – “We can feast enough to make us strong for a full year. And none have been turned. I gave strict orders that all victims should be decapitated after bleeding and feeding” (p. 51). In response, Vicente is outraged, striking Marlow down and asking the assembled vampires, “How many centuries has it taken to become a myth? How many centuries has it taken us to mesh with the living world? To make the humans believe we no longer exist? Can any of you tell me? Hundreds. Thousands. Now, in a single greedy, stupid act, you have given them reason to suspect!” (pp. 55-56)

It’s a valid point; and indeed, it makes one wonder why Vicente – who looks remarkably like Count Orlov from F.W. Murnau’s 1922 vampire film Nosferatu – didn’t bring up that point in his e-mail correspondence with Marlow earlier in the narrative. It is one of a number of moments in 30 Days of Night when the suspension of disbelief gets, well, suspended.

Still, we know at this point that humans can be “turned” into vampires, and that vampires can be killed by decapitation – and this knowledge gives Eben an idea about how to fight the vampire horror. These later parts of 30 Days of Night had a sharper storytelling edge, and provided some genuine narrative surprises.

Author Niles was born in New Jersey and raised in the Washington, D.C., area. Illustrator Templesmith is from Perth, Western Australia. I mention this in order to emphasize that neither member of the creative team behind 30 Days of Night has any particular ties to Alaska. And that, I think, speaks to one of the key limiting factors for this otherwise satisfactory graphic novel.

From here in Alaska, where I have been visiting for a couple of weeks now, I can tell you that Barrow is now called Utqiaġvik. It is a home area for the Iñupiat nation of Indigenous Alaskans (who constitute 61% of the town’s population). It has a rich history and culture, none of which comes forth in 30 Days of Night. All that the creators of the graphic novel seem to have been interested in is the fact that the sun is down in Barrow/Utqiaġvik for 30 consecutive days.

Film critic Roger Ebert liked many things about the 2007 film adaptation of 30 Days of Night – it has a good cast that includes Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, and Danny Huston – but felt obliged, in his review of the film, to mention that “how [the people of Barrow] support themselves is a mystery to me. No mention of drilling for oil, maintaining the pipeline, guarding against missile attacks, hunting whales, carving scrimshaw, etc. They seem to have settled there out of sheer perversity, and I guess they support themselves by selling stuff to one another.”

As the movie 30 Days of Night (filmed in New Zealand – about as far from Alaska as you can get) seems to have precious little to do with Alaska, the same can be said for the graphic novel from which the film was adapted. This may not bother some readers, but it did bother me. I am a firm believer that a work of literature, if it is set in a real place, should try to convey, at some level, authentic details of the actual life of the place, even if the work is fantastical or speculative in nature. ’Salem’s Lot is a superb vampire novel – and it is equally superb as a regional novel, rich in the kind of rural New England detail that Stephen King has observed and experienced throughout his life in the Pine Tree State. 30 Days of Night lacks that depth of texture.

But the reading public’s appetite for vampire narratives seems as insatiable as the blood-thirst of the vampires who gather at Barrow on November 17, 2001; and I suppose 30 Days of Night will give them something to bite into.

[Eloy Cryptkeeper · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5*
"Los humanos no los vieron llegar y no supieron que hacer cuando llegaron. Un pequeño y remoto pueblo donde el sol no sale durante un mes seguido.
Era cierto, un paraíso para los no muertos. Así que se reunieron y cruzaron el planeta para asistir a un festín orgiástico...
La invasión llego súbitamente. algunos lugareños los cazadores y balleneros intentaron resistirse, pero era inútil. El sol se había puesto y no saldría hasta mucho tiempo después "

"El cómic que tenéis en vuestras manos Tiene buena parte de la energía pura, incluso brutal, de las buenas películas de terror de los viejos tiempos, Corto penetrante y despiadado"
Clive Barker

Una destacable apreciación y concepción en el genero vampírico...
Y para añadir, debo decir, que las ilustraciones están lejos de ser una maravillosa y deslumbrante obra e arte. Es un arte minimalista y Pretende Mostrar y hacer inca pie en la oscuridad, el frio, la sangre y acentuar la mirada de las victimas y sus cazadores, así como sus fauces... Y funciona muy bien, de manera original.

[Jess ❈Harbinger of Blood-Soaked Rainbows❈ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read a book with a number in the title


Man this was fun.

I watched this movie umpteen million years ago when it came out and Josh Hartnett was still the premiere heartthrob of the day. It had vampires exactly the way I like them. Vicious and animalistic. Merciless hunters but still intelligent and exacting. It was a movie that was very heavy on action and gore and survival but a little lighter on plot and nuance.


The comic is even better.

I loved Ben Templesmith's art. Loved loved loved loved loved loved loved. His vampires rocked my socks off.



The comic did have more emotion and nuance than the movie did, and even though this is a horror comic, I enjoyed the story very very much. The whole premise of this comic series is awesome. It takes place in Barrow, Alaska during the winter season. Now the thing about Barrow is that it is located way way way up in the north of Alaska which means it is very cold, winters are extreme, it is extremely isolated, and the sun does not shine for 30 days in the winter. That's right. There really are 30 days of night.

What I loved about Barrow as a setting is that yes, it is the perfect hunting ground for a team of hungry vampires to settle. There is plenty of fresh meat and they are very cut off from the rest of the world. Even if there was a possibility of them reaching out for help in the surrounding areas, no one could get there in time to save them. Plus, 30 days of night means 30 days of completely uninterrupted vampire hunting time. But another thing about Barrow that I loved is that it is small and it is isolated, but what the vamps don't realize is the spirit and the heart of people who live in towns like that. Everybody knows everybody. They are all like family because they stick together during those winters. When you live in isolation, you learn how to survive. And that education doesn't come easy. Eben and Stella are a husband and wife sheriff team in Barrow and both of them completely kick ass. By the time they realize what is happening, that vampires have wreaked havoc on their turf, they lead the rest of the survivors in a full fledged attack. And it was awesome. Kinda like Liam Neeson kicking ass against some killer wolves. Yeah. Exactly like that.


I loved this book because of the action and the gore, but I also loved Eben and Stella's relationship as well. At the core of this story is a story about survival, and the survival stories that stick and the ones that work are those with characters who have something to fight and survive for. And that's Eben and Stella. Their romance isn't hot or steamy or romance-novel passionate. It is one that is built on a firm foundation of mutual trust, time, respect, and partnership. Their love keeps them together even when things are the roughest. And I could totally get behind that.

The vampire leader, Vincente, is enigmatic and killer. He is very interesting and I am going to love seeing him grow as this series continues. I couldn't really get a great grasp on exactly what motivates him outside of the obvious bloodlust, but I have a feeling his story will be unveiled in a way I will love. And there is a pretty awesome subplot involving a group of enigmatic vampire hunters that emerges towards the end. This volume leaves off at a great point and just begins to allude to happenings in the next volume. It isn't a cliffhanger by any means, but does generate a lot of excitement for the next volume.

And I will be on board.

4 stars.

[Dennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25 stars

I liked this much more than I should have.

An Alaskan town gets attacked by a group of vampires during a 30-day polar night. A promising and creepy premise that the author didn’t really do anything with. There are several points in the book where a new story element gets introduced that had the potential to make this interesting but then is actually going nowhere. Characters are underdeveloped and there’s absolutely no sense of time. By the end of the story 30 days had passed and I hadn’t noticed it at any point. The resolution too could have been interesting but came out of nowhere and was done with rather quickly.

Yes, this isn’t a good book. But it has a nice atmosphere, the trippy artwork somehow works - even if strictly speaking it isn’t good either - and the story requires zero brain power, which on some evenings is just what I need.

So, it wasn’t good. But I enjoyed it.



Buddy read with Nataliya.

[Jeremy Stephens · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this graphic novel to be very overrated. I'd like to start off by saying I love the premise- a group of vampires rampaging in an Alaskan town during its annual thirty days of darkness. The problem I have is that the story seemed so rushed. I saw this story as having so much potential and yet the conflict was quickly resolved in a mere two pages. Further more, I felt that the vampires were defeated way too easily. It was almost as if the writer got bored with the story and decided to just hurry up and end it.
The artwork reflected the dark, blurry nature of the winter nightmare of the setting. In some ways this seems appropriate for the book but I found it gave the book an air of vagueness as it made it difficult to figure out what was going on in many scenes.
To sum up, this wasn't the worst graphic novel I've ever read but it was lousy nonetheless. I suppose a two star rating is a bit harsh and I would give it two and a half if possible.

[Lukas Sumper · Rating 3 out of 5]

30 Days of Night for me is a book with an extremely cool idea at its core, a rushed ending and questionable art. But I appreciate all the work they put into this, and when you read up on the production history (it first being a rejected Movie Screenplay) you will realise quite a lot of the problems make sense. I can't call myself a fan but I enjoyed the read as it was different and I even liked it enough to give the other spin offs a chance too.

The wonky art kind of perfectly fits the dark brooding mood, everything seems kind of fuzzy and cold so in this case it helped the overall experience. The whole success story of the movie also adds another layer to my fascination with 30 Days of Night and altho you could call it a not so good adaptation, I still like it.

For people that like horror stuff and 80s movies. 3.5 out of 5.0 stars

[Juho Pohjalainen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's got a decent premise, some disturbing scenes, and I do think the weird-ass artwork works pretty well with it - but it's also quite rushed. You can't give this sort of a story all the attention it needs in just a hundred pages.

The ending had something to like, though.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Την περίοδο που οι βρικόλακες στην τέχνη έγιναν χορτοφάγοι και ευαισθητούληδες, ήρθε αυτό το βιβλίο για να μας θυμίσει ... τι εστί βερίκοκο! Βρικόλακες - τέρατα, κυνηγάνε σαν αρπακτικά την ανθρώπινη λεία τους, χωρίς δισταγμούς, συναισθηματισμούς ή ηθικές αξίες, οργανωμένοι σε κοπάδι σαρκοφάγων, με τον αρχηγό της αγέλης να δίνει το γενικό πρόσταγμα. Σκοτεινό και ατμοσφαιρικό, με το σκηνικό του κυνηγιού να διαδραματίζεται σε μια πόλη της Αλάσκας βυθισμένη στο σκοτάδι για 30 μέρες κατά την περίοδο του χειμερινού ηλιοστασίου.

Στο ίδιο στυλ και η ομώνυμη ταινία.

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've been trying to think back to 2001/2o02, is there something about that time that could explain why this book was so popular?

Because reading it now, I don't see it. The art is a mess. The characters are almost invisible. And worst, the storytelling is a mess.

I like Ben Templesmith's art, he has done some beautiful work. But not in this book - everything is smudgy, even for Templesmith, every character is indistinct and hard to recognise. Action scenes are an indecipherable blur. The only way you know a character is killed by a vampire, is that the vampire will woinkily lunge toward another character, and a splurt of crimson has appeared on the other side of the attacked character. It's so unsatisfying.

The main character is Inuit, and I only know this because I read it in the script that's in the back of my copy. My reading buddy Kaddles informed me that someone does throw an Eskimo-like slur at that character, so granted - that's on me for not picking up. There is barely any character, let alone any character development. Everyone blends into everyone else.

So there are these vampires that decide to rip this Alaskan town (called Burrow, because vampires, right!) apart, because there's a month every year where there's no sunlight. This idea, which is fun, sort of disappears to the background - the book reads as if everything takes place during one night, there's no distinction between days. Towards the end of the book a month must have passed, and it makes you wonder how these people even survived for such a long time. I don't get why the reader isn't shown which day we're on, it would've helped a lot with storytelling and atmosphere.

There's a second group of vampires that comes to kill the first group of vampires, because of course this was a dumb idea, it would only attract attention to the existence of vampires. So they kill the first wave vampires, and then they decide to destroy the town. So storywise nothing changes. Why not let the first wave destroy the town and then kill them, if that's what you were going to do anyway? Nothing changes in the story, why introduce these characters?

It's so strange to me, because there are so many story ideas that could've been introduced. There's some guy who shows up in a helicopter, trying to take pictures as proof of the existence of vampires, apparently some Van Helsing-lite group. Why not have them stealthily approaching the town, try and infiltrate and take pictures? Why not have a member of the hiding townspeople secretely turned into a vampire, and have them re-enter their group of humans, who have no idea? Make the second wave of vampires more distinct, more highminded, have them instruct the first wave to destroy the town, and have the first wave try to come up with a plan to get rid of the second wave. Make use of the 30 days of night, the vampires lose track of how many humans are left, let those humans turn guerillas and terrorise the vampires. Have some fun with it, you know.

It's all very plot point A to B to C and then the book is done.

Now I'm done. I will now proceed to force my reading buddy 3 million days of Kadi P to read volume 2.

[James DeSantis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was decent.

Steve Niles know how to build tension and give a decent voice to a lot of characters. He does both well. The pacing is a little odd as things happen so quick. Also the art is a little off and it's hard to tell what the fuck is happening but I also love the cold feel of it.

Oh, what is it about? Basically vampires come to Alaska and kill people since the sun goes down for 30 days. It's a cool concept that works out better here then in the movie version.

Okay this is a really short review but this is a decent horror story worth reading if like a lot of death and vampires. A 3 out of 5.

[WhiskeyintheJar · Rating 2 out of 5]

And, just like that, the undead stop laughing

30 Days of Night is one of my favorite vampire horror movies, so when the Film at 11 Halloween Bingo square got called, I knew exactly what I wanted to read for it. It turned out to be that rare creature of the movie was better than the book (graphic novel) for me.

I can't really review this without comparing it to the movie, I found the origin story to be very stark and more of an outline of the movie. Eben, Stella, Marlow, and a few of the others are all there and more or less match up with their movie characters. I will say, knowing the ending of the movie, which they kept original to the novel, made the beginning of the novel more poignant. However, I felt like the movie focused more on the humans and did a way better job of setting the tone and slowly bringing in that sense of horror and fear as the residents of Barlow, Alaska realize who is visiting their town.

The vampires in the novel get more speaking lines and this “humanized” them more, which made them less scary to me. This is a series, so I can see how creating storylines for the vampires makes sense and why the focus was on them more.

I did read this on Kindle, so maybe I didn't get the best effect of the drawings but I can't say I thought they were the greatest and added emotion to the story. The style came off as watercolor dark shadowy Monet, except with less clear humans instead of plant scenery. You can see the inspiration for the movie vampire looks from the renderings in the novel, though.

Was a little disappointed because I thought the novel would dive deeper into the story, this is Vol. 1 in a series, so I guess I'd have to read on for that. I hate to say it, but choose movie instead of this.

[Kadi P · Rating 1 out of 5]

(Buddy read with The Immortal Pince-Nez)

"Wait! P... Please... I... I don't un... understand!"
No, really, I did not understand this or the hype around this series at all.

The best part about this vol was how short it was because it meant I didn't have to endure the world's worst comic for long.

The most prevalent problem was the absolutely disgusting art. This was probably amongst some of the worst art I've ever seen in my life. It ranged from murky splodges to melting faces to pitch dark backgrounds as though the artist was being tortured whilst drawing it, or had completely lost his mind, or only knew how to use a soft brush, or all three of those at once! The colours were horrendous, uncomplimentary palettes that purposefully adopted K values so high I was surprised it went to print at all. At times the art made it impossible to discern what the hell was going on and at other times it made me want to lose my love for vampires, an effect even sparkly vampires haven't been able to have on me.

The narration was awful. It kept jumping around in tenses and employed a mind-numbingly boring amount of telling rather than showing. Besides that, the dialogue was extremely repetitive. The vampires repeated how they were going to kill all the humans whilst the whiny Sheriff's wife kept telling her husband to do things that he blatantly ignored. It was so predictable it was as though the dialogue had written itself. And in the end, the saviour was obviously the Sheriff who sacrificed himself in every way possible. It was almost impressive how cliche it managed to be. And it spent so much time repeating itself that it had no time to spare to set up the ending, so of course the pacing was completely off and the conclusion and quick save came within two pages.

This whole volume was awful beyond belief. I wouldn't even recommend it to my worst enemies who, at this current time, are Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith.

[Kristijan · Rating 5 out of 5]

1. zvezdica za ideju: Vampiri čekaju da na Aljasci padne nooooooooć da bi napravili pravi mali krvavi pir
2. zvezdica za artwork: Prilično minimalistički u poređenju sa nekim grafičkim novelama, ali po meni sasvim odgovara i tematici i settingu i mračnoj noti koju ova grafička novela ima
3. zvezdica zato što vampiri ne sjaje već su žestoke krvopije
4. zvezdica za humor autora
5. zvezdica zato što sam progutao novelu u rekordnom roku - i bio odmah spreman za još!!!

Nedostaci (da, oni postoje ali ne utiču na ocenu :) )
1. glavni likovi su mogli dobiti malo više prostora - nisu dovoljno razrađeni
2. brzo razrešenje vampirskog problema
2. prekraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatko je!!!! :(((( (u stvari iz ovoga proističu prva dva nedostatka)

[Christopher · Rating 1 out of 5]

If there's one thing to take comfort in when under attack by vampires, it's that you only have to survive for at the most a few hours until the sun comes back out. But what if you're in a small Alaskan town and the sun won't be coming out for a month?

This is an incredible setup for a horror story. It's a unique take that introduces new possibilities for vampires, set in an isolated territory with distinct borders. Unfortunately, this is the only thing the book gets right. It's a total waste of a great premise. It's a hurried mess that tries to be a big story by introducing plots that come to nothing when it should just buckle down and focus on a couple of developed characters. The art is interesting and nightmarish, but too vague. (Not to mention that art is reused in separate panels, which is a huge pet peeve of mine. You're not fooling anyone. Just draw another picture—that's your job!) The resolution of the story even hinges on breaking its own rules.

Everything about this book except for its initial concept is terrible.

[Nilo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una genialidad de novela gráfica con una premisa simple, pero con una ejecución dinámica y directa que nunca pierde su norte volviéndola una lectura en la que arrancas sin frenos hasta terminarla. Su arte fue lo que más me fascinó, me agrada el hecho de que no sean trazos pulidos ya que ese toque tosco y sucio alimentan perfectamente a la oscura atmósfera de horror del guión.
 
Cuenta con un final trágico y con unas de mis líneas finales favoritas. En términos generales, una parada imperdible si eres fanático del horror, en específico del mundo vampírico.

[Darien · Rating 2 out of 5]

The art in this is trippy as hell and I don’t know if I hate it or like it 🥴

Overall the story is pretty “meh” and this is one of those where the movie is most definitely better than the book 🤷🏽‍♀️. I have no interest to read the rest.

[Ken W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent.

I enjoyed this and I will definitely keep going with the series. The art was good but not great. The story was interesting and true to the movie. 4 stars.

[Marianna Neal · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a fan of horror and scary vampires that don't sparkle, I have to say I really enjoyed this dark and brutal story with its unique art. My only complaint is that it's actually too fast-paced, to the point where it feels too brief. The story covers a month worth of time, but feels more like a couple of days. I'll definitely be reading more though!

[Tony Vacation · Rating 3 out of 5]

Make no mistake, 30 Days of Night hinges upon an inspired conceit: the bloodsucking undead figure out that polar nights exist and flock to an isolated community in Alaska for a month-long blood orgy that won't be disturbed by that pesky sun. The promise of this mostly sustains the narrative despite much fumbling. Inconsistent narration, an inconsequential side plot (for these few issues at least, and that is what counts) involving a New Orleans Voodoo Queen (I guess?) and her son, hazy internal logic, rushed storytelling and mostly absent characterization, all of which demands that the artwork carry the material with stylistic brio. And Templesmith is mostly up to the challenge with his expressive smudging of line work and attacks of sepia-tinged and overcast hues--except when he is not, at which point the visuals are murky and lazy. Moments of violence can be startling in their use of frenzied curlicues of crimson, but other sequences of action can be dull and insubstantial. Distracting, but not the renaissance of comic-book horror some claim it to be.

[Kyle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, that was a major letdown. I absolutely loved the film version, so I thought I'd give this a shot. I gotta say, though, this graphic novel from which the film originates is actually pretty shitty. At least, this first volume is (it's not like I'm going to continue with this series, but still...).

What I thought would happen was each volume would cover a few days during the actual "30 days of night" ... but no. Instead, we rush through the entire 30 days in just under 80-something pages. The whole thing was a rush job. Literally, from one page to the next it was the beginning of the month of darkness, and then we jump right to the last couple of days before the sun comes back up. Um, what?!? How is that even okay? Seriously, it happened so fast. We're just supposed to sit here and accept the fact that 20+ days passed by over the course of half a page?? GIVE ME A BREAK! All the crucial world building, plot succession, and character development is lost in that time, and all because the story writer chose to skip from point-fucking-A to point-fucking-Z!

Poor character development.
Plot holes.
Crazy time shifts.
Muddy action panels.

It all made for a complete lack of interest. How am I supposed to care about anything that is happening, when I barely know any of the characters? You introduce one character, and then on the next page or two (and after a massive time jump, no less) they're dead. Cool. Great. Okay. Whatever.

So disappointed, especially because some of the coloring was really to my liking: lots of dark blues and grays, black, and pops of red, orange and yellow. That's it. I was into it. Gritty and bleak.

It's too bad all the crap had to overshadow what could've been a great concept of written and plotted better.

[Roman Stadtler · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a snoozer! I should know better by now that Steve Niles just doesn't do it for me. I often like his ideas, but then I'm always disappointed that he doesn't really go anywhere with them. Now, this should've been cool (HA); remote setting, dark, cold; perfect locale for bloody horrors to commence. But the story isn't scary in the slightest, the characters aren't interesting enough to care about them getting slaughtered, and the main conceit that the vampires savagely kill everyone in this tiny town in one night is just stupid. These vamps are supposed to be pretty smart, using this remote town as a feeding source, where attention won't be drawn to them. So even if we accept that they lose it and gorge themselves on Humanburger Helper all in one night, well, where's the suspense after that? They've just decimated their food supply, and not many people come to this town, especially during the worst time of the year when traveling is hard. Now they'll slowly starve to death, um, redeath(?). Stoopid vampires.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a classic, but there's a few things that keep me from giving it 5 stars. It's a little short for one thing, and the story never really gets a chance to develop. There's also a lot that happens off panel and it's left to the reader to fill in the blanks. Honestly most of the plot points are pretty vague. It's almost like Steve Niles came up with this great concept (vampires in Alaska where they have 30 days of total night to wreak havoc on the sparse human population) and then just put out a bare bones story and allowed the concept to speak for itself. The art fits greatly, but is confusing at times.

The review sounds pretty critical, but really this is a great horror comic that launched a franchise. Once Steve Niles got his core concept out there, he was able to flesh out his mythology better in future works.

Overall a cool series that belongs on the list of great horror comics.

[Starch · Rating 2 out of 5]

A somewhat unique experience, which is why I gave it two starts and not one.

The barely-visible characters make for a good atmosphere, but the art-style itself is so weird it becomes funny.

There is barely a story, and zero character depth: Vampires attack, the sheriff turns himself into a vampire, kills another vampire, and the rest run away. That's everything.

[Lashaan Balasingam · Rating 3 out of 5]

The artwork is a blurry mess that somehow helps convey the gruesome horror of the story but nothing particular stands out in this world.

[Cathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume contains issue #1-3. I read #1 in 2018. At that point I had seen the movie three or four times and wanted to see how it compares. I liked the artwork right away, although it is quite different from the more classically drawn comics I usually read and liked before this. I liked the colours as well, the mix of greys with pastel tones. Nicely drawn bloodshed, almost poetic.

So, re-read and continuation it is, finally. The setting is Barrow in Alaska and the sun has just set for the last time before a stretch of 30 days without sunlight. Great opportunity for a bunch of vampires to go all out…

Some of the visuals reminded me of the TV adaptation of The Strain (never read it). Which was really yucky. Anyway, back to Barrow… bloodshed, a lot of it. And some panels that were hard to figure out, because it was only night, grey snow and lots of red. Not a lot of plot, we basically wallow in the visuals of the town‘s inhabitants being slaughtered. I think I liked the movie more. It felt like more of a story.

Movie Trailer: https://youtu.be/8ClVrVK_y0E

Still, I am tempted to see what happens next…

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have decided to go back and work through some of those lists of books I should think about reading - from great science fiction titles to era defining thrillers and crime stories and of course land mark horror titles - this being the first of them.

I have to say that some years ago I saw the film - I will say in my defence I didn't know it was a comic book series to start with. So now some years later I finally get round the picking up the title and giving it a go. I was impressed by the Clive Barker introduction and I have to say that it was a fun read.

With books like this I think you have be receptive to the art style and in general I didn't have a problem with it - the story was fast and yes graphic but I have to say a lot shorter than I anticipated - considerably. True on retrospect there were not much else it could do but considering this was all wrapped up in 84 pages when the film took nearly 2 hours did surprise me. That said there appears to be a lot of connected stories so when I have to the time I am sure I could explore more but for now on to the next title I think