Skip to main content

30 Days of Night by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith

30 Days of Night is a graphic novel; it is the first in a series of graphic novels of the same name. It is also the graphic novel upon which the movie of the same title is based; the movie version stars Josh Hartnett and Melissa George.

30 Days of Night is so titled because for 30 days from mid-November to mid-December Barrow, Alaska is shrouded in night. More specifically the 30 days in the title refers to the period in 2001 during which this phenomenon endangers the entire town when a murderous band of vampires descend upon it to cut off all communications and escape routes in order to massacre all the citizens in the town. Essentially the vampires wish to make the town their own private playground. The husband and wife team that sheriffs the town leads a small band of citizens that hides out in the basement of one of the buildings in town; they hope to wait out the month of night when hopefully the vampires will be forced to abandon the town when the sun rises again. Unfortunately, both hope and supplies dwindle as the group's chances for surivival become more and more bleak as each day passes. In the end this horror story becomes as much about love and self-sacrifice as it is about the blood and gore wrought by the vampires.

The pictures in this graphic novel are all done in black, gray and white to depict the literal darkness of night in Alaska as well as the figurative darkness of the story itself. The only splash of color is the stark red of the blood as it flows--sometimes literally--in the streets of Barrow as its citizens are torn to pieces. The pictures are vague; indeed, they are rendered too vague by the use of blacks and grays especially in a medium in which half the story is told by pictures. The writing of the narration is quite lyrical and belies the darkness of the story.

You will love this graphic novel if you are a fan of the horror, vampire and/or graphic novel genres. I recommend you check it out if that is the case. It is available upon request from Annville Free Library.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In The Woods by Tana French

"What I warn you to remember is that I am a detective. Our relationship with the truth is fundamental, but cracked, refracting confusingly like fragmented glass. It is the core of our careers, the endgame of every move we make, and we pursue it with strategies painstakingly constructed of lies ... and every variation on deception. The truth is the most desirable woman in the world and we are the most jealous lovers, reflexively denying anyone else the slightest glimpse of her. We betray her routinely ... This is my job ... What I am telling you, before you begin my story, is this--two things: I crave truth. And I lie." opening lines of In The Woods chapter 1, pages 3-4 In The Woods by Tana French, an Irish writer, is an extremely well-written and well-crafted mystery novel. The downside is that this is French's debut novel, and her website (located at http://www.tanafrench.com/ ) does not off...
24 comments
Read more

Broken by Karin Slaughter

Before I begin the formal review there are a few things I need to get off my chest in the wake of finishing this book; I'll do so without giving away too many (or any) spoilers. The OUTRAGE!: the identity of Detective Lena Adams' new beau; the low depths to which Grant County's interim chief has sunk and brought the police force down with him; agent Will Trent's wife, Angie's, sixth sense/nasty habit of reappearing in his life just when he's slipping away from her. Thank God for small miracles though because while Angie was certainly referred to during the book, the broad didn't make an appearance. One sign that I've become way too invested in these characters is that I'd like to employ John Connolly's odd pair of assassins, Louis and Angel, to contract out a hit on Angie; do you think Karin Slaughter and John Connolly could work out a special cross over? Hallelujah: Dr. Sara Linton and agent Will Trent are both back. There is no hallelujah fo...
3 comments
Read more

Generation Kill by Evan Wright and One Bullet Away by Nathaniel Fick

Non-fiction books aren't really my thing; generally, this is how my relationship goes with non-fiction books: I see a really interesting one, I borrow it, I start to read it, and then I ditch it a chapter or two later when the dry, boring writing and non-existent plot fail to hook me. However, this a review of two non-fiction books that I read back to back after a five year old three article series that I dug up on the internet; it was written by Evan Wright and preceded his book Generation Kill , which is basically a book version of the article series that he wrote and published in Rolling Stone Magazine . Recently HBO adapted Generation Kill into a mini-series that ran sometime last year; I got the series on DVD and in the midst of watching it, I decided I wanted to get my hands on the book to read. In the meantime, I stumbled across One Bullet Away by Nathaniel Fick, the lieutenant of the platoon that Wright embedded with, and I read that book while I waited for Generation K...
1 comment
Read more