30 Days of Night

(IDW, 2002-2005, 2019)
™ and © Idea + Design Works LLC

In a sort of Arctic version of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, a clan of vampires makes its move as winter approaches in the tiny town of Barrow, Alaska. Why Barrow? Because, with the arrival of the winter solstice, the sun sets one evening and plunges this remote community into a month-long period of frigid darkness before finally rising again. For a vampire, a month-long night in a city that’s in the middle of nowhere is a tempting target.

Writer Steve Niles plays on common fears of isolation, darkness, and monsters in a story that’s more chilling than its locale. A good writer could extrapolate any one of these fears into a thrilling story, but Niles succeeds in pushing all of these buttons with the right frequency to produce a story that’s not just chilling, but downright scary. And Ben Templesmith’s painted art, mostly washed-out pastels with brilliant placement of bright reds, heighten the desolation and desperation addressed by Niles.

The only problem? It’s too danged short. Another issue or two could have easily been spent on, ahem, fleshing out the characterization of some of the vampire clan’s members, whose evil is apparent only from their natures and appearances. More focus on this group’s despicable acts would have made this comic book truly terrifying. Nonetheless, everything a sane person should rightly be afraid of is in here. Beware.

— Jim Johnson

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