Thursday, December 20, 2012

30 Days of Night: 30 days ‘til Death – review

Story and art: David Lapham

First Published: 2009

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: In 30 Days 'til Death, the horrible events of Barrow have rippled throughout the world. A war has started in the secret society of vampires. A reaping. A death squad of elders has come to America to "thin the heard" of the troublesome new breed. Rufus doesn't care about anything but his own survival and he's willing to do anything to ensure it, including getting a dog, and a girlfriend, pretending to like his neighbors, and going to extreme lengths to hide his insatiable craving for blood...

The Review: It’s been a little while since we looked at a piece of the 30 Days franchise and this was a nice, simple story that did what some of the franchise misses out on and ensured that there was good characterisation.

The story sees the European elders of the vampire nation deciding to wipe out the brash American vampires who led to the barely contained exposure of vampires to the world. It concentrates on a particular vampire called Rufus who hides in plain sight, trying to control his desperate urges and lead a normal looking life.

To this end he even abducts a junky and detoxes her, persuading her to act as his girlfriend. However, when one of his old friends comes looking for “Mad Dog”, as Rufus was once known, with the survivors of a death squad attack, his world starts to unravel and the death squad isn’t far behind.

As I say, the story was fairly simple but the characterisation was excellent – especially compared to some volumes in the franchise. As well as writing the story, David Lapham was primary artist and whilst it worked I have to admit that I missed the stylised art of Templesmith. That said, it didn’t detract from the experience, which was positive. 7 out of 10.

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