By Owen Quinn author. Artwork copyright IDW and Chris Shehan
It’s interesting that knowing Barrow is in potential danger for 30 days with no sun, that many have stayed there. What does that say about the human psyche that it would gamble with their very souls like that?
I don’t ususally review comic books but I read and collect them. But, last week while collecting my pull list, I noticed this on the wall. It is a limited series , six issues I believe and I have it ordered.
I had never read the first comic book. My first encounter with the 30 Days of Night world was the movie starring Josh Harnett and Melissa George. I loved it. Such calculated savagery on behalf of the vamps and blood on a snow background never fails to impact. It was only then I heard of the comic and when I saw The X-Files comic do a crossover with 30 Days, I jumped on it. I didn’t jump on the sequel movie though.
But I did jump on this when I saw that cover staring at me from the shelf. It’s gorgeous and evocative. This print is the first in IDW Dark run which will focus on horror and it picks up twenty years after the events of the first comic series. Barrow is a different place now, fearful of the arrival of a month of night with survivors still in therapy groups. Me? I’d have moved to the sunniest climate I could find. Or a church with plenty of garlic and crucifixes.
Writer Rodney Barnes and artist Chris Shehan have brought us back to Barrow where a newly resurrected Vicente has shown to give Barrow a second taste of the power of vampires where everyone is on the menu and no one will survive this attack. This is going to be a slaughter for revenge theri fallen from the first attack. Shehan’s use of shades of red is beautiful making this a visual feast.
In the middle of this comes a troubled teenager, Jalen James, staying with his Uncle Calvin to escape gang trouble in Los Angeles. As Jalen meets the other residents, we see a lovely split. Those who don’t believe the original attack ever happened scoff at those that do like poor Bobby Jo, who believes she should have died with her family that night and is still plagued with nightmares. Ernestine’s mother fills her house with holy candles, crucifiex and the Bible but her daughter knows they are no good if a vampire comes.
Her mother says, “Barrow is wicked. That’s why the bad thing came.”
What a great line, so evocative of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot.
It’s interesting that knowing Barrow is in potential danger for 30 days with no sun, that many have stayed there. What does that say about the human psyche that it would gamble with their very souls like that?
The town prepares each year to vampire proof itself but seriously, why have they stayed and not moved to sunnier climates with me?
The fact we, as readers can see the rebirth of Vladimir, brother of, Vicente, who heads straight to Barrow with his vampire brood like migrating birds which brings a real sense of unease. Valdimir is furious that he was murdered by Marlow in the original series as his brother watched.
It is the first time that I have willed characters to run now especially with the divided nature of the town between those that know and those that don’t believe. I felt unnerved as we witnessed the rebirth and look into the inhabitants that have no idea what’s coming. Jalen has picked the wrong time to visit his uncle because he is now in the path of a gang far deadlier and terrifying than anything he faced in Los Angeles.
The art is stunning as is the writing, drip feeding you crumbs that will come to fruition further down the line against stunning artwork. The panel where a man is ripped apart to satisfy the newy resurrected Vicente is beautiful as is the moment Vicente rises from the dead having been resurrected through his own blood. How the vampires plan ahead like this to ensure they can be brought back to life a la Chrisopher Lee at his finest as Dracula, makes them even more dangerous across a grander timescale meaning they are much harder to kill than previously thought.
For a first issue, this sequel more than delivers leaving the reader terrified of what is to come. Can’t recommend this enough.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 