30 Minutes of Bull Crap is More Like It

Right now, I would like to punch Steve Niles in the head. I would like to punch him once and then punch him again, just so he knew that the first weak and poorly thrown punch I had thrown WASN'T an accident. Who is Steve Niles? He's the comic book writer (my dream job) who built his career from the comic book series 30 Days of Night (now ridiculously popular, having spun off 4 graphic novel sequels, a book series, and, oh yeah, a Josh Hartnett movie.) And yes, I want to punch him.

Why, you may be asking, do I want to punch him in his stupid head? Here's why:

My graphic novel class voted for our last reading in class to be 30 Days of Night. I'd point out here that the majority of the class did NOT vote for this, but it did receive the most votes of any of the options. I think it got 5 votes out of a class of 20. We didn't have to have it read for a few weeks yet, but as all my books are boxed up now, I was between reading other things, and I got a super-nifty % off any book from Barnes & Noble coupon, I figured I'd go ahead and just buy it and read it now. Oh yeah, the other reason I hurried to buy and read it was because, over the last couple of years, I've heard so many fans rave about the book that I honestly thought it would be, AT LEAST entertaining. I bought it last night.

I started reading it when I sat down on the bus this morning and I finished it when my bus pulled up to my stop, with a hearty "WTF WAS THAT?" that may have actually been out loud.

I would like to tell you that I was so offended by the violence and depravity of it that I felt a chill through my jaded, horror-inundated soul, something that visually would stay with me long after I had turned the final page. But it wasn't.

Here's what 30 Days of Night IS:

• a three issue comic series that should have just been a movie to begin with and by-passed that whole "graphic novel" medium.
• 80 pages of abstractified, minimalist art that showcases gouts of blood and unclear, non-specific imagery at the cost of any real clarity of storytelling.
• a high(er) concept action zombie sotry that needs to call it's zombies "vampires" in order to justify the "hey-I've-got-this-great-idea-for-a-vampire-story" concept.
• a collection of horror stereotypes and cliches as characters, who act out the most ridiculous lines and actions possible.
• really just a flaming pile of poo masquerading as art.

Now, why do I want to punch Steve Niles? Well, first of all, he created this thing and second of all, he is WAY too successful for it. I love horror. I write horror. And I have deep problems with the marketing and popularity of something like this. NOT critical popularity, mind you, but it IS popular and it shouldn't be. He created 80 pages of violence and nihilism draped across the most rickety scaffolding of a plot he could. He made a dumb story for dumb people and rode it to popularity and it pisses me off because, accounting for taste is fine and good, but crap is still crap.

It has splashy, bloody art; hero sacrifice; a bunch of "fucks" thrown in here and there just to be "edgy;" and a faux-"Underworld"-by-way-of-"Dawn of the Dead" premise that he should be apologizing for. Niles seems to have forgotten the "book" in "comic book" and the "novel" in "graphic novel."

Maybe the movie is better. I can't see how it could be worse, but honestly if the movie runs longer than the 30 minutes that it took me to read the book, it would HAVE to be.