30 Days of Night: 30 Days 'Til Death
Issue: #2
Writer: David Lapham
Artist: David Lapham
32 pp. IDW Publishing. $3.99
Reviewed by Paul Stotts
Maybe vampires are elitists. Or just picky. (We know they like to play with their food.) Either way they seem to save their fangs mostly for city dwellers. Maybe it’s something in the city water or air. Or the stress of big city life. Whatever it is must make city folk taste especially good. Like a fine meal at a three Michelin star restaurant. Or a prime hunk of beef cooked to perfection.
Most vampire diets are low in hillbilly though. Severely lacking the daily recommended allowance of country bumpkin. As if fresh air and clean water make manbeef gamey. Or sinking your works in country folk leaves a sour aftertaste. Whatever the reason, this food discrimination has made vampires sucking down hillbillies like tall cold ones on a hot summer day underexplored territory.
Leave it to writer/artist David Lapham to remedy this injustice in the latest issue of 30 Days of Night: 30 Days ‘Til Death. A butter and gravy extravaganza. Not since the invention of fried chicken has country cuisine been featured so prominently.
And the best thing about hillbilly beef. It washes down the cat our main vamp Rufus drank for lunch.
Most vampires live solitary existences. Not Rufus. He’s going for normalcy, grasping on to it like a drowning man hugs a life preserver. A new relationship with Sarafina. Being social with the neighbors. Getting involved in people’s lives. It’s really putting a crimp into his nocturnal bloodsucking.
And Sarafina isn’t helping. She’s a temptation, a juicy neck aching to be bit. A hot meal on legs strutting around his apartment. A Thanksgiving turkey parading itself in front of a famished man.
Lapham writes the series with a vicious glee. Like a man who’s revealing the most disturbing secrets and doesn’t care. He explores the areas other vampire stories leave unsaid. This is what happens when a vamp isn’t out getting his bloodtooth on. When he’s just sitting around, enjoying the home life with his girl and his buddies. And it’s absolutely fascinating watching Rufus struggle to live a normal life in the face of overwhelming temptation. To eventually succeed.
Because failure means some hillbilly becomes a late night snack.
Final Grade: 85 out of 100
Related Posts:
Comic Break: 30 Days of Night: 30 Days 'Til Death #1 (IDW Publishing)
Comic Break: Welcome to Hoxford #1 (IDW Publishing)
Comic Break: Locke & Key #1 (IDW Publishing)
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