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DAYS OF NIGHT
30 Days of Night was a defining project for
IDW. It was the company’s first creator-
driven comic-book series and, along with CSI, established IDW Publishing with comic-book retailers and readers.
In this interview with the book's creators, Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith, Ted discusses how the first 30 Days of Night comic-book series came to be and the effect it had on all of them. TA: Steve, you and I met when we were both working at Eclipse and... SN: I don’t know if we ever worked directly together at Eclipse. _______________________________________ Newspaper ad for the 30 Days of Night movie.
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DAYS OF NIGHT
30 Days of Night was a defining project for
IDW. It was the company’s first creator-
driven comic-book series and, along with CSI, established IDW Publishing with comic-book retailers and readers.
In this interview with the book's creators, Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith, Ted discusses how the first 30 Days of Night comic-book series came to be and the effect it had on all of them. TA: Steve, you and I met when we were both working at Eclipse and... SN: I don’t know if we ever worked directly together at Eclipse. _______________________________________ Newspaper ad for the 30 Days of Night movie.
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TA: Yeah, I don’t think so. I was mostly involved in the marketing and you had your own line that you were editing. I think I probably hit you up for marketing copy and things like that. SN: Yeah, there were a few things like that and then both of us just went off after Eclipse collapsed. I was doing any jobs I could–mostly retail–and then moving around the country a bit. Where did you go after Eclipse? TA: I was all over the place. I worked at Dark Horse for a year or two and then I went back to graduate school and got my MBA and ended up at WildStorm. I think the next time you and I met up was when I was working for Todd McFarlane. SN: Right, because I’d kept in contact with Beau Smith and he was working for McFarlane, too. TA: I think you were writing for a horror Web site and, even though I no longer worked there, I was still writing some of the Resident Evil comics for WildStorm. SN: That’s right, I was working at Universal.com or universalhorroronline, something like that. TA: At that point I was editing McFarlane’s comic-book line and we were doing a comic-book magazine based on Ozzy Osbourne. 92
_________________________________________________ Opposite Page: 30 Days of Night, art by Ben Templesmith.
SN: Didn’t Paul Jenkins write the comic? TA: Yeah, Paul Jenkins wrote a comic that was in there and the magazine had a biography of Ozzy. SN: And this was before The Osbournes TV show because I remember doing the interview with Ozzy and the first thing I noticed was, good Lord, the hero of this situation is Sharon Osbourne. I mean she’d really stuck by this guy and that was the angle I took. Then a VH1 special came out almost exactly like what we’d done. I remember we did the interview with him… TA: We had Ozzy Osbourne on the speaker phone and we were recording it to do the interview. Remember you had that list of questions? SN: Yeah, and that’s when McFarlane put out the action figure of him. So I asked him, “Ozzy, what’s it like to have an action figure?” And he goes, “Well, I’ve been working out and you know I’m feeling pretty good physically.” We never got him to realize that we were talking about a toy. He was talking about his workout regimen. TA: I remember that he was impossible to understand. You’re sitting there asking questions and he was just impossible to understand. And then the TV show came out a few years later and they had to basically subtitle him on that show. __________________________________________________________ 30 Days of Night, original comic series covers, art by Ashley Wood.
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TA: Yeah, I don’t think so. I was mostly involved in the marketing and you had your own line that you were editing. I think I probably hit you up for marketing copy and things like that. SN: Yeah, there were a few things like that and then both of us just went off after Eclipse collapsed. I was doing any jobs I could–mostly retail–and then moving around the country a bit. Where did you go after Eclipse? TA: I was all over the place. I worked at Dark Horse for a year or two and then I went back to graduate school and got my MBA and ended up at WildStorm. I think the next time you and I met up was when I was working for Todd McFarlane. SN: Right, because I’d kept in contact with Beau Smith and he was working for McFarlane, too. TA: I think you were writing for a horror Web site and, even though I no longer worked there, I was still writing some of the Resident Evil comics for WildStorm. SN: That’s right, I was working at Universal.com or universalhorroronline, something like that. TA: At that point I was editing McFarlane’s comic-book line and we were doing a comic-book magazine based on Ozzy Osbourne. 92
_________________________________________________ Opposite Page: 30 Days of Night, art by Ben Templesmith.
SN: Didn’t Paul Jenkins write the comic? TA: Yeah, Paul Jenkins wrote a comic that was in there and the magazine had a biography of Ozzy. SN: And this was before The Osbournes TV show because I remember doing the interview with Ozzy and the first thing I noticed was, good Lord, the hero of this situation is Sharon Osbourne. I mean she’d really stuck by this guy and that was the angle I took. Then a VH1 special came out almost exactly like what we’d done. I remember we did the interview with him… TA: We had Ozzy Osbourne on the speaker phone and we were recording it to do the interview. Remember you had that list of questions? SN: Yeah, and that’s when McFarlane put out the action figure of him. So I asked him, “Ozzy, what’s it like to have an action figure?” And he goes, “Well, I’ve been working out and you know I’m feeling pretty good physically.” We never got him to realize that we were talking about a toy. He was talking about his workout regimen. TA: I remember that he was impossible to understand. You’re sitting there asking questions and he was just impossible to understand. And then the TV show came out a few years later and they had to basically subtitle him on that show. __________________________________________________________ 30 Days of Night, original comic series covers, art by Ashley Wood.
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BT: Yeah, Brent. SN: The art director for McFarlane. I was writing Hellspawn and Ash Wood was drawing it and then he wanted to leave and we were really stuck. BT: I got an email from Brent because he’d seen my Web site or something and he asked me to try out. So, I did some Sam and Twitch samples and apparently Todd liked it and away it went. And that’s how I met Steve and then we started working on Hellspawn. SN: We did several things–and still my favorite part of our run of Hellspawn is how we ended it. Because nobody ever said a damn word to us. We basically freed Simmons. At the end he gets up out of the grave and walks away. I don’t think we had an editor at that point. BT: No, there was no editorial control. SN: The toys were expanding constantly and maybe that’s when the sports toys started so he just wasn’t paying attention. So, Ben and I literally just wrapped up the whole Spawn story. By the way, it’s a happy ending. TA: So around that same time you were publishing stuff with us, Steve. We’d published Uno Fanta by Ash and around that same time you and I got in touch and we published Savage Membrane, the first Cal McDonald prose novel.
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SN: Exactly. I just remember sitting there looking at each other thinking, “Oh God, what’s he saying?” After that you had me interview three of the members of KISS and luckily they were more coherent.
creator’s summit out in Phoenix and you came out with me for that. Not long after that I left Todd but you were still doing some writing for him. You and Ben met then, right? When you guys met, was it through McFarlane?
TA: At that point, you were doing more journalistic kinds of things for McFarlane and then we had a big
SN: It was through Brent Ashe. Ben, do I have that right?
SN: Right, we had put out the novel and it did a lot, actually, for us. TA: I did an interview with Ash for this book and I was looking back at the sales of Uno Fanta and Savage Membrane and some of the very first things that we published. And, yeah, it’s surprising–we were a company that nobody had heard of, and yet the books sold as well as or better than they would sell today. Everybody thinks the comic market is in such great shape today but the comics market was much ___________________________________________________________ Opposite Page: 30 Days of Night TPB cover, art by Ben Templesmith.
more receptive six or seven years ago to more independent ideas than it is today. So we were doing some stuff with you and we were talking about maybe trying to launch a comic book and you had a list of ideas. SN: My reject list. Literally. TA: There were maybe 10 ideas on the list and each one was a paragraph or two long. 30 Days of Night really popped off the page, as far as being the great concept that everybody… SN: And my memory of it was that I had just been beaten down on the idea by then and gotten so little reaction. I got no reaction basically from anybody whenever I brought it up because I was doing pitch after pitch–trying to sell anything, and I just got nothing. So when I sent that to you, I was really surprised because I remember you calling and just going, “This is a great idea.” BT: You’d tried to shop 30 Days of Night around Hollywood before and no one took it? SN: Yeah, basically, it was always my back-up pitch. I was mainly trying to pitch Cal McDonald as a movie because I had the novel and eventually you get to the point where they go, “Yeah, so what else you got?” And that was my backup idea. And they’d literally go, “Eh, there’s Blade, there’s Buffy, forget it.” They didn’t hear what I wanted to do and this is where I attribute so much of what Ben did, and IDW did, by doing it as a comic. When I say, “Vampires invading Alaska,” I think a lot of people automatically picture a thousand Bela Lugosis with their red capes running across the snow–which is incredibly stupid. TA: That brings us to Ben. You’d been working with Ben on Hellspawn and I remember you suggested him as the artist. BT: My recollection is we were doing Hellspawn and there was no editorial control but apparently ______________________________________________ Next Page: 30 Days of Night, art by Ben Templesmith.
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BT: Yeah, Brent. SN: The art director for McFarlane. I was writing Hellspawn and Ash Wood was drawing it and then he wanted to leave and we were really stuck. BT: I got an email from Brent because he’d seen my Web site or something and he asked me to try out. So, I did some Sam and Twitch samples and apparently Todd liked it and away it went. And that’s how I met Steve and then we started working on Hellspawn. SN: We did several things–and still my favorite part of our run of Hellspawn is how we ended it. Because nobody ever said a damn word to us. We basically freed Simmons. At the end he gets up out of the grave and walks away. I don’t think we had an editor at that point. BT: No, there was no editorial control. SN: The toys were expanding constantly and maybe that’s when the sports toys started so he just wasn’t paying attention. So, Ben and I literally just wrapped up the whole Spawn story. By the way, it’s a happy ending. TA: So around that same time you were publishing stuff with us, Steve. We’d published Uno Fanta by Ash and around that same time you and I got in touch and we published Savage Membrane, the first Cal McDonald prose novel.
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SN: Exactly. I just remember sitting there looking at each other thinking, “Oh God, what’s he saying?” After that you had me interview three of the members of KISS and luckily they were more coherent.
creator’s summit out in Phoenix and you came out with me for that. Not long after that I left Todd but you were still doing some writing for him. You and Ben met then, right? When you guys met, was it through McFarlane?
TA: At that point, you were doing more journalistic kinds of things for McFarlane and then we had a big
SN: It was through Brent Ashe. Ben, do I have that right?
SN: Right, we had put out the novel and it did a lot, actually, for us. TA: I did an interview with Ash for this book and I was looking back at the sales of Uno Fanta and Savage Membrane and some of the very first things that we published. And, yeah, it’s surprising–we were a company that nobody had heard of, and yet the books sold as well as or better than they would sell today. Everybody thinks the comic market is in such great shape today but the comics market was much ___________________________________________________________ Opposite Page: 30 Days of Night TPB cover, art by Ben Templesmith.
more receptive six or seven years ago to more independent ideas than it is today. So we were doing some stuff with you and we were talking about maybe trying to launch a comic book and you had a list of ideas. SN: My reject list. Literally. TA: There were maybe 10 ideas on the list and each one was a paragraph or two long. 30 Days of Night really popped off the page, as far as being the great concept that everybody… SN: And my memory of it was that I had just been beaten down on the idea by then and gotten so little reaction. I got no reaction basically from anybody whenever I brought it up because I was doing pitch after pitch–trying to sell anything, and I just got nothing. So when I sent that to you, I was really surprised because I remember you calling and just going, “This is a great idea.” BT: You’d tried to shop 30 Days of Night around Hollywood before and no one took it? SN: Yeah, basically, it was always my back-up pitch. I was mainly trying to pitch Cal McDonald as a movie because I had the novel and eventually you get to the point where they go, “Yeah, so what else you got?” And that was my backup idea. And they’d literally go, “Eh, there’s Blade, there’s Buffy, forget it.” They didn’t hear what I wanted to do and this is where I attribute so much of what Ben did, and IDW did, by doing it as a comic. When I say, “Vampires invading Alaska,” I think a lot of people automatically picture a thousand Bela Lugosis with their red capes running across the snow–which is incredibly stupid. TA: That brings us to Ben. You’d been working with Ben on Hellspawn and I remember you suggested him as the artist. BT: My recollection is we were doing Hellspawn and there was no editorial control but apparently ______________________________________________ Next Page: 30 Days of Night, art by Ben Templesmith.
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someone needed approval somewhere along the line and it was taking three months to get approval between issues. So we just got bored and I figured we could probably try to do something else in the meantime. So, Steve sent me a list of the pitch ideas and 30 Days of Night stood out to me, too. That’s when I said, “Hey, why don’t we do that one?” TA: Ben, I remember you did the concept drawings and your ideas were so different from anything I’d ever seen before. BT: I did a few sample pages as well. 98
____________________________________________________ 30 Days of Night concept sketches, art by Ben Templesmith.
TA: It was just such a new take on vampires–a completely fresh take. SN: That’s why I love 30 Days so much–when I show it to people they always say, “I didn’t know comic books looked like this.” I think we forget because we’re so much into it but most people still think of comic books as the funny papers. Or, at least, brightly colored pen-and-ink drawings.
SN: And so when they see this they’re just stunned by it. BT: Not always in a good way. SN: No, not always in a good way.
BT: They think they all have to look like Roy Lichtenstein. That’s still the perception.
BT: “What the hell’s goin’ on?!”
SN: But I still think that opening page–that slow fade-in on the town, it was so cinematic the way it came off. I remember when that issue came out, people were just flipping out. BT: That’s how modern comics should be, though. As cinematic as possible and getting you involved in the story as soon as possible–rather than the old hokey stuff that we probably grew up on. __________________________________________________ 30 Days of Night “opening page,” art by Ben Templesmith.
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someone needed approval somewhere along the line and it was taking three months to get approval between issues. So we just got bored and I figured we could probably try to do something else in the meantime. So, Steve sent me a list of the pitch ideas and 30 Days of Night stood out to me, too. That’s when I said, “Hey, why don’t we do that one?” TA: Ben, I remember you did the concept drawings and your ideas were so different from anything I’d ever seen before. BT: I did a few sample pages as well. 98
____________________________________________________ 30 Days of Night concept sketches, art by Ben Templesmith.
TA: It was just such a new take on vampires–a completely fresh take. SN: That’s why I love 30 Days so much–when I show it to people they always say, “I didn’t know comic books looked like this.” I think we forget because we’re so much into it but most people still think of comic books as the funny papers. Or, at least, brightly colored pen-and-ink drawings.
SN: And so when they see this they’re just stunned by it. BT: Not always in a good way. SN: No, not always in a good way.
BT: They think they all have to look like Roy Lichtenstein. That’s still the perception.
BT: “What the hell’s goin’ on?!”
SN: But I still think that opening page–that slow fade-in on the town, it was so cinematic the way it came off. I remember when that issue came out, people were just flipping out. BT: That’s how modern comics should be, though. As cinematic as possible and getting you involved in the story as soon as possible–rather than the old hokey stuff that we probably grew up on. __________________________________________________ 30 Days of Night “opening page,” art by Ben Templesmith.
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___________________________________________ Fearnet.com and Ghost House did a series of Web videos that act as a prequel to the 30 Days of Night movie. This DVD was only available in the U.K.
SN: Early on, we both agreed that we didn’t really like modern vampires very much. They’d really gotten watered down and our idea was to make these vampires like sharks. That these guys just… BT: They were eating machines, yeah. SN: Eating machines that just didn’t care about you. There was no romance, there was no seduction. TA: You always described it to me as the opposite of what Anne Rice was doing.
what they usually do, which is be risk-averse and not order very many. Since it was the first comic IDW published, Beau [Smith] and I were trying to call in every favor we’d ever had with anybody. We were calling people we knew at Wizard and Diamond and retailers and basically trying to get everybody to pay attention to the book. BT: Did you offer them my body? TA: I would’ve if you’d let me know I could. BT: I don’t think you knew me well enough then.
SN: Exactly. Or what True Blood is doing or what Twilight is doing. BT: I’ll go on the record now and say True Blood is pissing me off. SN: Yeah, I really don’t like that show and I’ve been pretty vocal about it. It’s disappointing because I love Alan Ball so much. Did you see the documentary HBO did about vampires to promote True Blood? It’s funny because they do a short thing where they talk about the history of other vampire movies and they flash by 30 Days of Night really quick because it’s the polar opposite of what they’re doing. TA: So, the comic came out and we did the usual routine–put in the Previews ad–and comic shops did 100
___________________________________________ Top: 30 Days of Night, art by Ben Templesmith. Left: 30 Days of Night, original Previews ad.
TA: The reality was that the pre-orders were terrible but then around that same time, Steve and I were starting to truck all over Hollywood to sell the movie rights because it was clear that this was a great idea with an all-new look. SN: We got introduced to CAA. TA: Before we met CAA, you and I were meeting with really low-level producers and it was just going nowhere and then, all of
_______________________________________ The U.K. DVD of the 30 Days of Night movie.
the sudden, we met our agent–who is still the agent for both of us today–and all of a sudden we’re meeting with A-list producers and actually having studio meetings. It was such a turnaround. SN: I remember we pitched Sony and they rejected us but on the way into the Sony meeting, we saw Sam Raimi sitting and talking to somebody on a bench and we were like, “Give him the comic.” “No, you give him the comic.” We both chickened out, neither of us would give it to him. And then, as it turns out, we wind up getting this separate pitch meeting with Raimi. TA: We were actually in another producer’s office and they let us use their phones to pitch Sam Raimi. SN: It’s the only meeting I’ve ever had where it ended with Raimi saying, “Well, let’s make a movie.” And we were looking at each other like, “Holy shit.” TA: It was crazy and he just seemed so sincere about it. He obviously just loved it. _______________________________ This Deputy Sheriff badge is a prop from the 30 Days of Night movie.
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___________________________________________ Fearnet.com and Ghost House did a series of Web videos that act as a prequel to the 30 Days of Night movie. This DVD was only available in the U.K.
SN: Early on, we both agreed that we didn’t really like modern vampires very much. They’d really gotten watered down and our idea was to make these vampires like sharks. That these guys just… BT: They were eating machines, yeah. SN: Eating machines that just didn’t care about you. There was no romance, there was no seduction. TA: You always described it to me as the opposite of what Anne Rice was doing.
what they usually do, which is be risk-averse and not order very many. Since it was the first comic IDW published, Beau [Smith] and I were trying to call in every favor we’d ever had with anybody. We were calling people we knew at Wizard and Diamond and retailers and basically trying to get everybody to pay attention to the book. BT: Did you offer them my body? TA: I would’ve if you’d let me know I could. BT: I don’t think you knew me well enough then.
SN: Exactly. Or what True Blood is doing or what Twilight is doing. BT: I’ll go on the record now and say True Blood is pissing me off. SN: Yeah, I really don’t like that show and I’ve been pretty vocal about it. It’s disappointing because I love Alan Ball so much. Did you see the documentary HBO did about vampires to promote True Blood? It’s funny because they do a short thing where they talk about the history of other vampire movies and they flash by 30 Days of Night really quick because it’s the polar opposite of what they’re doing. TA: So, the comic came out and we did the usual routine–put in the Previews ad–and comic shops did 100
___________________________________________ Top: 30 Days of Night, art by Ben Templesmith. Left: 30 Days of Night, original Previews ad.
TA: The reality was that the pre-orders were terrible but then around that same time, Steve and I were starting to truck all over Hollywood to sell the movie rights because it was clear that this was a great idea with an all-new look. SN: We got introduced to CAA. TA: Before we met CAA, you and I were meeting with really low-level producers and it was just going nowhere and then, all of
_______________________________________ The U.K. DVD of the 30 Days of Night movie.
the sudden, we met our agent–who is still the agent for both of us today–and all of a sudden we’re meeting with A-list producers and actually having studio meetings. It was such a turnaround. SN: I remember we pitched Sony and they rejected us but on the way into the Sony meeting, we saw Sam Raimi sitting and talking to somebody on a bench and we were like, “Give him the comic.” “No, you give him the comic.” We both chickened out, neither of us would give it to him. And then, as it turns out, we wind up getting this separate pitch meeting with Raimi. TA: We were actually in another producer’s office and they let us use their phones to pitch Sam Raimi. SN: It’s the only meeting I’ve ever had where it ended with Raimi saying, “Well, let’s make a movie.” And we were looking at each other like, “Holy shit.” TA: It was crazy and he just seemed so sincere about it. He obviously just loved it. _______________________________ This Deputy Sheriff badge is a prop from the 30 Days of Night movie.
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We were lucky enough that we ended up getting in a bidding war between three places. The stars aligned in a way that they don’t very often–all of a sudden we had all these people interested in it and that drove up the money that we all made from the option and ultimately we were able to get a much richer deal than we would have if there had just been one person interested. Around that same time Wizard Magazine fell in love with 30 Days of Night. They listed the most important stories of the year and 30 Days of Night was the number-one story of the year. They have their list of “Hot 10 Comics” and 30 Days of Night was on that for many months in a row. Before we knew it, we were a big hit. Demand for the comics went through the roof and still today that first issue of 30 Days of Night is easily our rarest comic and one of the most valuable from a collector’s standpoint. BT: 200 bucks on eBay. TA: Exactly. The comics had not initially sold well but because there was all this buzz, the graphic novel
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version of it ended up selling great. It was the number one-selling graphic novel that month. Ever since then, 30 Days of Night has been one of our best-selling books. For the sequel to 30 Days of Night, Dark Days #1, the pre-orders on that were huge– around 40,000. So, the publishing side of it certainly worked out in a big way. And I think ultimately that our success with 30 Days of Night, from publishing to the entertainment deal, really changed comics for a while. We definitely brought horror back in vogue. Many of our competitors tried to copy what we were doing. SN: For a while, half of Previews was horror books. That’s good, now somebody needs to do that with crime and with westerns and with romance. BT: I wouldn’t call half of what they’re trying to do horror. Some of them are just putting Wolfman in a war comic. Oh, it’s a monster but it’s in a different context because we’re trying to be edgy. We did something new.
__________________________________________________________ Top: Wizard’s “Hot 10 Comics” list, with 30 Days of Night and CSI. Inset: Wizard’s price list from 2003 with 30 Days of Night #1 listed at $50.
TA: The other thing that happened around that time was that all of a sudden people saw the success we were having and so there were a lot of new start-up comic companies that were trying to imitate what we were doing but none of those guys were smart enough to realize that 30 Days of Night happens once in a thousand times and you can’t build a business plan off of that happening. The other part of our business has always been our licensed comics business. Even back in the early 30 Days of Night days we were doing CSI, which was selling great. I watch these startup comic companies, where they take the part of our business that’s really hard to make a living from–the original creations– and they don’t have any of the other parts of our business that make money. You see these guys start up with a small bag of cash and six months later they’ve _______________________________ Top: Wizard article, naming 30 Days of Night the “Main Event” of 2002.
basically shredded all their money and they’re out of business. BT: That’s because you can tell that they’re not as into it as people who actually are dedicated to comics. I’ll be doing comics no matter what. If I had a billion dollars I’d still want to do comics in my spare time. I don’t think that drives those people. TA: Yeah, they have a completely cynical approach to comics. All they’re thinking is, I’m going to build this intellectual property and sell it for a million dollars. They don’t care at all if the comic’s any good, they don’t know how to sell the comic and they have nothing but disdain for comic fans and comic stores. SN: I get e-mails every day from people asking me two things, and it’s directly divided in half–half the ____________________________ Fire Marshal badge used in the 30 Days of Night movie.
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We were lucky enough that we ended up getting in a bidding war between three places. The stars aligned in a way that they don’t very often–all of a sudden we had all these people interested in it and that drove up the money that we all made from the option and ultimately we were able to get a much richer deal than we would have if there had just been one person interested. Around that same time Wizard Magazine fell in love with 30 Days of Night. They listed the most important stories of the year and 30 Days of Night was the number-one story of the year. They have their list of “Hot 10 Comics” and 30 Days of Night was on that for many months in a row. Before we knew it, we were a big hit. Demand for the comics went through the roof and still today that first issue of 30 Days of Night is easily our rarest comic and one of the most valuable from a collector’s standpoint. BT: 200 bucks on eBay. TA: Exactly. The comics had not initially sold well but because there was all this buzz, the graphic novel
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version of it ended up selling great. It was the number one-selling graphic novel that month. Ever since then, 30 Days of Night has been one of our best-selling books. For the sequel to 30 Days of Night, Dark Days #1, the pre-orders on that were huge– around 40,000. So, the publishing side of it certainly worked out in a big way. And I think ultimately that our success with 30 Days of Night, from publishing to the entertainment deal, really changed comics for a while. We definitely brought horror back in vogue. Many of our competitors tried to copy what we were doing. SN: For a while, half of Previews was horror books. That’s good, now somebody needs to do that with crime and with westerns and with romance. BT: I wouldn’t call half of what they’re trying to do horror. Some of them are just putting Wolfman in a war comic. Oh, it’s a monster but it’s in a different context because we’re trying to be edgy. We did something new.
__________________________________________________________ Top: Wizard’s “Hot 10 Comics” list, with 30 Days of Night and CSI. Inset: Wizard’s price list from 2003 with 30 Days of Night #1 listed at $50.
TA: The other thing that happened around that time was that all of a sudden people saw the success we were having and so there were a lot of new start-up comic companies that were trying to imitate what we were doing but none of those guys were smart enough to realize that 30 Days of Night happens once in a thousand times and you can’t build a business plan off of that happening. The other part of our business has always been our licensed comics business. Even back in the early 30 Days of Night days we were doing CSI, which was selling great. I watch these startup comic companies, where they take the part of our business that’s really hard to make a living from–the original creations– and they don’t have any of the other parts of our business that make money. You see these guys start up with a small bag of cash and six months later they’ve _______________________________ Top: Wizard article, naming 30 Days of Night the “Main Event” of 2002.
basically shredded all their money and they’re out of business. BT: That’s because you can tell that they’re not as into it as people who actually are dedicated to comics. I’ll be doing comics no matter what. If I had a billion dollars I’d still want to do comics in my spare time. I don’t think that drives those people. TA: Yeah, they have a completely cynical approach to comics. All they’re thinking is, I’m going to build this intellectual property and sell it for a million dollars. They don’t care at all if the comic’s any good, they don’t know how to sell the comic and they have nothing but disdain for comic fans and comic stores. SN: I get e-mails every day from people asking me two things, and it’s directly divided in half–half the ____________________________ Fire Marshal badge used in the 30 Days of Night movie.
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people ask me how do I get into comics and the other half ask me how do I get rich or famous in comics. I always write back and remind them how long I was doing comics before 30 Days of Night. I’d been doing it since 1986. You’ve just gotta love it–I agree with Ben onehundred percent. I drive my agents nuts right now because I want to do comics. They would love for me to just write screenplays but I’m always going to love comics and always try to do a little bit of it. TA: Publishing comics is the opposite of the get-rich-quick scheme. SN: That’s what I tell them. If you’re doing it for money, go somewhere else. TA: Let’s talk about the movie. In 2003 or 2004 we all went out and celebrated the movie deal during the San Diego Comic-Con. BT: That was 2002. I remember because I met Lorelei [Ben’s wife] there. I actually signed the paperwork on the convention floor and it was my first convention in San Diego. SN: I remember the big dinner. So you met Lorelei there? BT: Well, I met her at the IDW booth actually. TA: That dinner was important in two ways, Ben met his future wife and, I don’t know if you guys remember this, but we named my son at that party, too.
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TA: We were out celebrating and Stephanie [Ted’s wife] was pregnant and we were all drinking Sam Adams beer, joking that that would be a good name for our kid. Sam was born not long after that and his name came directly from that dinner. SN: That’s great. TA: So the movie went into the typical development hell. It went through multiple scripts and was in development for around three years. SN: Until David Slade [the director of the 30 Days of Night movie] came on board. And he brought in Brian Nelson with him and they finally came up with a version of the script that was closer to the original than mine–because I’d gotten stuck in all that development stuff. You guys realize there’s a version of the screenplay that none of us have ever read and basically the reason is…
BT: I was in Australia the entire time... until recently.
SN: Nothing helped more then David being a fan for all the right reasons. He really got it and saw the potential.
TA: Steve and I didn’t go to the set but you and Chris Ryall did. I’m curious, what did you think when you saw it?
BT: The weird thing is, he’s had a lot of work in music videos which I watched when I was younger. Those videos influenced my art style which then influenced me doing 30 Days of Night, which meant that he influenced me before he did the movie where I influenced him in the movie.
BT: I was in Australia so it was only 3000 miles away for me. I actually went down the first time with Chris and immediately met David’s fiancé and she’s a very interesting lady. SN: Erica…
SN: I got a little dizzy there. TA: The movie was shot in New Zealand and at that point, Ben, you were back in Australia, right?
BT: You meet her, you’re pretty much her friend. She interviewed me straight away, fed me a bottle of red wine and did an interview with me which I don’t think made the DVD. I got introduced to everyone
BT: Is it the vampire polar bear one? SN: Yup, vampire polar bears! TA: Yikes! Once David Slade got attached, he had such a unique vision and he loved the book so much that he wanted the movie to be faithful to it– both what Steve had written and what Ben had drawn. He wanted to make the graphic novel come to life.
SN: Oh, that’s right.
BT: He was one of the people who bought the first issue before there was any movie talk at all. He was a diehard fan from way back.
________________________________ Top on both pages: 30 Days of Night action figures by Gentle Giant
______________________________________________________ Photo: (left to right) Steve Niles, Will Eisner, Ben Templesmith, Ted Adams. IDW published a collection of Eisner’s John Law.
____________________________________________________________________________ Entertainment Weekly says 30 Days of Night’s vampires are the scariest movie vampires.
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people ask me how do I get into comics and the other half ask me how do I get rich or famous in comics. I always write back and remind them how long I was doing comics before 30 Days of Night. I’d been doing it since 1986. You’ve just gotta love it–I agree with Ben onehundred percent. I drive my agents nuts right now because I want to do comics. They would love for me to just write screenplays but I’m always going to love comics and always try to do a little bit of it. TA: Publishing comics is the opposite of the get-rich-quick scheme. SN: That’s what I tell them. If you’re doing it for money, go somewhere else. TA: Let’s talk about the movie. In 2003 or 2004 we all went out and celebrated the movie deal during the San Diego Comic-Con. BT: That was 2002. I remember because I met Lorelei [Ben’s wife] there. I actually signed the paperwork on the convention floor and it was my first convention in San Diego. SN: I remember the big dinner. So you met Lorelei there? BT: Well, I met her at the IDW booth actually. TA: That dinner was important in two ways, Ben met his future wife and, I don’t know if you guys remember this, but we named my son at that party, too.
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TA: We were out celebrating and Stephanie [Ted’s wife] was pregnant and we were all drinking Sam Adams beer, joking that that would be a good name for our kid. Sam was born not long after that and his name came directly from that dinner. SN: That’s great. TA: So the movie went into the typical development hell. It went through multiple scripts and was in development for around three years. SN: Until David Slade [the director of the 30 Days of Night movie] came on board. And he brought in Brian Nelson with him and they finally came up with a version of the script that was closer to the original than mine–because I’d gotten stuck in all that development stuff. You guys realize there’s a version of the screenplay that none of us have ever read and basically the reason is…
BT: I was in Australia the entire time... until recently.
SN: Nothing helped more then David being a fan for all the right reasons. He really got it and saw the potential.
TA: Steve and I didn’t go to the set but you and Chris Ryall did. I’m curious, what did you think when you saw it?
BT: The weird thing is, he’s had a lot of work in music videos which I watched when I was younger. Those videos influenced my art style which then influenced me doing 30 Days of Night, which meant that he influenced me before he did the movie where I influenced him in the movie.
BT: I was in Australia so it was only 3000 miles away for me. I actually went down the first time with Chris and immediately met David’s fiancé and she’s a very interesting lady. SN: Erica…
SN: I got a little dizzy there. TA: The movie was shot in New Zealand and at that point, Ben, you were back in Australia, right?
BT: You meet her, you’re pretty much her friend. She interviewed me straight away, fed me a bottle of red wine and did an interview with me which I don’t think made the DVD. I got introduced to everyone
BT: Is it the vampire polar bear one? SN: Yup, vampire polar bears! TA: Yikes! Once David Slade got attached, he had such a unique vision and he loved the book so much that he wanted the movie to be faithful to it– both what Steve had written and what Ben had drawn. He wanted to make the graphic novel come to life.
SN: Oh, that’s right.
BT: He was one of the people who bought the first issue before there was any movie talk at all. He was a diehard fan from way back.
________________________________ Top on both pages: 30 Days of Night action figures by Gentle Giant
______________________________________________________ Photo: (left to right) Steve Niles, Will Eisner, Ben Templesmith, Ted Adams. IDW published a collection of Eisner’s John Law.
____________________________________________________________________________ Entertainment Weekly says 30 Days of Night’s vampires are the scariest movie vampires.
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___________________________________ This Page and Next: Over the years the San Diego Union-Tribune has covered the progress of the 30 Days of Night movie.
on the set and met David properly and had a great time and liked it so much that I went back a second time later on for the wrap party when they were finishing up. I made a lot of good friends there as well. TA: What was it like seeing the things that you’d drawn brought to life? BT: I don’t want to say that it looked better than the film, it didn’t. The colors were different on the film and visually, it was all props so it wasn’t CGI or anything so it just looked almost, in a realistic sense, the way the drawings had looked. It was very authentic. For a little while it was like being in the Twilight Zone but, after that, I got used to it and learned this is how you make a movie. The storytelling aspect of it was great. It was a life-changing experience. SN: It was for me, too. When I was a kid and I saw John Carpenter’s The Thing, it made me want to 106
_________________________________________ Pocket Books has published a series of original novels based on 30 Days of Night.
write. There are a bunch of movies that affected me in that way and now I’m hearing from kids who are 14 and on up and that’s the effect that 30 Days of Night had on them. And there’s nothing cooler than that. A passing-the-torch kind of thing, because to me that’s what it’s always been about. Keep ideas going–keep them fresh and inspire somebody else. There’s nothing better. IDW 107
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___________________________________ This Page and Next: Over the years the San Diego Union-Tribune has covered the progress of the 30 Days of Night movie.
on the set and met David properly and had a great time and liked it so much that I went back a second time later on for the wrap party when they were finishing up. I made a lot of good friends there as well. TA: What was it like seeing the things that you’d drawn brought to life? BT: I don’t want to say that it looked better than the film, it didn’t. The colors were different on the film and visually, it was all props so it wasn’t CGI or anything so it just looked almost, in a realistic sense, the way the drawings had looked. It was very authentic. For a little while it was like being in the Twilight Zone but, after that, I got used to it and learned this is how you make a movie. The storytelling aspect of it was great. It was a life-changing experience. SN: It was for me, too. When I was a kid and I saw John Carpenter’s The Thing, it made me want to 106
_________________________________________ Pocket Books has published a series of original novels based on 30 Days of Night.
write. There are a bunch of movies that affected me in that way and now I’m hearing from kids who are 14 and on up and that’s the effect that 30 Days of Night had on them. And there’s nothing cooler than that. A passing-the-torch kind of thing, because to me that’s what it’s always been about. Keep ideas going–keep them fresh and inspire somebody else. There’s nothing better. IDW 107