A Dude Who Has Done And Does Work That I've Liked: Steve Niles

the works of STEVE NILES
By Alex Ness
1/22/2023

(To ward off the cynical a-holes who think that whenever I write about a talent or their work that what I am doing is to gain favor or advantage from whoever I write about, I like Steve but don't know that he reads articles from the fan press, and we haven't spoken or written to or back to each other since he kindly said yes when my 15 year old son was starting to try to do his own fan press journalism. It didn't happen, but not because of Steve. And that was 9 or so years ago.  This is purely to put a small spotlight upon a talented and underappreciated talent in comics.)

Steve Niles writes horror and dark fantasy.  He was a member of a band, lived in many areas of the US, and loves cats. I met him once in Minneapolis at a comic shop, but didn't know who he would become at the time.  His more popular comics were 30 Days of Night, Criminal Macabre, Simon Dark, Batman:
Gotham County Line and Spawn: The Dark Ages.

I have always liked his writing, his concepts are solid, his dialogue real, and his action right up front and interesting.  His works when accompanied by some of the finer artists in comics are masterful, powerful, and no where near as dark as the writing of horror might be thought to be. I've never regretted buying his work, and had the privilege of receiving review copies during some of his most productive writing periods. Now, I prefer his prose over his comics, and I can't explain why, perhaps I love the art but enjoy the luxury of reading a quality writer being unleashed and not writing for the artist, but the artist in my mind's eye.

I once made the mistake of forwarding an email from a reader after an interview that he assumed came from me. I'd not only not written it, but I confess, I thought it might be a mutual friend or enemy or someone playing a game to see if I would pass it on to him or not.  It was stupid to forward it, and the last time I ever did something like that.

I find Steve's work to be superior to most similar works, and I received reader emails about Steve every interview or review I did. People loved him, but not his work, or loved his work but not him, or some other sort of combination. I told people every time something that readers here should be familiar with. The art lives because of the artist. If you don't like the artist, the art still remains. People don't have to like anyone or anything created by an artist, but you'd be a lot happier, I think, if you just appreciated the quality work, without deciding before reading it that you won't enjoy it.

My first encounter with Steve's art was when he ran an imprint called Arcane, and produced a comic that was a scene by scene adaptation of the fantastic Fritz Lang movie M. I loved the movie, found it disturbing, and the adaptation by Jon Muth was incredible. I think Steve Niles deserves a shit ton of credit for making such a magnificent work happen. This isn't a love letter to Steve, as I have many doubts that he'll read it, but I was recently asked if I thought there were creative talents who did great work and might have been successful, but don't linger in thought as one of the great writers of the day. Niles EASILY fits that description.

I didn't mention it in depth, but 30 Days of Night with Ben Templesmith was such a successful work it was made into a movie.  It was so scary a person responded to a post I made promoting the work, said it evil and she couldn't sleep for a week after seeing it. I said, you bought a ticket to a movie rated R for horror... you can't blame it for scaring you.

He is online. I am pretty certain you can find his comics and books at the comics stores and book super stores.  I wish you luck finding his best works, it is definitely worth seeking out.

https://www.facebook.com/steve.niles.9/
https://www.instagram.com/steveniles65/
https://twitter.com/SteveNiles

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