When I first moved to the Twin Cities about fifteen years ago, it took me a while to find a decent comic shop, but eventually I discovered the College of Comic Book Knowledge in Uptown Minneapolis. One of the things that I liked about it was that it had a whole, separate room just for back issues. Every week I'd go in and get my new comics, then head back to the back issue room to browse their shelves full of cool, old comics. The guy who worked back there was this quiet, but friendly guy who was good to chat with and who'd occasionally give me discounts on issues of John Byrne's Next Men. I learned that he was a writer and I was just starting to get to know him when he told me that he was moving to California. That sucked for me because I really did enjoy our brief, weekly visits, but what are you gonna do?
A while later, the College had an illustrated novella for sale by a "former employee" named Steve Niles. By then, I couldn't remember if that was the same guy whom I used to talk to, but the name sounded familiar, so I bought the book. It was called Freaks of the Heartland and it was very good.
Fast forward several years and I'd started hanging out online at the DC message boards. Someone came over to some Vertigo forum or another and started talking about this great new horror comic called 30 Days of Night. There was a link for more information, so I followed it and learned that 30 Days of Night was written by a guy named Steve Niles. Browsing his site, I learned that it was indeed the same author of Freaks of the Heartland, and after talking to him, I eventually learned that, yeah, he was the guy I used to chat with on New Comic Book Day.
The rest, as they say, is history. 30 Days of Night was as good as I'd heard and its sequel Dark Days was even better. I've been a fan of his work ever since, and I'm pleased to also be able to call him a pal.
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