With Halloween weekend upon us, SteveNiles.com is celebrating this holiday by making available the entire first issue of “30 Days of Night” absolutely free to all visitors. The series is set in the small Arctic Circle town of Barrow, Alaska, where once a year the sun goes down and doesn’t rise again for 30 days. This time, though, when the sun goes down, out come the vampires and it’s up to two local sheriffs to protect the citizens of Barrow. Or, as Steve Niles described the series succinctly, “Alaska. Dark. Vampires. Raaaarrrr! Nooooo!”

Steve’s excited to be offering this comic for free to his fans, new and old, and has some parting words for readers on this his favorite holiday. “I just want to wish everybody a Happy Halloween. Have fun and enjoy being scared or scary, whichever you choose.”

You can read “30 Days of Night” #1 right now by clicking over to the previews portion in our image gallery.

Wow, it’s a big day for Steve Niles type material at your local comic shop. This particular “new comics Wednesday” brings forth four new books! Copies of “Horrorcide,” “The Lurkers,” “Hyde” and “30 Days of Night: Bloodsucker Tales” are all available for purchase. If you’re interested in picking up any of these books and your comic shop doesn’t have them in stock, as them to get their distributor to send them some copies. Or, drop by the SteveNiles.com Store and pick up some signed copies for yourself.

Wow, four new horror books from Steve Niles on Halloween week. Coincidence? Yeah, right!

Hey everybody! It’s Steve’s favorite month of the year and to celebrate we’re offering a really cool and unique new t-shirt in the SteveNiles.Com Store. The t-shirt, seen below, sports a clenched monster fist with the tagline “MONSTERS UNITE!” Wear this shirt around town and you might find people reacting to you a bit different than before.

PLUS, we’ve got copies of “Hyde” #1, “The Lurkers” #1, “Secret Skull” #2 and “Horrocide” #1 all available for order now in the store.

Those kids over at SciFi.com posted a bit of good news about the upcoming “30 Days of Night” film.

Rob Tapert, one of the producers on “30 Days of Night,” spoke with SciFi Wire today and revealed that Steve has received a copy of Stuart Beattie’s script and is really happy with how faithful the story is to the comic. Now they’re just waiting for the Sony to respond and tell everyone how they’d like to proceed.

The budget for the film has also increased. Originally it was going to have a relatively small budget, maybe in the $20 to $30 million dollar range. Now, it looks like the film will have a budget over $50 Million and as high as $70 million. Those are gonna be some really good looking vampires!

Read the full story here.

Newsarama has six pages from the first issue of “30 Days of Night: Bloodsucker Tales.” Click on over to the site today.