FROM HELL

Rating:
Summary: A masterwork.
Review: Those who only know of FROM HELL from the 2001 film adaptation will more than likely be shocked to encounter this dense, layered, and sometimes profoundly disturbing piece of source material. Alan Moore, whose writing on such titles as WATCHMEN and TOP 10 is universally lauded, took it upon himself to create the definitive "Jack the Ripper" narrative, skillfully weaving fact, supposition, and outright invention together in one massive tale.

Eddie Campbell's artwork is bleak, scratchy, and perfectly mood-setting, working in dark harmony with Moore's writing. Even those who feel they "know" the Ripper story as well as anyone will be surprised at this very different, compulsively readable, take on the murders, and the players (allegedly) involved. So masterful is the synthesis of art and words that by the time one has finished the last page, it's hard to realize this IS fiction, and not the true tale.

The trade paperback edition gathers together the entire, serialized FROM HELL story, and also features extensive annotation from Moore concerning the sources, inspirations, and creative decisions that came to make the final product. Readers will find themselves anxious to read these end notes -- just another layer in a VERY complex, but not confusing, story -- and then hurry on to the next chapter, the next murder, the next revelation. FROM HELL is, by any standard, a masterwork.

Rating:
Summary: ripperologists rejoice
Review: FROM HELL is writer Alan Moore's and artist Eddie Campbell's stab (pun intended) at Jack The Ripper. But this isn't your usual story about the Whitechapel murders. Alan Moore doesn't conceal the killer's identity until the very last page, he reveals it in chapter two; FROM HELL is not about who the killer was. FROM HELL is a treaties (worthy of a ph.d) about why the killer did what he did, how he did it, and about all the people who knew about it; Mostly, it's about the latter. Alan Moore is a serious conspiracy theorist (respect...); His conclusion is of Royal connection, police corruption, and Freemason involvement. Everybody has got their hands dirty; London is presented as a decrepid and rotten society. I have not yet seen the filmadaptation of FROM HELL, but I've read that there is a shot in the film which "begins with the London skyline, pans down between towers and steam trains, and plunges into a subterranean crypt where a Masonic lodge is passing judgement on one of their members" (from Roger Ebert's filmreview). This is what the story is about; A society that is ruled by the few; By the men who hides in the shadows; By the true architects of history (as said in FROM HELL).

Alan Moore tells a story that sends you spiraling into madness, into the mind of the killer and the society of the killer; Into Hell. The sketchy black and white drawings of Eddie Campbell conjurs up a world of filth, and not the romantesized version of Victorian England that we have all grown accustomed to; "London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained," (from Sir Arthur C. Doyle's A STUDY IN SCARLET). Both Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell have based their work on an impressive amount of research; FROM HELL is about as accurate as any other non-fiction book about Jack The Ripper. But this implies that FROM HELL demands that you're intrigued by the circumstances surrounding the case, and that you don't mind reading through hundreds of pages with long dialogues that are weighed down with facts; If you're only after a quick scare and a murder mystery, then you'll probably be disappointed with FROM HELL. Its audience are the numerous 'ripperologists'. If you fit into this latter category, then you'll relish FROM HELL.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: Alan Moore's incredible "From Hell" is wonderful for many reasons. The first is Alan Moore, who all of this can be blamed on. His great ear for the harsh dialogue of england is awe-inspiring, and as is his symbolic story-telling (which is oddly non-pretentious, considering how easily this stuff could become a preachy dissertation on human decency and madness and all sorts of other things; instead it stays true to its absolutely human roots and delivers its messages subtly enough that you can barely feel them penetrate, rather than have it be spoken by one of its characters in a heart-straining moment. He realizes that those moments rarely occur, and almost certainly wouldn't under these conditions. Hm, i should an end paretheses around here somewhere. Maybe i'll just hide it elsewhere in the review nad make you hunt for it. no, that would be rude. Damn you, ADD, i got off topic...again....). The second thing is Eddie Cambell. His gritty reaslism (a term used far too often in the description of comic art, but it certainly does apply here) and the feel of his scratchy (and professionally unfinished) linework perfectly carries out Moore's story. The third thing is the sense of how the story should be told that really endears itself to the reader. By that i mean that the amount of research and pure, unfiltered time and effort that went into this book shines on every page. Everything is perfectly in place and all, even if you don't agree with Moore's theory on the Ripper, it all seems to fit together. The last thing that makes this book great is the Ripper himself. The utterly believable characterization and the sense of self righteousness that flows from this terrifying man are amazing. His fanaticism and controlled madness are astounding. This is one of the greatest characters i have ever read, and his final scene, the end of the book, is positively breathtaking. With his final words of
"As I become
God
And then..."
resonate with the reader for months to come. This story is chilling, frightening, dark, bleak, funny, romantic, desperate, sickening, appalling, insomnia-inducing, morbid, original, classic, complex, confusing, simple, harsh, symbolic, entertaining, sad, hopeful, hopeless, unflinching, unwilling to pull punches, fictional and real. That and everything more. The book is one of the greatest books (not just comics) that i've ever read, and the entire overall story seems to come barrelling right into your chest the instant you've finished it, and despite its morbid, violent and sexist characters and events, you can't help but be glad it has. Buy it, read it, think about it, and read it again and again. You'll find it hard to put down.

Rating:
Summary: The ultimate Jack the Ripper novel!
Review: This is just the first volume of From Hell. To get the whole story, there are nine more volumes to go. All told, you'll spend $50 to get the whole story. It's worth every penny. From Hell does more than just tell the story of Jack the Ripper. It tears apart Victorian London and everything it represents. This is a heavily, heavily researched novel, downright spooky, utterly terrifying at times, and while it's paced very slowly, the impact is like being cut up by old Jack himself. Alan Moore's words are in perfect harmony with Eddie Campbell's illustrations. Illustrations? Oh, didn't I mention that this is a comic book? "Comic book," you ask, shocked. Well, get over it. This is a story that redifines the medium, a graphic novel in every sense of the word. Once you read one chapter, you won't be able to stop until you've read them all. So try volume one. You won't regert it

Rating:
Summary: Latest Moore masterpiece
Review: Prostitutes are at the grimy bottom of the social ladder in almost any society. Their murders are neither uncommon nor usual causes for alarm, but in 1888, a string of slayings of this loathly population in Whitechapel, one of many atrocious slumps of Victorian London, shook England to its core. The vile acts of Jack the Ripper, the sickening surgery he performed on five whores, made proud English society question what kind of a monster could arise from its cracks. Jack's escapes from the police and an entire city searching for him forced London to question its competency. The wild curiosity the killer, the first tabloid star, drew made England question its taste. The savage and sick nature of his act, the boastful letters he sent to the press and police (one letter contains included a human kidney) caused many to question the entire human condition. In 1888, the first serial killer, that disturbing, shocking, sexually motivated type of killer was unleashed on the world.

Over one hundred years after the Ripper killings, Alan Moore, puts the events of autumn 1888 under his literary microscope with a comic book masterpiece, From Hell, and makes them as shocking, stomach-turning and frighteningly thought provoking as they were in 1888, in ever. Moore, a practical Ripper historian who fills forty-two pages of this volume with research notes, analyses the historical, intellectual, societal, psychological and metaphysical importance of the Ripper killings.

Moore, joined by appropriately sketchy art of Eddie Campbell, narrates the theory that the cadavers found laying in pieces in Whitechapel once belonged to a gang of prostitutes who bribed the crown with knowledge of a secret marriage between Queen Victoria's grandson and a Catholic commoner. Royal physician, Sir William Gull, disposed of the women and takes a few creative liberties.

All characters in From Hell are beyond compelling: Gull, a Freemason and Hannibal Lector-type intellectual who reaches the darkest regions of the human mind and spirit, which are revealed to also be the most profane. Mary Kelly, Gull's final victum, who is made brutally aware of the futility of her life's station and the harshness of her world as she watches her friends die one by one and waits for her turn. Frederick Abberline, the Scotland Yard inspector assigned to the Ripper case, whose traditional morals of merit are tested as he wades through the steaming dung of society.

In most comics, traditional morals are seen as a virtue, but From Hell is no ordinary comic book. It travels down the societal ladder in an attempt to step higher on the philosophical. It is a masterpiece, a gracefully narrated epic that splashes in the grime of history and moral netherworlds with a deep sense of poignancy.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely amazing
Review: I was absolutely amazed by the depth and quality of Alan Moore's FROM HELL. I've been reading graphic novels for a little over a year now, and in terms of subtlety, nuance, and overall storytelling, FROM HELL is head and shoulders above anything else I've read. I'm currently reading Moore's WATCHMEN, which also seems to be of equal quality.

I've never experienced anything close to what FROM HELL delivers in the admittedly short time that I've been reading comics. Alan Moore writes with the ear of a novelist and the eye of a portraitist. He packs this well-researched story of the Jack the Ripper murders with a wide and observant representation of life.

This graphic novel isn't just a retelling of the facts of the Jack the Ripper case (though it does an extraordinary job of that). It takes it all to the next level, and examines the reasons for examining such things.

It's not so much a suspense story (you know who the killer is right from the beginning) but rather one of internal discovery. A fascinating work of art and work of literature that should be read by anyone who wants to see just what comics are capable of.

Rating:
Summary: Alan Moore: To Hell and back!
Review: If I had started reading the appendix of the book, I'd rate it with 5 stars just because of the research Alan Moore performed to write this story. This masterpiece about "Jack, the Ripper" was written based on true facts, and the blanks of the history were filled with Alan's imagination. Besides, to give us the perfect impression of the dark side of London in 1888, Eddie Campbell used a raw style of drawing which conduced our mind to the secrets and the horror of that age.

The focus of the work is on the reasons why the crimes were performed by "Jack", and who else were involved in them. The identity of the ripper is no mistery for the reader, but why he did that in a so refined and methodic way.

In the beginning I thought the book was a little too long. But, as I was reaching the end, I became so involved with the complexity of the story that I stopped paying attention to the number of pages.

It is a must see comic book, with a high level of horror and violence, but also with a proportional level of intelligence and mistery. Reading this book is a good way to make us remember that Hell can be very near of us, sometimes inside our minds.

Rating:
Summary: Stellar
Review: The pages can get quite ugly; ink splotches, grotesque dissections et al. All this was very necessary, but the story, however, was homogenous- it was a dark and intelligent epic, and one that has numerous elements of realism, so this doesn't step in that "fantasy" category with truculent elves and other Dei ex Machina. In short, I loved the book. Here was a story which dared to stick it's thumb up at the comics establishment (published in the '80s, wot.) and it did it remarkably well.

Truly, this book told its tale like a movie, and the numerous mises-en-scene were deftly handled, and the royal chaps were masterfully portrayed. It had a fine start, and good closure too, quite unlike many money-churning comics you see on the shelf today with issues running into the hundreds. Definite start, definite end, definite masterpiece.

'Tis a shame pop culture so mangled the movie, and if you hated the film (as I did) and want to read the book nonetheless, please do.

Rating:
Summary: Comic books aren't literature?....Bah!
Review: You really don't realize just how amazing this book is until you get to the end and read the appendices. These go over in detail every page of the graphic novel and circumstantiates the aspects of each panel. This isn't just a comic book. It's Alan Moore's view of what and why the murders occured and who the ripper was. This version is a result of Moore's own extensive investigations into the Whitechapel murders and he provides thorough evidence for his version of the story, all bound together in a graphic chronicle of the world's most famous unsolved murders. Not just for Ripperologists and comic geeks.

Rating:
Summary: Good book, not great
Review: I was a big fan of the Watchmen and Top Ten, though I haven't enjoyed all of Moore's work nearly as much. So I picked up this collection without overly high expectations.

I found myself engrossed by the story, but the art was so unclear that I found myself frustrated. The use of a large number of panels per page was a fine choice, and I think that a dark gritty approach was called for by the material. But in many panels I couldn't even tell what was represented, indistinct figures blend into the indistinct background so that many panels seem to be just a square full of shading with no forms for the shading to fill.

Overall I'd recommend this to all the Alan Moore groupies and people who have the patience to sit and stare at each page until some sort of image finally becomes clear.