Home :: Books :: Horror  

Arts & Photography
Audio CDs
Audiocassettes
Biographies & Memoirs
Business & Investing
Children's Books
Christianity
Comics & Graphic Novels
Computers & Internet
Cooking, Food & Wine
Entertainment
Gay & Lesbian
Health, Mind & Body
History
Home & Garden
Horror

Literature & Fiction
Mystery & Thrillers
Nonfiction
Outdoors & Nature
Parenting & Families
Professional & Technical
Reference
Religion & Spirituality
Romance
Science
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Sports
Teens
Travel
Women's Fiction
FROM HELL

FROM HELL

List Price: $35.00
Your Price: $23.10
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 .. 9 >>

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Quite Good
Review: The term graphic novel is ugly. As if this comics weren't comics but something else. Believe me its comics, not graphic novel, a term invented by some intellectuals unwilling, unable to accept the fact that comics are a media, an art form, not magazines about superheroes. Art Spiegelman himself rejects the idea of calling good comics "graphic novels". Distinctions like that don't do the world of comics any good. They just satisfy an urge some persons have, of feeling "mature" when they grab a comic book and read it.

This story is very good, up there with Cerebus and some others. It is very well built and connected. But it has flaws, like any other piece of art in history. Sickert accidentaly breaking his pencil while getting the terrible news, in chapter one, is melodramatic and exaggerated, as are the woman's comments: too perfect, too melodic, too exact. There are other flaws, and if you dislike the way Moore connects the whole story, the narrative tricks he uses in Watchmen, like combining separate actions in one panel, with words in another, like using recurring sentences to create links between atmpospheres and situations, and all the other things he likes... then you won't like this.

But I like the way he writes and specially all the little details that seememgly are not important, but recreate his view of a time, and make complete, compelling characters, out of words and ink.

Cambell's work on from Hell is fitting: horrible and sublime, all at once.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very Good, Well Researched Tale About Saucy Jack
Review: You cannot go wrong reading any of the works of Alan Moore, and From Hell is definitely worth a read. I'm a huge fan of V for Vendetta (if you are taking the time to read this review, you will want to also check out that graphic novel - it is brilliant) and this book is nearly as good.

The book is substantially different than the movie, and puts you inside the head of Jack The Ripper more than what happened in the film. Everyone is familiar with the history of Jack The Ripper, and Moore has included extensive notes on the factual basis for his tale. That said, I don't think that Moore is really offering a solution to the mystery of who Jack The Ripper was, he just shows how Jack The Ripper set the stage for the beginning of a large number of atrocities which happened in the 20th Century. It is a very good read. It is kind of expensive, but worth it nonetheless. Buy it, you will like it!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: masterful potraya of the Ripper
Review: From Hell is Alan Moore's best work. It is a graphic novel about Moore's interpretation of the Jack the Ripper murders and is buttressed by excellent research which is included in an appendix at the end of the story. Moore's use of dialogue and potrayal of the complexity and intrigue of the Ripper case are both first rate and Eddie Campbell's grim often grotesque art works here as well. One of the all time best graphic novels.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: So, so much better than the movie.
Review: As the old song goes, "Alan Moore knows the score".

If you've seen the movie, forget the psychic detective, forget the whodunnit story. If you wondered where the film's brains were -- well, they were left on the comics page.

The black-and-white graphic novel is an exploration of Jack the Ripper -- his crimes, conspiracy theories, the police investigation and a lot of insight into the mind of the Ripper (whose identity is not kept secret). This book goes off into so many wonderful tangents about philosophy, history, little period details, all kinds of stuff that you couldn't fit into a movie's length. Yet it keeps very human characters.

Alan Moore's writing is superb as ever. Eddie Campbell's art is a bit stratchy but perfectly sets the mood.

The book also contains an length collection of Endnotes that will show where Moore's getting this stuff from and suggestions for further reading. And there's the history of Ripper studies in comic book form too.

Not for the faint of heart ("Jack" murdered and maimed viciously) or those with a short attention span (lots of artsy and intellectual stuff here, not a slam-bang actioner). But for those who want smart, well-written, well-drawn, insanely well-researched comics, this is the collection to buy.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Yet another masterpiece from Moore.
Review: I have been a faithful reader of Alan Moore work for sometime and so I knew that I had to give this a try.

I must admit, however, that I found the first couple chapters of the work to be tough going and I even set it aside for a few weeks. Once I picked it up again I could not put it down.

I must confess that I am not a Ripperologist and my knowledge of the subject matter does not extend beyond the very basics of the Ripper story. In my opinion, though, this is well researched and extremely readable at the same time. Some may say (myself included at first) that the artistic style somewhat distracts from the overall quality of the story. I came to realize that that the murky style perfectly compliments the story.

Do not skip the appendix either.

Well worth every penny. Buy it now.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Impressively done and far more complex than the film.
Review: Yes, it's a 'comic book.' It's also the best treatment of the "Jack the Riper" killings I've ever seen or read. It took me a bit to get to appreciate Eddie Campbell's art, but it does work wonderfully for the story. This thing is massive, and has equally massive footnoted and two appendices, so you know what he made up and what he didn't and where he got even the smallest of details.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: EXCELLENT!! AWESOME!! OUTRAGEOUS!!
Review: This book was a great book! i enjoyed the suspense, in which the book is filled with. It is about a guy who did something and then they did something else with another person and then it got better but one person dies so its sad, but its a good book!!! through it all...my friend had to sit here with me because i got a little scared. But, its a good book!! some parts can scare you like that one part with that one guy in that one place. but its a good book!! REMEMBER: ITS A GOOD BOOK!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This is NOT your granddad's comix...
Review: FROM HELL is the type of tour de force work that may finally help squelch the idea that comics can be about nothing more challenging than trumpeting the exploits of spandex clad uber-men and voluminously breasted super-vixens locked in an eternal struggle to fight back an inexhaustible horde of megalomaniac villains intend on taking over the world.

In FROM HELL, Alan Moore puts forth an thought-provoking retelling of the infamous Whitechapel murders committed by "Jack the Ripper" between August 31st and November 9th, 1888.

Knitting together a tapestry of facts, speculations, and artistic interpretation, Moore has written an absorbingly dark tale that has raised the bar that future comics and graphic novels must shoot for to be considered a success. Heavily annotated, Moore has obviously done yeoman's work investigating this disturbing yet absorbing period of Victorian London's history, and this book should be of great interested to both the dedicated "Ripperologist", as well as anyone who appreciates a good yarn.

Complementing Mr. Moore's writing is the wonderfully dark raw artwork of Eddie Campbell. Campbell's depictions of both upper-class Victorian England, as well the desperately bleak world of London's underclass truly help to bring Moore's prose to life.

Also, Mr. Campbell's source reference material is obviously well researched, and his dark scratchy inking style (as well as the eye for detail), in unison with Moore's writing, truly help to draw the reader into a shadowy Victorian underworld populated by desperate women, gangs of street thugs, a wayward Royal, sinister Masonic intrigues, a Royal Physician, the Queen's psychic, a Scotland Yard detective, Queen Victoria herself, and, of course, Jack the Ripper.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The most intelligent, important book in years.
Review: Forget the pathetic, academically-trained "novelists" lining up for pulitzers and National Book Awards-- From Hell is the greatest piece of literature to come out in years. Alan Moore was kicked out of school at the age of 16, never to attend an institution again, yet he is the most learned, educated, brilliant writer writing in English today. It's a crime he is overlooked by the "literary establishment" in favor of losers with MFAs from Iowa and Columbia. Yawn. Their loss.

After Gravity's Rainbow blew my mind like junkie blows his vein, there are few books I can still call "brilliant," but From Hell stands as one of them. Gull's monologue during the final murder is Shakespearean in its eloquence; the book boils down the essence of such masturbatory "psychogeographers" as Iain Sinclair into a draught one wants to sip down; it also offers the only lesson a student of history ever needs: that a thesis can sound flawless and utterly convincing on paper, yet be an absolute lie.

Gull's monologue is meant for us: "Your past is blood and iron. Know yourselves!"

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Brilliant!
Review: Can't say enough really.

A brilliant dissection of the Ripper story a piece at a time. Slow and plodding at times, but inherent to the flow of the story and wouldn't have it any other way. The best part of this is that we get a dissection of the killer's mind and actions as his crimes are being investigated. Incidentally, the omission of giving away the killer's identity in the movie is what dimmed my enthusiasm for the film. Had we been given a dissection of the Ripper's mind and actions along with the investigation (and his mind-boggling explanation of the street layout of London), it might have given the film more punch and stood out from standard Jack the Ripper murder mysteries (like "Time after Time" did).

Also invaluable is Moore's bibliography for each page and panel of the book (fabulous look into how much research went into this book and why it's so fabulous) and the story of the Ripper myths and evolution at the end.

Buy it, read it, love it!


<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 .. 9 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates