Rating: 
Summary: An Astonishing Achievement; Much Better Than The Movie
Review: This astonishing graphic novel has the complexity and power of the best prose fiction, plus the visual impact of good art. "From Hell" is a mind-blowing mythic exploration of "the fourth dimension"--the hidden architecture of history. Ostensibly about Jack the Ripper, its about just him like "Moby-Dick" is just about whale-hunting. Moore's script is brilliant and bone-chilling. Campbell's artwork captures the feeling of "the past" in an immediately arresting way. It would take a TV miniseries to cover all the material on religion and history included here (the recent dumb movie version starring Johnny Depp and Heather Graham didn't even try.) "From Hell" is already a classic of the horror genre, and a significant literary achievement besides.
Rating:
Summary: One of Alan Moore's most impressive tales
Review: In here all ten issues of the maxi-series "From Hell", originally published by various independent companies, are collected into one big complete volume. It's Alan Moore's well researched theory of how the 'Jack the Ripper' murders might (and it is even said "could well be") have taken place back in 1888. It's not a who-did-it detective type of book though. Although a name is uttered Moore emphases on the how & why the murders took place, over the 'who did it ?'. The suspect he points out though IS the person who's most suspected of doing the killings, or at least having to do with it all.The first 40 or so pages demand a degree of attention for the reader to keep up to score, mainly through the time-jumps in which Moore introduces the main characters. He had to do this in big lapses to avoid this book from becoming twice as big as it already is. You'll get well acquainted with them nonetheless. After having gone through those Moore starts showing off royally how well he studied the facts of the events, history and the architecture ( + how it all relates) of the time. All the while not forgetting to tell an intriguing and well-paced story. The reasons behind the murders get well-explained and are made to seem very logically ... and just when you start thinking you're heading to a predictable end there's a plot-twist or two. Moore also displays how the general public opinion of that age is and how it reacts on all that happened. It will also clarify how the nickname "Jack the Ripper" got invented. On first sight the book seems overly big and complicated and I can imagine not everyone is willing to dig through this text-heavy graphic-novel, which has lots of graphic violence AND detailed graphic sex to boot But those who do will mostly find it's more than worth it. It left me with a most satisfied feeling. DO also read the annotations to see what is based on facts and what on theory, it WILL add to your experience. Artist Campbell illustrated it in black/white and in a style well suited to portray the Victorian Age, in which it all takes place. It may not appeal to everybody who picks up this book, but once given some time it grows on you. Off course it's subjective but I think this really is one of Moore's best works so far in an already impressive career.
Rating:
Summary: A MASTERPIECE OF LITERATURE
Review: I recently saw the movie based on this book (I'm sure you've heard of it). I enjoyed it and thought I'd give the book a shot, since I've been interested for a while anyway...It IS written by Alan "Watchmen" Moore, after all. I haven't even finished it yet and I can already say it is about 150 times BETTER than the movie. This is a work that transcends the notion of what comics are or can be. Had I read this first, I would have thought the movie was (...). This is a work of fiction, but it was so obviously meticulously researched that you almost believe Moore's conjecture about the case of "Jack the Ripper" is true. He certainly makes a strong case. Anyway, I highly recommend this fantastic bit of historical fiction, and can't wait to finish it myself. This isn't the kind of read you want to rush.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, Brilliant, Scholarly, Amazing, and Fun
Review: The most recent offering from Alan Moore, the author who, alongside Neil Gaiman, was responsible for bringing comic books to their fullest potential as art on par with novels, From Hell is a brilliant, moody, and well-researched re-telling of the Jack the Ripper story. Moore takes an interesting twist on the story - and one he himself admits that he believes is false - but the point of the book isn't so much a whodunit as a treatise on the combining of fact and fiction into myth, and the nature of sensationalism and crime in the 20th century. From Hell features an amazing cast of characters and the story is told in sixteen chapters - two of which are a prologue and an epilogue. Moore weaves historical facts together to form a cohesive story, and draws on dozens of sources, both Ripper-related and otherwise. From Hell suggests that the Ripper was, in fact, William Gull, Physician Ordinary to the Royal Family and a member of the Freemasons (this fact is revealed very early on in the book, unlike the movie which IS a whodunit). Where high-level criminologists like FBI profiler John Douglas (inspiration for the Crawford character in Silence of the Lambs) seem to think that the crimes were motivated by a fear of women, Moore focuses on the calm, ritualistic nature of the murders, and the important connection between the victims - that they all knew each other. Although in this book the crime itself was a Masonic ritual, I think it should be noted that Moore isn't trying to smear the Masons, and that should be obvious to anyone reading From Hell. His contention, one that more or less fits the 100-plus years worth of facts, is that William Gull was gradually going insane and had visions about Masonic deities - shreds of old ritual from Freemasonry's past that he blows out of proportion and begins to manifest, at least in his mind. There was nothing anti-Freemason in this book, but I realize people have to find something to get bent out of shape about. The crowning achievement of this volume isn't the way Moore creates a perfect fit for Gull as the Ripper, but the appendix at the end in which he details the painstaking amount of research that went into this work. He has a reference for nearly every factual detail, and readily admits when he makes things up or dramatizes certain events for the story. It's an excellent resource for Ripperologists and scholars interested in Moore's book, and its inclusion is what makes From Hell such a fascinating read. I absolutely recommend From Hell, especially if you enjoyed the film - the book is far more detailed, and doesn't sacrifice any historical accuracies to make a better story, as the movie did. If the film is a starting point, this graphic novel is the logical conclusion. Get it today; you will not be sorry you did.
Rating:
Summary: THE BEST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ ABOUT "SAUCY JACK!"
Review: I read this book a little under a year ago, but I must admit, it haunts me to this very day. The superior writing is miraculously made better by the phenomenal illustrations, which are the most graphic black and white drawings you will ever see. Of all of the Jack the Ripper books I have read, this is way above them all. It completely capsized everything I really thought about the Ripper's true identity and motive because the story is written as though both were already common knowledge. I will definately read it again and again, and already, I have recommended it to several of my friends due to the movie. The movie is beautiful, but really there is so much going on in the book that there is no way it could be truly brought to life in two hours. So, if you are a Ripper aficionado or have only a tiny interest in the subject, do yourself a favor and buy this book.
Rating: 
Summary: The underside of Victoria's England
Review: This book wasn't exactly what I expected...but then again, what Alan Moore novel ever is? In reading a comic book about Jack the Ripper, I was expecting a completely made-up story with fictional characters loosely hung onto the Ripper legend. Instead, what I found was a thoroughly researched, heavily annotated history of the Whitechappel murders. The book is pure conjecture however-yet another theory on who the Ripper was and what his motivations were. The conclusions drawn from this book aren't really original, but they aren't meant to be; Moore has added a large appendix where he footnotes almost every panel in the book. I wasn't able to make it through all the footnotes myself, but it's nice to have them there. The book begins long before the killings take place and the identity of the killer is made plain long before he actually begins. This is NOT a whodunit. Anyone familiar with the Ripper story or any of the movies made about him will see which theory this fits into...but I won't spoil that for you here. The catch of the book however is to show Victorian England as it really might have been: the realities of chamber pots and infrequent bathing. This is not a Courier & Ives print. Whitechappel really does seem like hell on Earth: a place where almost all the women were prostitutes out of necessity, and where even police officers feared to go. The art is perfect for the story; it is drawn in stark black and white to emphasize the bleakness of the atmosphere. The lack of color almost makes it seem more creepy. This is not the typical comic book...or even the typical Alan Moore book. It may be an acquired taste. If, however, you are looking to immerse yourself in the world and time of Jack the Ripper, this is the way to do it.
Rating:
Summary: From Hell The Movie
Review: I have not read the book yet but I have seen the trailer to the Movie and it looks like its going to be good. It makes me want to read the book. See the trailer online.
Rating:
Summary: Murder in the Collective
Review: "Murder, a human event located in both space and time, has an imaginary field completely unrestrained by either. It holds meaning, and shape, but no solution." Moore's solution is to map as many thinkable solutions as possible, whipping up conspiracies like a Masonic think-tank on crystal meth, unearthing a vast mausoleum of crank lit and urban legend to "analyze" (Moore is too much the fabulist for an un-romantic, un-hallucinogenic reworking of the JTR legend) this hoary wraith of a phenomenon, the bane of Victorian alienists. The author's fidelity to historical sources (there are 42 pages of dense annotations) is both its strength and weakness. Moore earns his honorary doctorate in Ripperology, anthologizing existing theories in flights of relativist whimsy (an orthodox Nietzschean, he makes endless reference to the mythmaking undertow of history-writing). But the reader is bound to feel drained and irritated by this wild glut of snagged perspectives, the speeding tangents, the new-sprung personalities, the endless spectres and shibboleths, the unfinished quality of the episodes, the fragments of clues, the splintering truthfulness of it all. This to-and-froing is exacerbated by Campbell's artwork, which ranges from darkly brilliant and bracing to, well...scratchy, gossamer, and lax -- more like preliminary storyboards than finished art. But what truly irks me about *From Hell* is Moore's knee-jerk conception of the serial killer as seer and visionary, Representative Man if you will, an agent of enlightenment who realizes (with Clive Barker) that everyone is a book of blood; wherever we're opened, we're red. Authors have long struggled to identify a new syndrome for this faux-Ubermenschian criminal omnipath, and Moore's Saucy Jack is no passionate amateur. In *From Hell*, Moore dramatizes one of the more fetching JTR candidates, the royal physician (and vivisectionist) Dr. William Gull, who often convinces us that he is, after all, a real human being, stooped by the darkest forces history has to offer, inhaling from the vents of hell, weighted-down by a strangulating hernia of Masonic knowledge-quests and ritual letting. Sadly, however, these epiphanies are all too fleeting, and much of the narrative sputters along in first gear. Somewhat recklessly, Dr. Gull is hyped as an avatar to the 20th century, a Grendelian monster whose chosen morsels of streetwalker prey are intended to illuminate our age with stark blood-brightness. As physician-murderer, he is a deconstructionist in embryo, with all the happiness of the elect, dipping his beowulf-blade into the splayed carcass of history, exhuming gory relics of mankind's future as dispassionate war-machine, when killing-mentality will not be heat (e.g. recall that Hannibal Lecter's pulse-rate never rises above its median when attending to his victims). The murder-scenes where Gull finds himself traveling forward in time, commenting on the postindustrial landscape of tower blocks and dot.com office-space (I know this sounds hokey), are sublimely effective, and we should all take this man's commentary to heart. But at the same time, it's a bad precedent. A dead end. I mean, Shakespeare's Hamlet was a serial killer of sorts, too self-absorbed in his own Gnostic reveries to lose sleep over the slaughter of Polonius, the drowning of Ophelia, the executions of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and so on. But the Prince of Denmark was working towards a genuine apotheosis, a pivotal shift in mankind's perception of itself, anointing him as the intellectual's Christ. Dr. Gull, on the other hand, comes off as a morbid brute unable to distinguish between ritual homicide and deconstructionist fervor. More often than not, Moore scapegoats the good doctor's dementia for structural laziness and non sequitur flights of fancy, brilliant flashes rising up out of Whitechapel's gaslit grunge, the infested alleyways and corroding infrastructure reflecting Moore's fatigued, occasionally directionless narrative. If it sounds like I don't admire *From Hell*, you're mistaken, since it's a truly ingenious work of art, yet one requiring a slew of disclaimers to qualify its requisite strengths, which are many. The book is a whopping showcase of ambition and energy, an exploratory probe at the outer limits of graphic storytelling, with wonderful moments throughout (watch for cameo appearances by Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats, Joseph Merrick, William Blake, and others). But Moore's overreaching fidelity to historical sources and grudging respect for serial killers in general (esp. those who have the gall to perceive themselves as Gnostic seekers, innocent blood glistening in the snakefolds of their pathology) makes the book an uneven read, to say the least, studded with brilliance yet stiff with the rigor mortis of self-flattering hubris. More often than not, the story simply drags. "You're a naughty one, Saucy Jack / You're a haughty one, S---" Still waiting for that Spinal Tap musical....
Rating:
Summary: Moore & Campbell's unique take on Jack the Ripper
Review: In preparation for the opening of the film version of "From Hell" I have been rereading Alan Moore and Eddie Campell's sixteen-part melodrama/graphic novel. It is pretty clear to me from the trailers and commercials I have seen for the film that the Hughes brothers have played around as much with this story as Moore and Campbell have played around with the "facts" of the Jack the Ripper story. But since we will never know the "truth" about Jack--scholars cannot even agree on exactly who he killed, which you would think was a rather important starting point in constructing any sort of theory--all that really matters is whether "From Hell" tells a compelling story. By that standard, "From Hell" certainly succeeds. In the Appendix to each chapter Moore careful details his sources, alterations and inventions for "From Hell" on a page-by-page basis. While such elaborations will only serve to infuriate most scholars of the Ripper, they are certainly of interest to us poor neophytes who cannot help but be fascinated by the details of the unsolvable mystery. Moore is working primarily off of Stephen Knight's "Jack the Riper: The Final Solution," which advances what Casebook: Jack the Ripper (the world's largest on-line public repository of Ripper-related information) labels the most controversial Ripper theory. Known as the Royal Conspiracy theory, it does have the delicious quality of involving virtually every person who has ever been a Ripper suspect. Despite its popularity, Ripperologists pretty much universally dismiss the theory (it ranks 8th on their list, mainly because one-third rated it 10 and another one-third rated it 1). But then the most popular suspect is currently James Maybrick, brought into prominence by the "Diary of Jack the Ripper" hoax (ah, but was it really?). Given everything that is out there, it is no wonder that the most "legitimate" suspect of the day, Francis Tumblety, gets lost. But all of this just reinforces the idea that "From Hell" is not history, but rather drama. Time and time again, it is the rationale of the STORY rather than the FACTS that drive Moore's narrative. The artwork by Eddie Campbell, aided and abetted at various times by April Post and Pete Mullins, is certainly evocative of the tale. I even think there is a point at which the reader has to be grateful that the bloodier episodes are rendered in stark black and white drawings. Campbell presents various styles at different times in the narrative, altering it to match the narrative. But it is Moore's epic story that captivates throughout as he puts his giant jigsaw puzzle together from all the evidence and his own speculations. When Moore works in the conception of Adolf Hitler, which happened in Austria around the time of the murders, as an ironic counterpart to his narrative, it is hard not to be impressed, just as we are horrified by the clinical details of the Ripper's murder of Mary Jane Kelly, which takes up all of Chapter 10. Through deduction, induction and abduction, Moore creates a compelling story and the fact that it is not what really happens has little to do with how much we enjoy "From Hell." Do I believe that Sir William Gull was indeed Jack the Ripper? No, I do not. I have heard many theories regarding his true identity that have been plausible, at least at face value, and I am more than willing to lead it to the knowledgeable experts to argue out their respective merits. But I was not reading "From Hell" to be convinced of the guilty or innocence of any one regarding the world's first infamous serial killer. I read it because as we have known ever since Alan Moore did his own take on the Swamp Thing, one of his greatest strengths as a writer is to make us look at old things in new ways. Now, if only the movie version can be half this good.
Rating: 
Summary: One of Moore's (very) few misses
Review: I love Alan Moore. Watchmen and V for Vendetta are two of my favorite books of all time and I am still reading all of his current titles. He is without a doubt the best writer of the genre today and in the last 20 years, with Frank Miller, Jeph Loeb, and Kurt Busiek following closely behind. However, just because he is the best doesn't mean he can't have a few misses every now and then. From Hell is good, but not great. The art is good, the story is good, the concepts are good, but nothing is extraordinary. The only thing I really liked about this was how much Moore knew about the subject, and his theory (which is what this book is) is an interesting one, filled with intrigue and corruption, but not much guessing, although that's not the point. I am not a comic reader who only reads superhero books, and I wasn't expecting that, but this book is about 150 pages too long. Some art sequences are clearly supposed to be tense and thrilling, but they go on for many pages at a time. Moore fills the page with meaningless dialogue at times, also, as if this entire book were just proof he could do serious material. It's being made into a movie, and that could be good provided they cut much of the proverbial fat, as if they keep it even remotely in tact it will run 5 or 6 hours, with maybe 2 that you really enjoy. Oh well, buy it, read it, it's still a good book.
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