Obra maestra total. Lectura indispensable para cualquier amante del cómic, el fenómeno del Destripador y de la historia; puesto que estamos ante una nueva forma de escribir historia.

De increíble y asombroso, calificaría el paseo del Dr. Gull y Netley por Londres previo a los asesinatos de Whitechapel; sólo por eso ya vale la pena leer esta descomunal obra. ( )

A ferocious pastiche of Stephen Knight's seminal conspiracy theory of Jack the Ripper with Ackroyd's Hawksmoor and Sinclair's Lud Heat seasoned with Moore's love of the arcane and the referential and Eddie Campbell's absorbing concern for detail. The result is a noir master class in psychogeography and history from below. The extensive appendices further enhance what was already a remarkable series of comic strips. Given Moore's avowed aim of demonstrating that the murders were the outcome of a collective unconsciousness, I would like to have seen even more of the Ripper mythology woven into this fascinating fabric. ( )

To appreciate the need to tell yet another Jack the Ripper story, it may be best to flip to the back of From Hell and read Alan Moore's second appendix first. In it, he details an interesting history of how the legends of Jack the Ripper and the "true tales" have evolved since the murders were committed. He aptly describes it at one point as a "game of Bohemian Whispers" which gives him several advantages in the telling of his story. First, he can't be blamed if he gets facts wrong, secondly, his version is not necessarily any more right or wrong than anyone else's if one takes this position - something bolstered very much by the first appendix where Moore lays out that which is drawn from fact, that which was made up for narrative sake and that which was drawn from historical context.

That being said, this is an incredibly compelling version of events. In an environment where the police procedural has more than embedded itself into the pop-culture cannon, there is one truth to getting away with murder - prostitutes are disposable. And this is what makes Jack the Ripper such a compelling tale; Mary Kelly has managed to spawn her own set of legends in addition to being the alleged fifth victim. Each of the other victims is named and remembered. While many killers have garnered similar attention, finding victims that have achieved this type of canonization is a rare thing - finding this amongst the poor and supposedly disposable in our society is a rarity.

So when Moore finds a fantastic tale of Freemason conspiracy, a royal love affair and four women who chose to bribe the wrong man for ten pounds leading directly to the creation of Jack the Ripper, it suddenly makes sense. Even the fourth dimension bends a bit for our killer, bleeding through from the future to show that his actions will become part of the London psyche. Before one thinks that Moore is trying to present all of this as fact, there are good portions of the story devoted to those that were taken in by the hysteria of the day. Panels of random strangers writing letters to newspapers posing as Jack the Ripper are shown, police are shown dismissing key pieces of evidence, different investigators are brought in for political reasons - it's all there to demonstrate the basic human need to muck up an already limited ability to discover evidence after the fact. (For those that must really know blow-by-blow, the first appendix details where each story element, character and even some bits of dialogue were either found or when they were invented for each page.)

Cambell's drawings deserve a lot of credit. The black and white varies in style throughout - from a scratched-ink-style to a softened-smudged style that resembles charcoal drawings. For even the most gruesome scenes, one is thankful to only have the black and white drawing - color would simply have been too much for the violence his drawing clearly conveys. ( )

This was, for me, one of these books where I was incredibly struck by the art and care with which it was done - and yet wasn't able to derive much basic enjoyment from the read. (It reminds me a bit of Foucault's Pendulum, by Umberto Eco, in that way).

From Hell essentially reviews five murders of prostitutes in 1888 attributed to the unidentified "Jack the Ripper" and locates them against a backdrop of two types of power - the first, is the visible, royal power: the Crown has authorized certain of the murders to cover up the indiscretions of one of the princes. The primary actor, the "Ripper" himself, is only too glad to carry out the Crown's wishes, because, as a member of the Freemasons at one of their highest levels, he sees this also as an opportunity to create or to access a certain paranormal power available only to the Masons by means of ritual sacrifice. The book is obsessively documented in an appendix - no surprise, given it's an Alan Moore creation - for those who are curious to explore either of the theories at greater length.

Many parts of the book are spent as the Ripper (Dr. William Gull) describes the structure of London and the placement of certain artifacts and buildings on occult lines, which the Masons know about and are keep to capitalize on. I may be something of a dilettante, but these were the parts of the book I had to struggle a bit to get through - I am unfamiliar with London's geography, and while I find the theory of these placements and power lines interesting, it was hard for me to be captivated by the minutia of them.

For all this, I was intrigued by Moore's theory, and particularly by his elaborations on what the record can tell us. Most of the characters are a bit lacking in depth - each of them stands for a single idea, in many cases, but they are still compelling as figures in the greater history. I'd recommend it as worth a read, but again, more as a thought-provoker than an entertainment.

Campbell's drawings fit the book astonishingly well. The entire work is done in black and white, not a spot of color to be found, and Campbell seems averse to coloring in dark spaces or using traditional shading - many of the dark lines and shading are done in gridding or hatchmarks, a curiously technical, engineer-like overlay that seems fitting for this moment in history. The art adapts to its subjects - members of the upper class are drawn with even faces, clean lines, fine inkwork; the lower classes are roughly drawn, features askew, lines unmatched and unkempt. I think the artwork here is brilliant.

The plot is well-paced and has a clear storyarch: things are brought to a believable, if not always satisfying end. I'd be curious to hear what students of history think about it, in addition to the fiction-focused (like myself) and fans of the graphic. ( )

Bad ( )