From Hell
Written by Alan Moore, artwork by Eddie Campbell, contributing artwork by Pete Mullins

"For my part, I am concerned with cutting into and examining the still-warm corpse of history itself. In some of my chilliest moments, I suspect that this was his foremost preoccupation also, albeit in pursuit of different ends."
-- Alan Moore

I have a friend who recently told me that Alan Moore, while a seminal writer in the comic industry (and also the subject of many a review by yours truly) is sometimes just too clever for his own good. I tend to disagree. Moore has been a guiding force in the world of comics since the publication of his ultimate superhero treatise, Watchmen, in the late eighties, and he's had a recent resurgence in popularity due to his association with America's Best Comics, a DC/Wildstorm imprint that solely puts out titles written by Moore. After finishing his run with the mainstream in the eighties, however, Moore struggled to produce more serious works of graphic literature, pushing the comic form to its very limit. The comic audience, however, is a fickle one, and Moore fought a continual uphill battle to produce ten volumes (and one appendix) of From Hell, a magnum opus dealing with Jack the Ripper and the infamous Whitechapel murders. Along the way, he met with every impasse imaginable -- lack of money, creative setbacks, loss of publishers, etc. Often, fans erroneously thought that the series had been abandoned. Still, in between the paying jobs that put food on the table, From Hell remained Moore's primary focus.

And it only took him ten years to see it through. Allow me to repeat that. Ten years.

It was well worth the wait.

From Hell is one of the most painstakingly researched, graphically detailed tomes on the Jack the Ripper phenomenon to ever hit a bookshelf. Beginning with the Whitechapel murders, Moore unearthed hidden facts to explore the multitude of conspiracy theories surrounding them. Everything is touched on, from the Freemasons to the Royal Family to flummoxing of Scotland Yard inspectors and would-be psychics, no stone is left unturned. It's a dense read that offers both an insightful analysis of this eternal mystery while also laying bare all the evils of the Victorian aristocracy. It's also a horrific journey into madness, propelled by a detective story worthy of Sherlock Holmes. Moore has done his best to ensure accuracy, and he duly notes when events in the story have been extrapolated. There is an exhausting amount of detail here (the footnotes alone comprise a tremendous section of the book), and it is this vivid knack for displaying the truth that makes the story so utterly chilling. It's not for the squeamish, and those with only a cursory knowledge of Jack the Ripper might be quite offput by the gory goings-on. Rest assured, however, that it's in no way exploitative -- it is what it is: a dark and fascinating probe into the events surrounding the most infamous murders in history. Oh, and did I mention that it's a comic book?

On the artistic front, Eddie Campbell's sketchy style is magnificent here. It's suitably bleak, capturing perfectly the rank reality of nineteenth-century London. No comic has ever looked like this. Campbell provides the lettering as well, and the informal style he uses actually conveys various patterns of speech, as opposed to simply furthering the story. The combination of Campbell's sharp pencils with Moore's sharper wit portray a reality that, through words and pictures alone, seems quite simply true. And while the theories surrounding these well-documented events remain manifold, chances are likely that Moore's version of events are the closest ever to laying bare the mystery. Who was Jack the Ripper? Alan Moore might just know. After all, he had ten years to ponder.

Yeah, Alan Moore may indeed be too clever for his own good. But that still puts him miles above the rest of us.

-- David Rosiak

From Hell, originally published as a 10-issue miniseries by Eddie Campbell Comics, is currently available in trade paperback through comic retailers.

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