From Hell

Last updated

From Hell
From hell tpb.jpg
From Hell collected edition
Publication information
Publisher United States:
Eddie Campbell Comics
Top Shelf Productions
United Kingdom:
Knockabout Comics
Publication date1999 (collected edition)
Creative team
Written by Alan Moore
Artist(s) Eddie Campbell
Collected editions
Master Edition ISBN   1603094695

From Hell is a graphic novel by writer Alan Moore and artist Eddie Campbell, originally published in serial form from 1989 to 1998. The full collection was published in 1999 by Top Shelf Productions.

Contents

Set during the Whitechapel murders of the late Victorian era, the novel speculates upon the identity and motives of Jack the Ripper. The novel depicts several true events surrounding the murders, although portions have been fictionalised, particularly the identity of the killer and the precise nature and circumstances of the murders.

The title is taken from the first words of the "From Hell" letter, which some authorities believe was an authentic message sent from the killer in 1888. The collected edition is 572 pages long. The 2000 and later editions are the most common prints. The comic was loosely adapted into a film, released in 2001. In 2000, the graphic novel was banned in Australia for several weeks after customs officers seized copies of the seventh issue from a shipment intended for Quality Comics.

Development

Moore began developing the plot for From Hell in the late 1980s. Writer Neil Gaiman recalled Moore calling him up to discuss a television documentary he had just seen about Jack the Ripper, and then asking for Gaiman's help tracking down "rare and forgotten biographies of possible Ripper suspects at the British Museum". [1]

From Hell takes as its premise Stephen Knight's theory that the Jack the Ripper murders were part of a conspiracy to conceal the birth of an illegitimate royal baby fathered by Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, slightly modified: the involvement of Walter Sickert is reduced, and Knight's allegation that the child's mother was a Catholic has been dropped. Knight's theories have been described as "a good fictional read" whose "conclusions have been disproved numerous times". [2]

Publication history

From Hell was originally serialized as one of several features in Taboo , an anthology comic book published by Steve Bissette's Spiderbaby Grafix. After running in Taboo #2–7 (1989–1992), Moore and Campbell moved the project to its own series, published first by Tundra Publishing, then by Kitchen Sink Press. The series was published in ten volumes between 1991 and 1996, and an appendix, From Hell: The Dance of the Gull-catchers, was published in 1998. The entire series was collected in a trade paperback and published by Eddie Campbell Comics in 1999; trade paperback and hardcover versions were published by Top Shelf Productions in the United States and Knockabout Comics in the UK. A fully colorized Master Edition was serialized starting in September 2018. [3]

Plot

Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, also known as Prince Eddy, secretly marries and fathers a child with Annie Crook, a shop girl in London's East End. Prince Eddy had visited the area under an assumed name and Annie is unaware of her husband's royal position. Queen Victoria becomes aware of the marriage and has Albert separated forcibly from his wife, whom she places in an asylum. Victoria then instructs her royal physician Sir William Gull to impair Annie's sanity, which he does by damaging or impairing her thyroid gland. The prince's daughter is taken to Annie's parents by the artist Walter Sickert, a friend of Eddy's who had accompanied him on his trips to the East End. Annie's father believes the child to be his through an incestuous relationship with his daughter. Sickert reluctantly leaves the child with Annie's parents.

The potentially scandalous matter is resolved, until a group of prostitutes — Annie's friends Mary Kelly, Polly Nichols, Anne Chapman, and Liz Stride — who are aware of the illegitimate child and its royal connections, attempt to blackmail Sickert. After Queen Victoria learns of the blackmail attempt, Gull is enlisted to silence the group of women. The police are granted prior knowledge of Gull's intentions, and are adjured not to interfere until the plot is completed.

Gull, a high-ranking Freemason, murders the four women in Whitechapel with the aid of a carriage driver, John Netley. While he justifies the murders by claiming they are a Masonic warning to an apparent Illuminati threat to the throne, the killings are, in Gull's mind, part of an elaborate mystical ritual to ensure male societal dominance over women. While targeting Kelly, Gull also kills Catherine Eddowes, who was using Kelly's name as an alias. As the killings progress, Gull becomes psychologically unhinged and has a vision of the future while murdering a woman he believes to be Kelly.

Gull takes Netley on a tour of London landmarks, expounding on their hidden mystical significance. Later, Gull forces the semi-literate Netley to write the infamous From Hell letter. Following this, several people write letters to the police claiming to be the murderer, and the nickname "Jack the Ripper" becomes a household name.

Inspector Frederick Abberline, who once patrolled Whitechapel as a police officer, investigates the Ripper crimes without success. He meets Robert James Lees, a fraudulent psychic who acts as a spiritual advisor to Queen Victoria. Lees contacts Abberline and identifies Gull as the murderer. Abberline and Lees confront Gull, who instantly confesses. Abberline reports the confession to his superiors at Scotland Yard, who cover up the discovery. The police inform both Abberline and Lees that Gull was operating alone and was gripped by insanity. Abberline later discovers Gull's intentions to cover up the matter of the royal "bastard" fathered by the Duke of Clarence. He resigns from the Metropolitan Police in protest of the official cover-up of the murders, and contemplates leaving England to join the Pinkertons.

Gull is tried by a secret Masonic council, which determines he is insane. Gull refuses to submit to the council, informing them that because of his accomplishments and his visions, no man amongst them may be counted as his peer and cannot judge the "mighty work" he has wrought. A phony funeral is staged, and Gull is imprisoned under a pseudonym "Thomas Mason." The Freemasons frame boarding school teacher Montague Druitt as a suspect, killing him and making his death look like suicide. Years later, and moments before his death, Gull has an extended mystical experience, where his spirit travels through time, observing the crimes of the London Monster, instigating or inspiring a number of other killers (Peter Sutcliffe, Ian Brady), causing Netley's death, as well as serving as the inspiration for both Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and William Blake's painting The Ghost of a Flea . The last experience his spirit undergoes before it "becomes God" is visiting a woman living in Ireland. The woman has four children who are named after the women murdered by Gull in Whitechapel. She is apparently able to see Gull's spirit, and abjures him to begone "back to Hell."

Interpretations and themes

From Hell was partly inspired by the title of Douglas Adams' novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency , in that it explores the notion that to solve a crime holistically, one would need to solve the entire society in which it occurred. [4]

From Hell also explores Moore's ideas on the nature of time. Early on, Gull's friend James Hinton discusses his son Howard's theory of the "fourth dimension", which proposes that time is a spatial dimension. All time co-exists, and it is only the limits of our perception that make it appear to progress. Sequences of related events can be seen as shapes in the fourth dimension: history can "be said to have an architecture", as Gull puts it. [5] Gull's experiences seem to confirm this: he has visions of the 20th century during the murders, and as he is dying he experiences, and appears to influence, past and future events. Moore had earlier explored similar ideas in Watchmen , where Doctor Manhattan perceives past, present and future simultaneously, and describes himself as "a puppet who can see the strings". [6]

Critic Gary Groth says the most elaborate theme in From Hell stems from Moore's statement that "the Ripper murders — happening when they did and where they did — were almost like an apocalyptic summary of... that entire Victorian age." [7]

Awards

From Hell won several Eisner Awards, including "Best Serialized Story" (1993), [8] "Best Writer" (1995, [9] 1996, [10] 1997 [11] ), and "Best Graphic Album – Reprint" (2000). [12] It won the 1995 Harvey Award for Best Continuing or Limited Series, and the collected edition won the 2000 Harvey Award for Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work.

The book also won the 2000 Eagle Award for Favourite Trade Paperback/Reprint Collection, [13] and the "Prix de la critique" at the Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2001, for the French edition published by Éditions Delcourt. [14]

The collected edition was a top vote getter for the Comics Buyer's Guide Fan Award for Favorite Reprint Graphic Album in 1999. [15]

During its initial serialization, From Hell received the 1996 International Horror Guild Award for Graphic Story/illustrated Narrative, [16] and the 1997 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Story. [17]

Film adaptation

A film, loosely based on the series, was made by the Hughes brothers in 2001, starring Johnny Depp, Heather Graham, and Ian Holm. It received mixed reviews from critics, with a rating of 57% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. [18]

TV adaptation

In 2015 it was reported that FX was developing a From Hell drama series with Don Murphy, who produced the 2001 film, as executive producer; David Arata was announced as the writer of the adaptation. [19]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eddie Campbell</span> British comics artist and cartoonist

Eddie Campbell is a British comics artist and cartoonist. He was the illustrator and publisher of From Hell, and the creator of the semi-autobiographical Alec stories collected in Alec: The Years Have Pants, and Bacchus, a wry adventure series about the few Greek gods who have survived to the present day.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Gull</span> English physician (1816–1890)

Sir William Withey Gull, 1st Baronet was an English physician. Of modest family origins, he established a lucrative private practice and served as Governor of Guy's Hospital, Fullerian Professor of Physiology and President of the Clinical Society. In 1871, having successfully treated the Prince of Wales during a life-threatening attack of typhoid fever, he was created a Baronet and appointed to be one of the Physicians-in-Ordinary to Queen Victoria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colleen Doran</span> American writer-artist and cartoonist

Colleen Doran is an American writer-artist and cartoonist. She illustrated hundreds of comics, graphic novels, books and magazines, including the autobiographical graphic novel of Marvel Comics editor and writer Stan Lee entitled Amazing Fantastic Incredible Stan Lee, which became a New York Times bestseller. She adapted and did the art for the short story "Troll Bridge" by Neil Gaiman, which also became a New York Times bestseller. Her books have received Eisner, Harvey, Bram Stoker, Locus, and International Horror Guild Awards.

<i>Murder by Decree</i> 1979 film by Bob Clark

Murder by Decree is a 1979 mystery thriller film directed by Bob Clark. It features the Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who are embroiled in the investigation surrounding the real-life 1888 Whitechapel murders committed by "Jack the Ripper". Christopher Plummer plays Holmes and James Mason plays Watson. Though it features a similar premise, it is somewhat different in tone and result to A Study in Terror. It is loosely based on The Ripper File by Elwyn Jones and John Lloyd.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack the Ripper suspects</span>

A series of murders that took place in the East End of London from August to November 1888 was blamed on an unidentified assailant who was nicknamed Jack the Ripper. Since then, the identity of the killer has been widely debated, with over 100 suspects named. Though many theories have been advanced, experts find none widely persuasive, and some are hardly taken seriously at all.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederick Abberline</span> British policeman

Frederick George Abberline was a British chief inspector for the London Metropolitan Police. He is best known for being a prominent police figure in the investigation into the Jack the Ripper serial killer murders of 1888.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">P. Craig Russell</span> Comic creator

Philip Craig Russell is an American comics artist, writer, and illustrator. His work has won multiple Harvey and Eisner Awards. Russell was the first mainstream comic book creator to come out as openly gay.

<i>Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution</i> 1976 true crime book by Stephen Knight

Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution is a book written by Stephen Knight first published in 1976. It proposed a solution to five murders in Victorian London that were blamed on an unidentified serial killer known as "Jack the Ripper".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen R. Bissette</span> American comics artist (born 1955)

Stephen R. Bissette is an American comic book artist and publisher with a focus on the horror genre. He worked with writer Alan Moore and inker John Totleben on the DC Comics series Swamp Thing in the 1980s.

James H. Williams III, usually credited as J. H. Williams III, is an American comics artist and penciller. He is known for his work on titles such as Chase, Promethea, Desolation Jones,Batwoman, and The Sandman: Overture.

Jack the Ripper, a notorious serial killer who terrorized Whitechapel in 1888, has been featured in works of fiction ranging from gothic novels published at the time of the murders to modern motion pictures, televised dramas and video games.

<i>From Hell</i> (film) 2001 film by Albert Hughes, Allen Hughes

From Hell is a 2001 period detective horror film directed by the Hughes Brothers and written by Terry Hayes and Rafael Yglesias. It is loosely based on the graphic novel of the same name by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell about the Jack the Ripper murders. The film stars Johnny Depp as Frederick Abberline, the lead investigator of the murders, and Heather Graham as Mary Kelly, a prostitute targeted by the Ripper. Other cast members include Ian Holm, Robbie Coltrane, Ian Richardson and Jason Flemyng.

James Vance was an American comic book writer, author and playwright, best known for his work from Kitchen Sink Press and in particular the lauded Kings in Disguise.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Netley</span>

John Charles Netley was an English cab driver who was later claimed to have been involved in the 'Whitechapel Murders' committed by the unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper.

<i>Taboo</i> (comics) American comics anthology

Taboo is a comics anthology edited by Steve Bissette that was designed to feature edgier and more adult comics than could be published through mainstream publishers. The series began as a horror anthology, but soon branched out into other genres as well. It was published by various imprints from 1988 to 1995.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Moore</span> British comic book author (born 1953)

Alan Moore is an English author known primarily for his work in comic books including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, The Ballad of Halo Jones, Swamp Thing, Batman: The Killing Joke, and From Hell. He is widely recognised among his peers and critics as one of the best comic book writers in the English language. Moore has occasionally used such pseudonyms as Curt Vile, Jill de Ray, Brilburn Logue, and Translucia Baboon; also, reprints of some of his work have been credited to The Original Writer when Moore requested that his name be removed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert James Lees</span> British spiritualist (1849-1931)

Robert James Lees was a British spiritualist, medium, preacher, writer and healer of the late Victorian era and early twentieth century known today for claims that he knew the identity of Jack the Ripper, responsible for the Whitechapel murders of 1888.

<i>Jack the Ripper</i> (miniseries) 1988 British crime drama TV serial

Jack the Ripper is a 1988 Anglo-American co-production by Thames Television and CBS television film drama based on the notorious Jack the Ripper murder spree in Victorian London. It was first broadcast on ITV.

Jeff Nicholson is an American comic book writer, artist and self-publisher, known primarily for his work on Ultra Klutz, Through the Habitrails, Father & Son, and Colonia. Nicholson received a total of six Comics Industry Eisner Award nominations in his 25-year career, and was one of the first four recipients of the Xeric Award comic book self-publishing grants in 1992.

<i>Jack the Rippers Bedroom</i>

Jack the Ripper's Bedroom is an oil on canvas painting by German-born British artist Walter Sickert, painted from c. 1906 to 1907. It depicts the darkly lit bedroom of Jack the Ripper, the culprit of at least five of London's Whitechapel murders in 1888. A shape in the middle looks like a person, but is not, according to the Manchester Art Gallery, where the painting has mostly stayed since 1980.

References

  1. ↑ Gaiman, Neil (2016). The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction. New York, NY. p. 248. ISBN   978-0-06-226226-4. OCLC   939277355.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. ↑ "Jack The Ripper: The Final Solution". Casebook: Jack the Ripper. Retrieved September 25, 2019.
  3. ↑ Holub, Christian (May 31, 2018). "Eddie Campbell explains why he's coloring From Hell for the first time". Entertainment Weekly .
  4. ↑ Dave Windett, Jenni Scott & Guy Lawley, "Writer From Hell: the Alan Moore Experience" (interview), Comics Forum 4, p. 46, 1993
  5. ↑ Moore & Campbell, From Hell chapter 2, page 15, panel 4
  6. ↑ Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons, Watchmen issue 9, page 5, panel 4
  7. ↑ Groth, Gary (February 1991). "Last Big Words — Alan Moore on 'Marvelman', 'From Hell', 'A Small Killing,' and being published." The Comics Journal 140.
  8. ↑ 1993 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award Nominees and Winners, Comic Book Awards Almanac
  9. ↑ 1995 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award Nominees and Winners, Comic Book Awards Almanac
  10. ↑ 1996 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award Nominees and Winners, Comic Book Awards Almanac
  11. ↑ 1997 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award Nominees and Winners, Comic Book Awards Almanac
  12. ↑ 2000 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award Nominees and Winners, Comic Book Awards Almanac
  13. ↑ "Eagle Awards 2000: Sequential Tart Wins!", Sequential Tart. Accessed Jan. 15, 2020.
  14. ↑ Prix de la Critique 2001, ACBD
  15. ↑ "Comics Buyers Guide Fan Awards". Hahn Library. 2006. Retrieved 21 September 2023.
  16. ↑ IHG Award Recipients Archived 22 April 2009 at the Wayback Machine , International Horror Guild.
  17. ↑ "Alan Moore's 'From Hell' Fully Restored and In Color for the First Time!". Previews World. 12 October 2020. Retrieved 21 September 2023.
  18. ↑ "From Hell – Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes .
  19. ↑ Andreeva, Nellie (18 November 2014). "'From Hell' Drama Based On Jack The Ripper Graphic Novel In Works At FX". Deadline. Retrieved 30 August 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.