 From Hell was one of Alan
Moore's non-super-hero projects begun in the wake of
Watchmen's success and Moore's subsequent departure from DC
Comics. It was nothing less than a brilliant examination of Jack the Ripper, the 20th Century,
history itself, arcane geometries of cities, conspiracies, class, and the obsession with the
Ripper. The entire story was illustrated by Eddie Campbell.
Quickly designated "a melodrama in sixteen parts," the prologue first
appeared in Cerebus #124, published by
Aardvark-Vanaheim in 1989. The chapters proper began appearing in Taboo, edited by
Stephen Bissette (Alan Moore's former collaborator on
Swamp Thing) beginning in Taboo #2.
Taboo was published intermittently and stopped publication with #7, which featured
chapter 6 of From Hell.
These early episodes were collected in From Hell volumes 1-3, first
published from 1991-1993, alone with Moore's appendices. After the demise of Taboo, this
series continued with new material, beginning with volume 4 in 1994. That same year, volume 1 of
Alan Moore's scripts for the series, featuring intermittent art by Eddie Campbell, saw
publication. From Hell Volume Ten, published in 1996 contained the final chapter, chapter
14, and the epilogue. Around this time, Moore and Campbell signed a deal for a movie version of
From Hell; reportedly, this contract prevented the continued printing of Alan Moore's
scripts, meaning that there would be no second volume of that series.
1998 saw the publication of From Hell: The Dance of the Gull-Catchers,
which featured a brilliant 24-page comic-book appendix, also with art by Eddie Campbell. It also
contained 24 pages of additional writing and photos on the series. The entire series --
including Moore's appendices and the comic-book appendix in The Dance of the Gull-Catchers, but
not including the 24 pages of additional material in that volume -- was collected in the
From Hell trade paperback, published by Eddie Campbell Comics in late 1999.
The movie adaptation of From Hell, starring Johnny Depp, was
released in October 2001. It was the first movie based on
Alan Moore material (recall that the
Watchmen movie failed to materialize) and it was,
for any reader of the original graphic novel, tremendously disappointing. Victorian mannerisms
were almost utterly dropped, a far cry from the graphic novel, which gave a reader more of a feel
for Victorian London as it really was than any number of Victorian novels. The brief film
twisted the characters and plot, making a subtle work into Hollywood tripe complete with a
beautiful, perfect-skinned actress playing a Victorian whore. It was simply dreadful -- and not
in a good way, as the comic book was. I very strongly advise that anyone read the graphic novel
at least a couple times, including the annotations, before viewing the film -- and then to regard
the film as a disposable take on the graphic novel, as a mildly interesting amusement more
relevant to the Hollywood system than to the graphic novel, as illuminating the subtlety of the
graphic novel through its stark absence on screen.
If there was an upside to the movie version, besides that it brought some
new readers to the graphic novel and to sophisticated comic books, it was that the second
appendix ("Dance of the gull catchers") included the movie in it, taking the film as a social
phenomenon that would inevitably miss the complex social patterns that the graphic novel, the
attention given to the Jack the Ripper phenomenon, and even the movie itself were all about.
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