From Hell

Written by Alan Moore
Art by Eddie Campbell

I've always understood why Alan Moore is the most celebrated comic writer of all time. I first was exposed to his work on Swamp Thing, and from there dabbled into a variety of titles like Miracleman, Supreme, Top Ten, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and of course, books like V for Vendetta and The Watchmen. What I don't understand is why he isn't more celebrated for this book than anything else he's written. It's easily the most compelling and original of all his work.

From Hell, for anyone who hasn't seen the horrible movie (yet another standard Alan Moore occurence), is a scholarly and impartial examination of the Jack the Ripper murders of the late 19th Century. Moore has done a voluminous amount of research, and depicts events as they are believed to have happened.

Perhaps the most gripping parts of this book, for me at least, are the lengthy and informative footnotes, which serve to both prove the veracity of the text, and to illuminate the reader further into any number of related topics.

Moore's story is not just of an aristocratic murderer, secret societies, prostitutes, and inspectors; it is the story of Victorian London itself. Almost any important figure from that time you can think of makes an appearance, and London's architecture gets a good going over. Eddie Campbell is just as fastidious as Moore when it comes to depicting the time, and his art has the effect of perfectly recreating Whitechapel in all its muck and glory.

What really grabbed me was the way Moore incorporated any number of fakes and phonies, such as the man in 1960s London who claims to see a Victorian man and woman walk past his window late nights - Moore has Dr. Gull, our Ripper, peer into a window and see that same man. Later, Gull has any number of visions of our modern world, adding a strong supernatural feel to the story.

This is a masterpiece of comics art, and is the book people should turn to when attempting to argue for comics as a form of literature.