From Hell

Etranglees, eventrees, mutilees de la plus atroce des facons, elles sont les victimes de celui qui allait devenir le plus celebre serial killer de l'histoire, et dont l'identite reste aujourd'hui une enigme : Jack l'eventreur. Et si, derriere ce nom qui a fait couler tant d'encre, se cachait bien plus qu'on a voulu le dire ? Un invraisemblable complot qui reunirait quelques-uns des plus eminents representants de l'aristocratie britannique, decides a sauver la couronne d'un terrible scandale. Un complot dont l'instigatrice n'aurait ete autre que la Reine Victoria elle-meme, et l'executeur des basses œuvres, son chirurgien, le Dr Gull...

En choisissant une des nombreuses hypotheses concernant l'identite de Jack l'eventreur, Alan Moore (Watchmen, V pour vendetta) construit une fois de plus un scenario d'une formidable complexite, truffe de references et tres rigoureusement documente. Un thriller qui est aussi un temoignage sur l'Angleterre des laisses-pour-compte, auquel le trait a la fois rigide et minutieux d'Eddie Cambell confere une noirceur inegalee. Une œuvre majeure, justement couronnee par de nombreux prix. --Georges Louhans

Amazon.co.uk
"I shall tell you where we are. We're in the most extreme and utter region of the human mind. A dim, subconscious underworld. A radiant abyss where men meet themselves. Hell, Netley. We're in Hell." Having proved himself peerless in the arena of reinterpreting superheroes, Alan Moore turned his ever-incisive eye to the squalid, enigmatic world of Jack the Ripper and the Whitechapel murders of 1888. Weighing in at 576 pages, From Hell is certainly the most epic of Moore's works and remarkably and is possibly his finest effort yet in a career punctuated by such glorious highlights as Watchmen and V for Vendetta . Going beyond the myriad existing theories, which range from the sublime to the ridiculous, Moore presents an ingenious take on the slaughter. His Ripper's brutal activities are the epicentre of a conspiracy involving the very heart of the British Establishment, including the Freemasons and The Royal Family. A popular claim, which is transformed through Moore's exquisite and thoroughly gripping vision, of the Ripper crimes being the womb from which the 20th century, so enmeshed in the celebrity culture of violence, received its shocking, visceral birth. Bolstered by meticulous research that encompasses a wide spectrum of Ripper studies and myths and coupled with his ability to evoke sympathies in such monstrous characters, Moore has created perhaps the finest examination of the Ripper legacy, observing far beyond society's obsessive need to expose Evil's visage. Ultimately, as Moore observes, Jack's identity and his actions are inconsequential to the manner in which society embraced the Fear: "It's about us. It's about our minds and how they dance. Jack mirrors our hysterias. Faceless, he is the receptacle for each new social panic." Eddie Campbell's stunning black and white artwork, replete with a scratchy, dirty sheen, is perfectly matched to the often-unshakeable intensity of Moore's writing. Between them, each murder is rendered in horrifying detail, providing the book's most unnerving scenes, made more so in uncomfortable, yet lyrical moments as when the villain embraces an eviscerated corpse, craving understanding; pleading that they "are wed in legend, inextricable within eternity". Though technically a comic, the term hardly begins to describe From Hell's inimitable grandeur and finesse, as it takes the medium to fresh heights of ingenuity and craftsmanship. Moore and Campbell's autopsy on the emaciated corpse of the Ripper myth has divulged a deeply disturbing yet undeniably captivating masterpiece. --Danny Graydon

Amazon.com
The mad, shaggy genius of the comics world dips deeply into the well of history and pulls up a cup filled with blood in From Hell. Alan Moore did a couple of Ph.D.'s worth of research into the Whitechapel murders for this copiously annotated collection of the independently published series. The web of facts, opinion, hearsay, and imaginative invention draws the reader in from the first page. Eddie Campbell's scratchy ink drawings evoke a dark and dirty Victorian London and help to humanize characters that have been caricatured into obscurity for decades. Moore, having decided that the evidence best fits the theory of a Masonic conspiracy to cover up a scandal involving Victoria's grandson, goes to work telling the story with relish from the point of view of the victims, the chief inspector, and the killer--the Queen's physician. His characterization is just as vibrant as Campbell's; even the minor characters feel fully real. Looking more deeply than most, the author finds in the "great work" of the Ripper a ritual magic working intended to give birth to the 20th century in all its horrid glory. Maps, characters, and settings are all as accurate as possible, and while the reader might not ultimately agree with Moore and Campbell's thesis, From Hell is still a great work of literature. --Rob Lightner

In the Appendix to each chapter Moore careful details his sources, alterations and inventions for "From Hell" on a page-by-page basis. While such elaborations will only serve to infuriate most scholars of the Ripper, they are certainly of interest to us poor neophytes who cannot help but be fascinated by the details of the unsolvable mystery. Moore is working primarily off of Stephen Knight's "Jack the Riper: The Final Solution," which advances what Casebook: Jack the Ripper (the world's largest on-line public repository of Ripper-related information) labels the most controversial Ripper theory. Known as the Royal Conspiracy theory, it does have the delicious quality of involving virtually every person who has ever been a Ripper suspect. Despite its popularity, Ripperologists pretty much universally dismiss the theory (it ranks 8th on their list, mainly because one-third rated it 10 and another one-third rated it 1). But then the most popular suspect is currently James Maybrick, brought into prominence by the "Diary of Jack the Ripper" hoax (ah, but was it really?). Given everything that is out there, it is no wonder that the most "legitimate" suspect of the day, Francis Tumblety, gets lost. But all of this just reinforces the idea that "From Hell" is not history, but rather drama. Time and time again, it is the rationale of the STORY rather than the FACTS that drive Moore's narrative.

The artwork by Eddie Campbell, aided and abetted at various times by April Post and Pete Mullins, is certainly evocative of the tale. I even think there is a point at which the reader has to be grateful that the bloodier episodes are rendered in stark black and white drawings. Campbell presents various styles at different times in the narrative, altering it to match the narrative. But it is Moore's epic story that captivates throughout as he puts his giant jigsaw puzzle together from all the evidence and his own speculations. When Moore works in the conception of Adolf Hitler, which happened in Austria around the time of the murders, as an ironic counterpart to his narrative, it is hard not to be impressed, just as we are horrified by the clinical details of the Ripper's murder of Mary Jane Kelly, which takes up all of Chapter 10. Through deduction, induction and abduction, Moore creates a compelling story and the fact that it is not what really happens has little to do with how much we enjoy "From Hell."

Do I believe that Sir William Gull was indeed Jack the Ripper? No, I do not. I have heard many theories regarding his true identity that have been plausible, at least at face value, and I am more than willing to lead it to the knowledgeable experts to argue out their respective merits. But I was not reading "From Hell" to be convinced of the guilty or innocence of any one regarding the world's first infamous serial killer. I read it because as we have known ever since Alan Moore did his own take on the Swamp Thing, one of his greatest strengths as a writer is to make us look at old things in new ways. Now, if only the movie version can be half this good.


Vivons dangereusement...   Août 25, 2003
13 sur 19 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile

J'ai peur de m'attirer les foudres des fans d'Alan Moore, mais je ne vais pas dire que du bien de From Hell, malgre toutes les qualites que d'autres ont pris soin de souligner. Pour les lecteurs occasionnels de BD qui ne connaissent pas Alan Moore, cet album risque d'etre particulierement difficile a aborder. Au-dela de l'histoire de Jack l'eventreur, cet album est une nouvelle declinaison des humeurs noires et de la desesperance de son auteur - dans une version encore plus dense que d'habitude ; le tour de Londres, dans la premiere partie de l'album, est ainsi absolument interminable, et ce n'est que le debut. Pour resumer, From Hell est un vrai pave - peut etre le premier pave de la bande dessinee - et comme tout bon pave, certains le trouveront un peu lourd...


Sombre perle   Avril 24, 2003
Une des perles de Alan Moore (V pour Vendetta, Watchmen, Swamp Thing et tous les comics Best America Comics), qui decrit de maniere totalement originale l'histoire de Jack l'Eventreur.
Le livre est toutefois deconseille aux ames sensibles; pour la petite anecdote, Alan Moore decrivait ses recherches sur le livre a d'autres ecrivains. Neil Gaiman, qui ecoutait, fut si malade qu'il s'absenta, provoquant les lazzis des autres membres de l'assistance.


Sombre perle   Avril 24, 2003
5 sur 5 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile

Une des perles de Alan Moore (V pour Vendetta, Watchmen, Swamp Thing et tous les comics Best America Comics), qui decrit de maniere totalement originale l'histoire de Jack l'Eventreur.
Le livre est toutefois deconseille aux ames sensibles; pour la petite anecdote, Alan Moore decrivait ses recherches sur le livre a d'autres ecrivains. Neil Gaiman, qui ecoutait, fut si malade qu'il s'absenta, provoquant les lazzis des autres membres de l'assistance.


Superbe   Avril 17, 2002
Touene (Courbevoie (92))
13 sur 14 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile

Excellent pave de + de 500 pages.
Le scenario de Moore est excellent: fouille, precis et tres captivant. Il y a une veritable recherche historique (notes et references fournis par les auteurs sont abondantes et a lire).
Le graphisme m'a deconcerte au debut, mais finalement colle tres bien a l'ambiance de la BD, tres noir et glauque.
Je recommande absolument cette BD.
A lire !