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From Hell: Vanuit de hel #1

Vanuit de hel - deel 1

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From Hell staat bekend als een van de grootste meesterwerken uit de stripgeschiedenis, een graphic novel die qua ambitie en complexiteit klassiekers als Watchmen en V for Vendetta ver overstijgt. In From Hell onderzoeken Alan Moore en Eddie Campbell de mythe van Jack the Ripper, misschien wel de beruchtste moordenaar in de annalen van de misdaad. De verbazingwekkende hoeveelheid research en de beklemmende stijl maken van From Hell een meesterwerk van historische fictie. Het is een literaire ontleding van Victoriaans London, even fascinerend als angstaanjagend. Voor zijn tekeningen liet Campbell zich inspireren door de impressionisten en de gravures van Victoriaanse illustratoren. Ze vormen de perfecte visualisatie van Moore's duistere visioenen.

208 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2010

12 people want to read

About the author

Alan Moore

1,580 books21.8k followers
Alan Moore is an English writer most famous for his influential work in comics, including the acclaimed graphic novels Watchmen, V for Vendetta and From Hell. He has also written a novel, Voice of the Fire, and performs "workings" (one-off performance art/spoken word pieces) with The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels, some of which have been released on CD.

As a comics writer, Moore is notable for being one of the first writers to apply literary and formalist sensibilities to the mainstream of the medium. As well as including challenging subject matter and adult themes, he brings a wide range of influences to his work, from the literary–authors such as William S. Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Robert Anton Wilson and Iain Sinclair; New Wave science fiction writers such as Michael Moorcock; horror writers such as Clive Barker; to the cinematic–filmmakers such as Nicolas Roeg. Influences within comics include Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Kirby and Bryan Talbot.

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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
Profile Image for Mike Keirsbilck.
197 reviews8 followers
April 12, 2013
In my quest to gain more traction with graphic novels, I ended up with From Hell.
A classic, I gather. And rightfully so. In that respect a tremendous amount of work went into this one.

This work provides yet another theory about who Jack the Ripper was, and why he committed those murders.
Yet another, I say... Well, libraries full of books have been written about it.
Yet, this one is not like the others. Not only on account of this being a graphic novel, and not a researched book, but also the way the story is told: partly researched, partly fictional.
It gives the reader multiple ways of reading it. You can read it as just a story -- whether or not it is fictional doesn't really matter; You can read it as a detective, snooping around in the story and the drawings for clues; Or you can read it together with the appendices and read it as a documentary.
It's multi-faceted and it really works on each level. I'm in awe for the amount of time and work this must have costed.

This first chapter of the trilogy sets off the story, and takes a lot of time contextualizing the Masonic backdrop in which Moore sets the story. This is interesting stuff, but it's telling the appendices where Moore cites his sources and shows us his choices, is the most interesting part of the book.
I feel the story itself takes too long to make it's point. And in some parts it doesn't read like a graphic novel, but as regular novel. Some tricks are applied - like the looooong carriage ride - to tell the Masonic influences in architecture and everyday life. I have the feeling Moore dug up too many interesting facts that he wanted to include in the story. Some of that information would've worked better if he just wrote it in his appendix to the first novel.

I'm pretty impressed by what Moore's doing, and how he presents it. Yet, I feel it takes too long for the story to actually start off. Too much context! I understand the need to ground the story, but I don't feel like the graphic novel was his ally in conveying these grounds. He didn't really make use of the medium here.
Nevertheless, a promising start of the trilogy!
Profile Image for Dimitri.
1,021 reviews257 followers
June 17, 2016
Review: an unexpected disappointment. Alan Moore's work is rightly praised, but the story is overly long and the artwork simply does not appeal to me. No matter how clever it is to draw inspiration from Victorian illustrations and no matter how meticulous the background research was. furthermore, as a work of fiction, it seems heavily based upon a questionable theory/ book on JTR from the late '70s, goolishly coinciding with the spree of Peter Sutcliffe. To be fair, I loved the attention to detail on life in the London slums. Visually, however, it needs the palet of Brian Bolland or John Higgins (Batman: The Killing Joke, Watchmen) imposed on the artwork of Kevin O'Neill(The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Omnibus).
Profile Image for Erik .
239 reviews4 followers
May 17, 2011
[Dutch]
Vrijwel iedereen heeft wel eens van Jack the Ripper gehoord. Maar wie was nu eigenlijk de persoon achter deze bijnaam? Dat is tot op de dag van vandaag een groot mysterie. Er zijn echter theorieën genoeg over zijn/haar ware identiteit.

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