From Hell is a graphic retelling of the Jack the Ripper saga, casting Dr. William Gull as the famed killer. The story features a dizzying cast of characters – many of them well-known artists, authors and members of the royal family – and a complex conspiracy that includes illegitimate royal children, the Freemasons and a bizarre desire on the Ripper’s part to usher in the 20th century. The convoluted story, combined with the sometimes confusing artwork, makes events difficult to follow at times; I highly recommend reading the appendices as you go along to help make sense of it all. But the story is ultimately compelling and a good overview of the most famous serial murderer of history.

When I visited London with my Mom and brother as an 11-year-old, the one thing I was adamant about doing was going on the Jack the Ripper Tour – I was a macabre little thing.
Years later, my fascination with the Ripper legend continued, and I’ve spent too many a wasted hour at casebook.org, a website devoted to “Ripperology”.
The post mortem photos of the victims have always made me uncomfortable – even though they’re long dead, these women should still be treated with some dignity. Should they really be posted up there, mutilated and naked for all the world to see? Yet I still read the site.

“From Hell” changed that. My interest reading Ripper lore is considerably dampened. The book affected me in a way that other Ripper accounts never did before.
Moore has restored some of the essential humanity to these women and the actual horror of the larger social circumstances surrounding thier deaths that a century of collective crime-scene-rubbernecking and voyuerism have taken away.

Moore’s endnotes show just how much thought was put into the writing of “from Hell”. This is, thankfully, by no means a sloppy, sordid exploitation piece that one might expect of many stories relating to serial killers.

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This book is amazing – a comlex meditation on many things, including but not limited to: the power of myth, classism, violence against women, the geography of history and power, the birth of a new century, and the soul of a modern city…f-cking incredible.*

• The Verdict: A must-read, deeply unsettling but rich in detail and very thought-provoking

I knew that it was foolish to read it before bedtime, but that’s how good it was. A disturbing tale – made somehow all the worse when depicted in comic book form. Alan Moore is the best when it comes to the macabre.