From Moore

Jack the Ripper has evolved from a serial murderer in the Whitechapel section in London in 1888 to a media creation during and following the murders to a figure of nearly mythological significance in modern times. One of the characteristics of the Ripper that has maintained his (we'll assume it's a him) prevalence in social consciousness has been the fact that no one can say for sure or determine who he actually was, thus leaving the man and his acts up for countless interpretations and opportunities for conjecture. It seems any theory of Jack the Ripper tells more about the theorizer than the actual murderer. Alan Moore, considered the best writer in comics ever, has made use of the legend's malleability to create a story with relevance from a number of angles, most important, the disparity between classes, particularly in Victorian England at the end of the 19th Century.

Moore's extensive research points to a number of possible candidates for the identity of the most famous serial murderer of all time. The one he makes use of, for a number of different yet related reasons, is Sir William Gull, Victoria's Royal Surgeon at the time of the murders. Taking bare-bones fact, Moore develops a fiction that's believable because of the vivid psychological portrait he draws of Gull and the motivations that sound all-too-plausible for a society possessing such an unbalance between rich and poor and, also, men and women.

William Gull is portrayed as a child through adulthood as an intelligent but oddly cold upper-class man. For reason's including his mother's sexuality and the sterile structure of Victorian England, Gull grows to be an uncompassionate doctor, nobleman, and Freemason. The combination of all these effectually makes him out as representative of the masculine order that has dominated western (specifically, British) culture -- a patriarchal authoritarian whose belief in elite rituals and symbologies borders on the psychotic and demonstrates some of the dynamics that allow for the domination of the Other (immigrants, women, the poor, etc.). At first, this relegated to being merely a sterile worldview, but once Gull experiences a stroke that causes him to have a strange vision of the three-headed masculine god of the most-secret Masonic mysteries, his leaning becomes a compulsion...all that's needed is a catalyst to provoke his psychosis (a psychosis, Moore is saying, that lies inherent in such a domineering cultural ideology).

It turns out that a member of the royal family had had an illicit marriage and child with a member of the lower class, a woman with ties to a number of prostitutes in the degenerate section of London -- the flip side of Gull's luxurious setting. Once Victoria (a woman made masculine by her adoption of British regality) discovers this, Prince Eddy is confiscated back home and his poor wife locked in a mental hospital, mainly to keep her quiet. The child is, thankfully, shuttled off and given to friends who make sure she is never found. This dip into the "common" is too much for Victoria and she calls on Gull to quiet the woman, Annie, for good. Using his penetrating medical knowledge, he manages to alter her mental capacity until she is reduced to a nearly vegetable state. In the meantime, a group of prostitutes, harassed by the male gang members demanding a cut of their profits, decide that the best way to make some money is to blackmail the royalty with their knowledge of a bastard royal child. When Victoria finds this out, as you can imagine, she is far from pleased. Enter Gull.

Given a license to kill for the sake of retaining the image of the royal family's purity (another masculine ideal), Gull begins to see his mission as having mythological importance. He sees the murders as an opportunity for the reassertion of male dominance in England (the perfect Aryan culture, to him), which he sees as threatened by the chaos of the morally ambivalent and poor (associated with the feminine), the progress of industrialization, and the presence of a female monarch. Gull's psychosis is indicative of the characteristics of elitist male social structures, such as the Masons, and his actions, although involving guilt on his own part, should truly be blamed upon stringent orders that possess as ideals purity, myth, hierarchy, and allegiance to a masculine god. Gull carries out the murders in a strangely ritualistic fashion for the purpose of neurotic masculine empowerment.

From Hell becomes not so much a story on Jack the Ripper, but on Jack the Ripper's society. The split in classes and genders, with specific groups retaining more power than others, is the real culprit of the violence against the downtrodden...Jack the Ripper was merely a symptom. Moore's take on the Ripper legend is unique and well worth reading, it having recently won the Eisner Award for Best Graphic Novel. Eddie Campbell's art fits perfectly with the themes, creating a chaotic feel (there are stray ink strokes escaping each panel border and heavy blacks that are almost difficult to find order within) while keeping a harshly realistic feel to capture the atmosphere of 19th Century London. The references are multilayered and alone make this tale worthy of merit...but Moore, as usual, concocts a magnificent story with numerous meanings that put most of canonized literature to shame.

I can't wait to see the movie.