From Hell (comic)
| Comic | |
|---|---|
| title | From Hell |
| Original title | From Hell |
| country | UK |
| author | Alan Moore |
| Illustrator | Eddie Campbell |
| publishing company | Kitchen Sink Press , Top Shelf Productions |
| First publication | March 1991 - August 1996 |
| expenditure | 10 |
From Hell is a graphic novel by Alan Moore , Eddie Campbell and Pete Mullins about the hunt for Jack the Ripper . The comic received the Prix de la critique at the Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d'Angoulême in 2001 and was made into a film.
The title refers to the headline of a letter that many have ascribed to Jack the Ripper.
Graphic novel
The series was initially published in German in three volumes of around 200 pages. These volumes collected the individual chapters, prologue, epilogue and comments of the author as well as a detailed addendum - this material was previously published by various US comic publishers in anthologies and individual editions. Then there was a German-language complete edition, which, with the exception of the cover, is identical to the three-volume edition. In December 2008 a new edition of the complete edition was published as a hardcover, the text completely revised and with new editorial equipment by Cross Cult- Verlag.
The authors spent ten years researching all the available details about the Ripper murders, the cityscape and living conditions of the various classes at the time, as well as variants of the Ripper legend and conspiracy theories.
The illustrations are completely black and white and give a depressingly detailed picture of Victorian London. As in other works by Moore, From Hell completely dispenses with onomatopoeia and text boxes that explain the plot. However, in the complete edition, each chapter is preceded by an extra page with sometimes very long quotations, which anticipate introductions to the content or literary thoughts on the following chapter.
The complete edition also has two explanatory annexes totaling 80 pages. The first appendix explains in detail the background, differences between real events and comic book fiction, assumptions, speculations and the decisions of the authors for certain representations or even explains individual images and also names the sources of the authors. The translator Gerlinde Althoff has added further explanations to this appendix, which may name German editions of the sources or explain specific British terms or everyday situations that are not necessarily familiar in German. The second annex, entitled Dance of seagulls Hunter (Engl. The Dance of the Gull catcher ) is a 24-page comic, in which the authors various other theories treat the perpetrator or the perpetrator properties at the Whitechapel murders.
However, the facts cited by the authors in the appendix to inform the reader are not always entirely correct. In the complete edition, for example, on page 7 of the notes by Queen Victoria's son, Crown Prince Albert Edward, they refer to the future King Edward VII as Stuttering Bertie . The stuttering Bertie was - as known not only to the British since the film The King's Speech - only the great-grandson of Queen Victoria, namely Prince Albert Frederick Arthur George, who later became King George VI. , Father of Elizabeth II. On the next page, they indicate that they can no longer locate a source to which they refer.
content
The authors have chosen to base their version of the story on Stephen Knight's highly controversial theory that the Ripper murders were carried out by Royal British surgeon William Gull on behalf of the Crown; The occasion was therefore the marriage between Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence (Prince Edward) and Annie Crook, a woman of lower class, as well as the resulting daughter Alice, who as the hereditary princess would have far-reaching claims against the royal family, which Queen Victoria seeks to avoid.
The comic also portrays the lives of the murder victims, the perpetrator's approach and the efforts of Frederick Abberline, who was charged with solving the case . The London buildings by the architect Nicholas Hawksmoor , a Masonic conspiracy, as well as archaic symbols, sanctuaries and magical thinking continue to play a central role . The perpetrator, Gull, not only carries out an assignment from Queen Victoria, but also arranges the murders in a magical ritual that allows him to overcome temporal and spatial barriers and, in his opinion, heralds the 20th century.
reception
In the complete edition, (positive) quotations from German and international media are placed in front of the front title . a. from Die Welt , Süddeutsche Zeitung , The Guardian , Le Monde etc. The following are also mentioned:
- In his magnum opus, Moore tells with the meticulousness of a historian and the inventiveness of a real novelist [...] ( stern )
- One of the most ambitious and formally most innovative historical narratives of recent years. It's exactly the kind of book that should pop up on the bestseller lists right away. Or would it, would it be a novel. But that's not it. It's a comic. ( The Independent )
In its first review after the publication of the third single volume, Der Spiegel admiringly emphasized the complexity of the work: Alan Moore's comic novel “From Hell” is a mammoth work that goes beyond all dimensions. […] However, it is a kaleidoscope of the Victorian era that Alan Moore created here, a time that stretched its catches well into the next century. In the further course of the book, reference is made to the author's preferences for CG Jung's theories and that Moore, despite the complexity, has not lost sight of the goal of an exciting thriller . In addition, a key intention of the author when writing the work is emphasized: Moore emphasizes again and again how unimportant the real identity of the perpetrator actually is: “I have not written a story about Jack the Ripper, I have written about our obsession with Jack the Ripper. Since it has never been exposed, it is a limitless black shadow. It can be anything we think of. "
filming
In 2001, the success of the comic was followed by a film adaptation with Johnny Depp as Abberline, Heather Graham as Marie Kelly and Ian Holm as Gull in the lead roles. The film deviates significantly from the original in many respects. He builds the personal acquaintance between Abberline and Kelly in the comic into a kind of love story that depicts Inspector Abberline's motivation in this murderous thing differently. The ending, in particular, is very different; In addition, the film sacrifices the complex framework and concentrates on solving the case.
expenditure
- From Hell , Volume 1. 2000 (softcover), 196 pages, German by Gerlinde Kalthoff, Verlag Thomas Tilsner - Edition Speed Comics, Bad Tölz, ISBN 3-933773-34-2
- From Hell , Volume 2. 2001 (Softcover), 196 pages, German by Gerlinde Kalthoff, Verlag Thomas Tilsner - Edition Speed Comics, Bad Tölz, ISBN 3-933773-35-0
- From Hell , Volume 3. 2001 (Softcover), 196 pages, German by Gerlinde Kalthoff, Verlag Thomas Tilsner - Edition Speed Comics, Bad Tölz, ISBN 3-933773-36-9
- From Hell - A melodrama in sixteen parts , complete edition, 2002 (softcover), approx. 600 pages, page numbering according to chapters, in German by Gerlinde Kalthoff. Verlag Thomas Tilsner - Edition Speed Comics, Bad Tölz, ISBN 3-936068-29-1
- From Hell - A melodrama in sixteen parts , complete edition, 2008 (hardcover), approx. 600 pages, page numbering according to chapters, in German by Gerlinde Kalthoff. Cross Cult , Asperg, ISBN 978-3-936480-53-5 ; New edition 2015 (softcover), ISBN 3-86425-813-8
- From Hell - A melodrama in sixteen parts , complete edition, 2013 (hardcover), approx. 600 pages, page numbering according to chapters, German by Gerlinde Kalthoff. Süddeutsche Zeitung Bibliothek # 1, Munich, ISBN 978-3-86497-102-0
Individual evidence
- ↑ Grands Prix de la Critique 2001 ( Memento of the original from February 21, 2019 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on February 10, 2016 (French).
- ↑ a b From Hell , Deutsche Gesamtausgabe 2002, front title (see #Expenses ).
- ↑ Comic book: The long shadow of the serial killer by Lutz Göllner on spiegel.de from July 5, 2001, accessed on January 21, 2015.
