About David Hopkins
Location: Arlington, TX
Occupation: comic book writer, essayist, teacher
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Last November, Fanboy Radio scored a rare interview with Alan Moore for episode #349. If you missed it, stop reading this column (I’ll still be here when you return) and listen to it right now. We learn a few things about Alan Moore (…do people even call him by just his first name?). He’s not the curmudgeon or irritable recluse some have imagined him to be. Nor is he some brooding dark prince. Alan Moore is a pleasant individual. He gets excited while talking about the Beatles. He has a good sense of humor. He’s very appreciative of his fans. And he enjoys The Simpsons and South Park. However, he does come across as every bit the genius we all know him to be. Let me say it again: The guy is a genius. And I don’t use the term “genius” lightly. The ranks of genius are rare. Tell me your IQ score if you want, that doesn’t make you a genius. Solve a rubix cube in less than three minutes, that does not make you a genius. There are people who flatter themselves as being geniuses. You’re not. Get over it.
For me, a genius is someone who approaches his or her art with a sophistication and perspective, far above and beyond our ability to fully understand. They don’t think the way we do. They forever shape the way we approach subsequent art in their field. They create on an entirely different level. Listen closely: Alan Moore is the only genius in comics. There are some intelligent crazy bastards in comics, many of them also British. That does not make them genius material. Heck, have we ever had a genius before Alan Moore? Joann Sfar and R. Crumb operate on some creepy savant-level. Jack Kirby was so innovative; it would make you cry. Will Eisner was the master craftsman, the Patriarch of American Comics. Paul Hornschemeier is clearly functioning with a different set of rules. Linda Barry is subtle and sly. It’s discordant visual poetry. Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, and Charles Burns are our convenient uber-literary examples. The Comics Journal thanks you. My opinion? Alan Moore stands alone as a genius.
Top Shelf released a new edition of Alan Moore’s FROM HELL, illustrated by Eddie Campbell (572 pages). From Hell is a massive graphic novel about the Jack the Ripper murders. The story is a complex conspiracy involving a cover-up with the Royal family, Masonic ritual, and a haunting surreal leap into the modern era. Personally, it’s Alan Moore’s greatest work. I realize Watchmen holds a special place in the hearts of fanboys, but From Hell is an achievement in the craft. And it’s this column’s featured book of the month.
Without getting into the specifics of the story itself, which involves multiple perspectives and shifting protagonists, a patient and sprawling epic (some say the chapter dedicated to a riding tour of London’s Masonic architecture is unreadable, I think it’s amazing crucial piece to the narrative), the structure of From Hell is reason enough to admire it.
It’s essentially a flashback, a retired psychic and a retired police officer walk on a beach and talk about politics and life. The conversation leads back to a noticeably sensitive subject – Jack the Ripper. But before we reach anything substantive, the story flashes back to a scene completely unrelated (or so we think) to the psychic, the police officer, or Jack the Ripper. Flashbacks usually imply a perspective, but we are left without one. The reader is lost, led down a set of seemingly random and unrelated stories, until eventually Alan Moore ties them together. Even later in the story, Alan Moore will deviate from the main story. A new character, a new direction, that will later play more importance. The overall effect is an omniscient floating through the events, with subliminal meaning attached to transitions, from royalty to poverty. Animals and objects take on symbolic value—birds, a horse-drawn cart, grapes, hands, the moon. In particular, the sexual symbolism is rampant, tied interchangeably to aspects of birth and death – the knife, the obelisk, the dark tunnel. Sex as violence. Violence as spiritual exploration. Sex is cheapened. Violence is demystified. Until we reach a grotesque climax with chapter ten, which I admit was difficult for me to finish. The horrific realism intermingles with a brief flash forward to the end of the 20th century. The story returns to 1888 and the Victorian era. In the second to last chapter, the story shifts around frenetically in time and space, calling upon theories of quantum physics to justify the very nature of a flashback and the lack of a narrator’s perspective, while awarding the character William Gull’s spirit temporary status as a narrator – book-ending violence throughout Britain’s history with a sexual act. The final chapter returns to the police officer and the psychic where we started. Follow? There’s several pages worth of annotations in the back, which I had to call upon throughout. It’s hard to not be impressed with the historical care and research that went into From Hell.
The story can be appreciated on multiple layers. Is From Hell a commentary on the dangerous absurdity of British royalty? A society built on secrecy, closed doors, and sexual acts pushed into a public spectacle. A tradition passed from generation to generation, the royal blood. Violence is inseparable from sex when dealing with royalty. Entire wars fought over the birthright of breeding new royalty. Is From Hell a commentary on violence and media in the modern era? Criminal violence can make someone a celebrity, and the news media helps to create the news, instead of only reporting it, perspective influences content. Is From Hell a commentary on identity and self-discovery? After all, historically speaking, we’ll never know who Jack the Ripper is. Although, as a final twist, Alan Moore reveals the identity of the Ripper and conceals the identity of… actually, I can’t say anymore without spoiling the ending. Sorry. Despite these deeper readings, it can still be appreciated as a simple crime thriller and speculative historical fiction.
In some regards, it’s a shame that Watchmen overshadows From Hell. In comics, capes and tights have a tendency to do that. Don’t get me wrong: Watchmen is possibly one of the greatest and most influential comic books, but From Hell is proof of genius.
I’m currently reading Watchmen a chapter every few days and plan on following it up with From Hell which I should begin in a couple of weeks. I’ve had this book for a while now but have been honestly intimidated by it.
Around the time of the initial release of the issues, Tundra released a collection of the scripts for the first 4 books. I’m amazed how well artists like Campbell can pull out the story from Moore’s scripts and deliver works of art.
Oh and Joann Sfar as operating on a “creepy savant level” makes me think that I’ve got to go back and really revisit his works as well.
Ooooh… Tundrea released a collection of Alan Moore scripts? I’d loved to hunt that down.
I’m amazed by Joann Sfar’s volume and scope of work. As a French comic book creator, most Americans have only seen the Rabbi’s Cat and Vampire Loves, but he’s published A TON of books. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something behind his process that seems… smarter than the average storyteller.
You really want a testiment to his genius try reading Promethia. It works on a level no comic has ever attempted before.
Great article, Mr. Hopkins!
I consider myself a student of Moore’s and he’s greatly influenced my own writing.
However, while Alan Moore’s works are masterful and his comics clockworks, they’re also trapped within a Newtonian universe. For Moore, the comic book is an absolute space that is incapable of expressing Einsteinian movement. Watchmen was a countdown based on absolute time and From Hell was a murder mystery deduced from an absolute timeline.
It’s actually a bit ironic that the man who mastered the medium (with his brilliant clockworks), can’t (or won’t?) leverage the medium to express ideas that stand outside of spacetime.
Hey Aaron!
With all due respect, aren’t you simply creating your own academic-esque criteria by which to criticize him? Newtonian universe? Einsteinian movement?
I counter with a “Come On"-ian world view. :P
Not to mention, let’s talk genre. From Hell is a murder mystery? What’s the mystery? We know who the killer is before he even acts. And from an absolute timeline? How else would you prefer he tell a story involving historical events, without regard to time or sequence?
My critique of Moore is based on what I learned from Eisner, not Einstein. Eisner lays down the power of the medium in Comics and Sequential Art by explaining it’s ability to create a sense of time through the expression of space and sequence, and uses Einstein to explain it (as well as some basic phenomenology). My problem with Moore is that he’s working in that medium but limits it to a “Newtonian” expression.
Also, let’s remember that From Hell isn’t an historical work. It’s a conspiracy theory that is deduced through historical timelines. As such, the timeline is essential to the story, and the conspiracy theory can’t work without it.
I love you, man.
Wait a sec. I said “involving historical events” and in my column “speculative historical fiction”. It is historical fiction, that’s clear. And Moore himself says as much—BUT based off actual historical events, an actual period in English history, and actual historical figures. All of this requires research, study, and much care, etc.
Makes me wish I had purchased Comics and Sequential Art instead of Eisner’s Graphic Storytelling & Visual Narrative. At least then, we’d be discussing this using a common terminology. Instead, all I hear is, “The problem with Moore is that he’s A, not B.” Replace A and B with academic terms.
Your argument suggests that the “Newtonian” [removed]which you still haven’t clarified) is subordinate to “Einsteinian” (?) ideas. Not only that, but somehow this dichotomy is a fatal flaw in Moore’s approach. I doubt Eisner was writing this chapter as a way to knock Alan Moore down a few pegs. The way Moore constructs his stories—isn’t that a part of his voice as a writer? Would we really want him to change so that he could satisfy this academic quibble.
For instance, Moore works within a traditional nine panel grid, mostly. It’s considered “old fashioned” but he accomplishes a condensed story with dramatic brilliance and I could care less about the grid. I’ve seen people work without the grid, and their results are sloppy and uninteresting. The point is the grid isn’t the point. It’s his tool. We can hardly criticize Kurosawa for not wanting to film Seven Samurai in color (which was available at the time), because he felt more comfortable working in b&w;.
I love you too, but I will debate you!
(By the way, did you know Leah Moore gave her dad a copy of our Antigone?)
My apologies if I mischaracterized your statements in your column. You’re absolutely correct about all of that.
I’m not trying to say that Moore’s works are fatally flawed, either. He’s a master of the medium who either won’t or can’t use the medium in another way or (in my opinion) to its fullest potential. Perhaps it’s because his style and ideas work best in those clockworks he creates. That’s fantastic and we need to continue studying how he’s doing that. Those clockworks are valid and powerful expressions of the mediums.
Moore’s voice is what it is and his stories are massively entertaining. As you said. His grid approach actually is an excellent example of the Newtonian quality of his work. The expression of time in his works is standardized by the grid (i.e., there’s an objective unit of time in his work, the smallest panel in the grid system). Moore even states in his “Writing Comics” that each panel represents about 30 seconds. His voice and style is all very Newtonian and Victorian. Very British. And that’s who he is and I’ll always be a fan of his.
My point with Moore, in a sense, really isn’t about Moore. My real concern is more-or-less about the deification of Moore. He’s become this idol in the comic book community (for some fairly good reasons) and has also become a bit untouchable--which is where my concerns lie. As creators, we need to be very concerned about anyone who can’t be critiqued. The history of comics doesn’t end with Alan Moore, nor does the development of the medium.
(all of this actually goes into an even deeper concern about how the history of comics is characterized, but that’s another topic altogether)
To your point about Kurosawa, yes, you’re absolutely correct that we can hardly criticize him for filming it in B&W;. But we could criticize the community of filmmakers and audiences for never improving on what Kurosawa left us.
I apologize if I’ve gone afoul on this whole thread. Maybe I just need to write my own article and get past it. :)
BTW--Good stuff on Antigone. How’d you find out?
Yes, but I actually find the opposite to be equally true. The deification of Moore (good phrase, by the way) or any comic book creator leads to a lot of comic book mavens inventing ways to criticize their work. I stand by my statement, Alan Moore is a genius. And I hardly find his alleged refusal to use the medium “to its fullest potential” as a valid critique. Osamu Tezuka is a textbook example of a comic book creator who was continually redefining the medium, his own style and artistic direction, but surely, that can’t be the only qualification for greatness? In fact, experimentation can lead to some god awful missteps.
With any creator, they have their classics and their “lesser works”—peaking at certain points in their career. For instance, Will Eisner really hit his stride at the time when many people retire from their careers. I could give other examples of creators whose best work is behind them, but why point fingers?
I remember a fellow comic book writer (an ambitious newcomer) commenting that he could “write better than Bendis.” It’s easy to critique. It’s harder to put words on the paper and prove it.
> BTW--Good stuff on Antigone.
> How’d you find out?
Leah told me.