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Today’s adventure: We admire the greatness of Alan and feature January’s Graphic Novel of the Month.

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.