Watchmen (super hero graphic novel from the 1980s)

[Ferris]

Watched the rest of the Wachowski V for Vendetta. I maintain it isn't good, particularly, but is passable.

I no longer equate it to the vomit of a small child.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

The book of V for Vendetta is so much better. The only bit of the film worth watching is the bit right at the end where the Houses of Parliament blow up while 1812 Overture plays.

Count me in as another person who really enjoyed the movie version of Watchmen. The only bit that I didn't enjoy was the sex scene between Nite Owl and Silk Spectre. It went on way too long and was fucking cringe.

Loved V for Vendetta, Watchmen, The Killing Joke.

From Hell is a slog. I was stupid to buy it, because Jack the Ripper wasn't a fucking Freemason and he definitely wasn't Sir William Gull. But Alan Moore, so I tried. I did finish it, but would not read again.

[Magnum Valentino]

The book of V for Vendetta is so much better. The only bit of the film worth watching is the bit right at the end where the Houses of Parliament blow up while 1812 Overture plays.

Count me in as another person who really enjoyed the movie version of Watchmen. The only bit that I didn't enjoy was the sex scene between Nite Owl and Silk Spectre. It went on way too long and was fucking cringe.

Loved V for Vendetta, Watchmen, The Killing Joke.

From Hell is a slog. I was stupid to buy it, because Jack the Ripper wasn't a fucking Freemason and he definitely wasn't Sir William Gull. But Alan Moore, so I tried. I did finish it, but would not read again.

Who was he then? Someone ELSE?

[Dr Rock]

I was stupid to buy it, because Jack the Ripper wasn't a fucking Freemason and he definitely wasn't Sir William Gull.

Moore acknowledges that he probably wasn't. He took every conspiracy theory and picked the best ones for From Hell. You need to read the notes in the suffix or you haven't read it, maaan.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Moore acknowledges that he probably wasn't. He took every conspiracy theory and picked the best ones for From Hell. You need to read the notes in the suffix or you haven't read it, maaan.

I mean being an amateur Ripperologist (who reckons we'll never know because he was probably an ordinary guy who lived in the area) I should have known I wouldn't be able to suspend my disbelief, and I couldn't.

[samadriel]

Count me in as another person who really enjoyed the movie version of Watchmen. The only bit that I didn't enjoy was the sex scene between Nite Owl and Silk Spectre. It went on way too long and was fucking cringe.

Haha, that's literally the only part of the film I enjoyed, because, although it was just as shit as the rest of the film,  it was so thunderously over the top it was truly hilarious. Mel Brooks couldn't construct that sex scene any funnier.

[bgmnts]

From Hell is a slog. I was stupid to buy it, because Jack the Ripper wasn't a fucking Freemason and he definitely wasn't Sir William Gull. But Alan Moore, so I tried. I did finish it, but would not read again.

I personally don't think the point of the book - which admittedly I love - is the whodunnit aspect. Nobody will ever know who it and I thought choosing someone with a close proximity to power, as well as making them a member of a shadowy occult organisation, was a good choice.

I think a large part of the book was to tell the stories of the victims, something which ripperology rarely indulges in, of these genuinely horrific murders. The stories of abuse and establishment cover ups rings pretty true today, and of course there is the whole "this act of evil kickstarted the century and permeated across all other acts of sensationalised evil" thing spread throughout, which culminates at the end. I thought the spirit of a dying Gull transgressing the fourth dimension and hallucinating his victims is quite apt, considering the book is littered with his strange metaphysical monologues.

It's one of the few works of his that has made me feel genuinely uncomfortable as it goes deep into the actualities of the crime and how it affected the poor women. It's the first time I ever did really empathise with the victim because obviously learning about it in school you just know they're impoverished prostitutes, which doesn't elicit a lot of sympathy. I think it's much better to look at this crime from the perspective of the victims rather than the Ripper himself.

I can definitely understand not being into it though.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

I think a large part of the book was to tell the stories of the victims, something which ripperology rarely indulges in, of these genuinely horrific murders. The stories of abuse and establishment cover ups rings pretty true today, and of course there is the whole "this act of evil kickstarted the century and permeated across all other acts of sensationalised evil" thing spread throughout, which culminates at the end. I thought the spirit of a dying Gull transgressing the fourth dimension and hallucinating his victims is quite apt, considering the book is littered with his strange metaphysical monologues.

It's one of the few works of his that has made me feel genuinely uncomfortable as it goes deep into the actualities of the crime and how it affected the poor women. It's the first time I ever did really empathise with the victim because obviously learning about it in school you just know they're impoverished prostitutes, which doesn't elicit a lot of sympathy. I think it's much better to look at this crime from the perspective of the victims rather than the Ripper himself.

Eh, to an extent I suppose. We'll never know if the Ripper's victims all knew each other, there's almost no evidence for that, but none of them can have escaped the news of each shocking murder and yet they had little choice except to continue their trade. Do we need this added layer of them all being friends and all knowing about this secret lovechild and what happened to their sixth friend, the child's mother, to feel sympathy for them?

[bgmnts]

Eh, to an extent I suppose. We'll never know if the Ripper's victims all knew each other, there's almost no evidence for that, but none of them can have escaped the news of each shocking murder and yet they had little choice except to continue their trade. Do we need this added layer of them all being friends and all knowing about this secret lovechild and what happened to their sixth friend, the child's mother, to feel sympathy for them?

They may have known each other; they were all prostitutes working in a small London community and to me it's likely some of them did, as big as London is.

I'm unsure if it would make them less sympathetic as victims but I suppose it works better that the characters care more that they know each other, rather than being just names in a newspaper. But of course them knowing each other is just purely for the narrative, I'm sure you can write a good Ripper story where they the victims have no knowledge of each other.

[Vodkafone]

I just finished From Hell and it was not as good as I'd hoped. I like the art, it gives a good sense of grim darkness, but the premise and the writing I'm not so sure about.

There is a panel that has Abberline saying something along the lines of "In a hundred years there'll probably still be cunts trying to make money off this", which I found quite strange. Surely, either Moore exempts himself from this (with little or no justification as far as I can see) or he accepts the exploitative nature of his work. At bottom, it's hard enough to do something with such heinous misogynistic crimes without tainting the re-telling with it, let alone when the re-telling rehashes a bullshit conspiracy theory with some masonic woo thrown in. The last scene with Marie Kelly was very hard going, and obviously I get that we're meant to understand the viciousness of it, but I found it hard to completely separate the drawing and writing of it from the act itself. All the more ironic given that towards the end he has all the stuff about the crimes creating an arc in history - isn't Moore just adding to that rather than disrupting it?

I guess I just don't see what this is adding to anything, because by the time he did this we already had Stephen Knight's Jack the Ripper - The Final Solution, Ackroyd's Hawksmoor and Sinclair's White Chappel, Scarlet Tracings. Throwing all that together with some drawings and passing it off as some kind of art isn't really doing it for me. Realistically, we'll never know who did which murders and the fascination with ripper 'lore' has abstracted the women's deaths completely and become a mostly male contest for who can claim to solve the mystery first, in the process obfuscating whatever is left of the truth even further.

Really, by this point, I think it's time to just leave these women alone.

[Mister Six]

he accepts the exploitative nature of his work. to just leave these women alone.

Pretty sure it's this. Moore's never made any claims to the accuracy of his tale - in fact, he's made a point of saying that he just chose the theory that made for the best story. Which may make him worse in your eyes, I dunno.

I'll do a re-read next year; I've not looked at it for well over a decade, but I picked up a copy of the book second hand a while back and it's been lurking on the shelf ever since.

[Ferris]

@Mister Six I also have a copy gathering dust that I would be reading now if it wasn't so obviously heavy and likely to fuck with my airplane carry on.

Interested to read your opinion when you get round to it.

[13 schoolyards]

Moore's never been big on original plots - Watchmen had to give a nod to borrowing from The Outer Limits for its ending, while you could argue that From Hell, Promethea and Providence all have roughly the same conclusion (in that the characters' actions irrevocably change the entirety of human existence in an apocalypse-style fashion).

So I think the whole point with From Hell (and most of Moore's work) is that Moore sees himself as "adding to" pre-existing things, as far as coming up with characterisation, setting, dialogue, insights as to how things interconnect, and so on. If you don't think that's a worthwhile effort that's totally fair enough, but it does mean maybe his writing isn't going to be for you.

[Vodkafone]

Thing is, I really rate Watchmen and in particular Providence, and I know the source material for that at least as well as for From Hell. Maybe it's the dabbling in real world events, or maybe it's the subject matter of From Hell that puts me off.

[Mister Six]

@Mister Six I also have a copy gathering dust that I would be reading now if it wasn't so obviously heavy and likely to fuck with my airplane carry on.

Interested to read your opinion when you get round to it.

Cheers, will tap up something on here once I've read it (probably).

[13 schoolyards]

Thing is, I really rate Watchmen and in particular Providence, and I know the source material for that at least as well as for From Hell. Maybe it's the dabbling in real world events, or maybe it's the subject matter of From Hell that puts me off.

Yeah, it does seem a little different when it's based on real people. I guess after a century of speculation Moore felt they'd pretty much become fictional anyway - and he did base his story on pretty much the least likely scenario

[madhair60]

started From Hell today and after chapter four just had to stop and go and stand in the rain for a bit

[The Coat hanger]

From Hell can be a slog but the ending absolutely astounded me. It is worth if you can persevere....I did not make it through the notes section though...