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This is the second graphic novel by Alan Moore that I've read. He is a very prolific writer, but sometimes he's a bit too over the top for my taste. It was OK in V for Vendetta though I must admit to liking the movie a bit better because it was more grounded. With From Hell, once again, I've seen the movie before having read the graphic novel and although the movie features Johnny Depp and a lot of opium, I liked that one better as well.

Why? Rather simple: the movie was a mystery with the watcher having to investigate along with the inspector. Here, we get the solution to it all right off the bat and it seems like wasted potential.

This graphic novel tells the story of the murders committed by one of THE most well-known serial killers of all time: Jack the Ripper.
There are many theories out there (I actually have a Mammoth Book about it because I find it so intriguing) and some of those theories are a bit more "out there". One particular conspiracy theory revolves around one of Queen Victoria's heirs having fathered a child and married a commoner, which was inconceivable back in the day (funnily enough, it still is rather unusual with the remaining royals nowadays which made Princess Diana become such a star *rolls eyes*). Anyway, since Albert is the heir to the English throne, this is unacceptable and Queen Victoria orders her physician to handle the subject. And let me tell you, he wasn't gentle about it. (view spoiler)[After having put her in a madhouse, he messes with the poor woman's brain so that she really is confused. (hide spoiler)] But the plan has a flaw because there are other people who know about the child and these women, prostitutes, try to blackmail the prince's friend because they are getting harrassed by a street gang and need money to survive. Thus, the doctor is dispatched once again and goes about the grizzly work we know of.

I won't say anything about the ending, but the police (or some levels at least) knew about the plot and were paid to play along, and the killer becomes more and more psychologically unstable. That in itself is all well and good and even realistic (except for the fact that the Queen probably would have had a different way of dealing with something like this), but all the Masonic bits, the visions of the future etc were too trippy for me.
Because yes, the good doctor is not only a lord and friend to the Queen, he's also a Freemason and trying to block the influence of the Illuminati by murdering women in a grizzly way. It's all a bit bonkers.

The art is ... not to my taste. The black-and-white is OK and I get that the rudimentary and blunt style is a tool to convey a message of its own; it shows the grittiness of life if you weren't in certain social circles, illustrates the depravity of certain people and the downward spiral the Ripper takes psychologically. The panels are very graphic where sexuality is concerned (female and male body parts are shown explicitly). Both author and artist don't hold back and most in the story is somehow tied to sex. I don't mind this at all since we are following the lives of prostitutes and I don't like taboos anyway, thus I don't faint when seeing a penis depicted anywhere. No, my "problem" with the art is that I just don't find it "pretty" (attractive might be a better word to say what I mean).

Nevertheless, this is an ambitious and good piece of work and it deserves all the recognition it's gotten over the years.