Alan Moore's London. part 2

The Hawksmoor churches, as seen in FROM HELL.
I enjoyed composing a couple of pages around the St. George Bloomsbury , using Alan's ground-level shots plus the higher points of view from Downes' book on the architect. Alan gave me enough shots of each church that I was able to tape together big composite images.


St Luke's was actually the first one up, and I hadn't quite got my act together for that one, or felt uninspired by it or something. Also I didn't want the chapter to turn into just a series of architectural studies. Anyway, I've mostly hidden it behind the trees.


St John's Horsleydown was a problem on account of it doesn't exist any more, having been bombed during the war. A new building sits on its foundations. That's Alan at the site, in the red jacket. I used a very coarse old photo from the book for the big shot. It's a good job it was raining in this scene is all I can say.


Alan took enough shots of Christ Church to draw it from every conceivable angle (we were able even to logic some convincing aerial views from the combined information.) Alan has written on these polaroids. Note the one in the middle: "The Portico- See me and Amber on the left for scale." (Amber's his daughter.)



The problem with using photo reference for backgrounds is in making sure everything is in the same key, to make a musical analogy. With From Hell I wanted figures and backgrounds to be in a comparable shorthand. On another book, say Bacchus: Earth Water Air and Fire, I established at the outset that pasted on photographs for backgrounds were part of the style of that one. Within the terms that you establish at the beginning, events are more or less real. I did actually get exasperated from drawing Christ Church so many times that on one page I pasted on a photocopy of a photograph. Then I had to rough up and 'freehand' its outline to bring it into the same key as the rest of the book. I don't think anybody noticed.
(ps. Steve Stamatiadis worked with me as a background assistant on chapter 4, from which all of the above pictures come.)
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Having mentioned yetserday that the From hell Scripts book is another story, I thought if I do that I'll end up having to tell it. Sure enough, Ron Swintek asked in Comments. I really don't know what the state of play is on that one. The book comprised the scripts for the first four chapters and was published by Borderlands, with most of the running and organizing done by Steve Bissette. It came out in '94, same year as the movie deal was done. It was supposed to be an ongoing series but KItchen Sink Press got all protective and greedy and their lawyer put the heavy word on Borderlands, and told them to stop immediately. It was something to do with compromising a book deal made with Hyperion, who in the end didn't bring out a bookstore edition of From Hell, undoubtedly because the whole thing started spreading into months and years and the hope of it coming out right got lost in the mist between '94 and '99 when KSP went bust. Borderlands were pissed off big time and the implication was that if anybody else tried to do the same book at a later date they would be on it like a ton of bricks. Whether they still feel that way twelve years later I couldn't say. Looking back, what I should have done was lay down the law with KSP, tell them they had behaved badly and if they didn't put things right I'd walk. Either that or go over and tear their heads off. I realized some time back that there is no room for being wishy washy in this game. On the brighter side, I couldn't help reading a page or two while the scripts were in my hand, and it really is a great piece of writing. Sombody should look into it. Soon, though. Some of what I have is on temporary fax paper; we can't depend on Alan having kept it all, and those pages are already lost I'd say.