"Tumbling into Madame Tussaud's."

I don't want to become a self-appointed commentator on all matters concerning the word 'ripper'. I once declined a television magazine-type program when they wanted me to comment on-screen about Patricia Cornwell's nutty theory about the Ripper, DNA and Walter Sickert. (though I'm sure we'll have something to say about it when we do the Dance of the Gull Catchers, part2). But I do find myself curious about the phenomenon of commentators and explainers who all come out of the woodwork on cue, 'ripperologists' if you like. Thus I found myself drawn to this interesting snapshot of the current flurry of ripperology in England in a commentary column in The Guardian: "...this country has a surprisingly large number of shadowy individuals whose profession is described in a variety of ways, from the colloquial "real-life Cracker", to the flexible "reader in personality", more formal "criminal psychologist" and catch-all "profiler" or "leading criminologist". Between lurid criminal events, little may be heard from these individuals, as they ply their trade in obscure corners of the semi-academic world. Indeed, in the absence of eye-catching crimes, some of these experts on the deviant mind may struggle to survive, diversifying into comments on football and celebrity, stress and compulsive shopping. In recent days, however, many of these men have been restored to prominence and prosperity by the murders in Suffolk..."
and: "Meanwhile, the British media tumbled, en masse, into Madame Tussauds. The killer was, naturally, a "Ripper". Forget the details: centuries-old, penny-dreadful tradition holds that this is what serial prostitute-killers are called."
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This next item went the rounds just before I started this blog.

The news was that Alan Moore had been written into an episode of The Simpsons. "'Husbands and Knives' is an upcoming episode of that will air during in 2007, as part of the show's 18th season." That link will give you a short summary of the episode. "The sub-plot of this episode sees a new, 'cool' comic book store open in Springfield, which competes with Comic Book Guy's store, The Android's Dungeon. Alan Moore will guest star." A blogger responded to the original posting of the news by pointing out that Moore had already appeared in the Simpsons, albeit in the Bongo comic book version. This is from Gary Spencer Millidge's From Hell and Back or: The Truer Story of Jack the Ripper, which was in Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror #9, from 2003, and which was subsequently collected in The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror: Hoodoo Voodoo Brouhaha. Whaddayaknow! Campbell's there too. I liked the way Millidge used hand lettering (when i saw it in the 2003 appearance), which made his story stand out among all those others with the godawful computer fonts.
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The Ripper Files. part 3
(by Hayley Campbell, age 7, 1993)
this is one of my favourites. Count the toes.