FROM HELL: 5/24

Continuing our build-up to the first murder in FROM HELL, from Alan Moore's scripts for the book. This is Chapter 5 page 24, in which the murderer and victim, having been been seen separately on the previous pages, now come together in the same scene. Alan has Polly Nicholls singing the well known and very old song, Green Grow the Rushes, o. In the endnotes to the book Alan offers explanations for some of the lyrics of the song. A summary can also be found at the Wikipedia entry. He wrote that he used it because it seemed exactly the kind of simple popular song that someone might be humming to herself while strolling drunkenly down the street and also because it contains a darker and more ancient resonance appropriate to the undertones he hoped to establish in the scene.

CHAPTER 5. PAGE 24 (838 WORDS)
PANEL 1
THIS PAGE IS ALSO A SEVEN PANEL JOB, WITH THREE PANELS ON EACH OF THE TOP TWO TIERS AND THEN ONE BIG HORIZONTAL PANEL TAKING UP THE BOTTOM TIER. THIS IS THE PAGE UPON WHICH THE DIVERGENT PATHS OF GULL AND POLLY FINALLY DRAW TOGETHER. A HALF HOUR HAS PASSED SINCE WE LAST SAW POLLY, AND IT IS NOW THREE O’CLOCK. WITH HER DRUNKEN WEAVING AND HER FREQUENT STOPS FOR REST, POLLY HAS ONLY PROGRESSED A LITTLE WAY DOWN THE WHITECHAPEL ROAD SINCE WE LAST SAW HER. AS WE SEE HER HERE WE ARE LOOKING DOWN ON HER FROM SLIGHTLY ABOVE AS SHE WEAVES DOWN THE DARK STREET AWAY FROM US, SINGING DRUNKENLY TO HERSELF. THERE IS NOBODY ELSE ABOUT BUT HER.
POLLY: I’ll sing you nine songs, Green grow the rushes –o.
POLLY: What are your nine songs?

PANEL 2
NOW WE HAVE A SHOT LOOKING AT THE ROOFTOPS OF WHITECHAPEL ROAD, WHICH WE SEE DOWN TOWARDS THE BOTTOM OF THE PANEL. ABOVE THEM, FILLING UP THE REST OF THE PANEL, WE HAVE A VIEW OF THE CLEAR NIGHT SKY ABOVE THE EAST END. IMMEASURABLY DISTANT IN SPACE AND TIME, THEY CONTINUE TO WORK THROUGH THEIR ETERNAL PERFECT CLOCKWORK MOVEMENTS, REMOTE AND INDIFFERENT. WE CAN SEE ORION, THE HUNTER. NEAR TO HIM WE CAN SEE THE PLEIADES; THE SEVEN SISTERS. POLLY’S BALLOON ISSUES QUAVERINGLY UPWARDS FROM OFF PANEL BELOW AS SHE WALKKS THE NIGHT STREETS BENEATH THE STARS.
POLLY: Nine for the nine bright shiners…
POLLY: Eight for the April rainers…
POLLY: Seven for the seven stars in the sky…

PANLEL 3
NOW A SHOT THROUGH POLLYS’ EYES, LOOKING DOWN AT HER FEET AS THEY PLOD ACROSS THE UNEVEN COBBLES AND PAVING SLABS, AVOIDING THE FOUL LOOKING PUDDLES. ALTERNATIVELY, WE COULD SEE A PAVEMENT LEVEL VIEW OF POLLY’S FEET AS SHE TREADS THE DARK STREETS. IN EITHER EVENTUALITY, HER QUAVERLY SPEECH BALLOON ISSUES FROM OFF PANEL AVBOVE AS SHE CONTINUES HER SONG.
POLLY (OFF): …and six for the six proud walkers!
POLLY (OFF): Five for the symbols at your door, and four for the gospel makers!

PANEL 4
NOW WE SEE A FULL FIGURE SHOT OF POLLY AS SHE WEAVES SLOWLY AND DRUNKENLY TOWARDS US DOWN THE LENGTH OF THE WHITECHAPEL ROAD, WHICH WE SEE STRETCHING DARKLY AWAY FROM US INTO THE DEPTHS OF THE BACKGROUND BEHINFD HER. LEGLESSLY PISSED, POLLY CONTINUES TO SING HER SONG, ITS FAMILIAR AND YET ULTIMATELY STRANGE STANZAS DRIFTING ACROSS THE GREY COBBLES AND INTO THE NIGHT. BEHIND POLLY, WAY DOWN THE STREET, WE CAN SEE A SINGLE LIGHT BURNING DIMLY AND BALEFULLY IN THE DARKNESS.
POLLY: Three-ee three-ee, the ri-i-i-i-vals!
POLLY: Two, tow the lily-white boys, dressed up all in gree-een-oh!

PANEL 5
SAME SHOT, WITH US TRACKING ALONG IN FRONT OF POLLY, KEEPING HER THE SAME DISTANCE AWAY FROM US EVEN THOUGH SHE IS STUMBLING FORWARD ALL THE TIME AS SHE SLOWLY PROGRESSES DOWN THE STREET, STILL SINGING AND PERHAPS HOLDING HER BONNET ON STRAIGHT WITH ONE HAND. LOOKING PAST HER AND AWAY DOWN THE STREET WE CAN SEE THAT THE DIM LIGHT IS LARGER AND COMING CLOSER, COMING NEARER TO POLLY. SHE SEEMS COMPLETELY UNAWARE OF IT AND DOES NOT LOOK ROUND.
POLLY: One is one…
POLLY; …and all alone…

PANLE 6
SAME SHOT. WE CONTINUE TO TRACK ALONG WITH POLLY AS SHE LURCHES AND WEAVES TOWARDS US DOWN THE STREET, STILL OBLIVIOUS TOI WHAT IS APPROACHING HER FROM BEHIND. LOOKING PAST POLLY WE SEE THAT THE APPROACHING LIGHT IS IN FACT THAT FROM WITHIN NETLEY’S COACH, WHICH WE CAN NOW MAKE OUT AS A DISTINCT YET SHADOWY MASS AS IT APPROACHES POLLY FROM BEHIND. IT IS VERY CLOSE TO HER HERE, ABOUT TO DRAW LEVEL IN ANOTHER COUPLE OF SECONDS.
POLLY:…and ever more shall be so.

PANEL 7.
IN THIS LAST WIDE PANEL WE SEE A SHOT OF POLLY AS GULL AND NETLEY’S DARK COACH COMES UP LIKE TUNDER BESIDE HER, MUCH LIKE THE DAWN OVER MANDALAY AND OUT OF CHINA. I WANT THIS TO BE DRAMATIC, WITH THE COACH A LARGE AND DARK ENGINE OF THE APOCALYPSE AS IT RUMBLES TO A HALT BESIDE THE STARTLED POLLY. THE HORSES SNORT, AND WE SEE THE WHITENESS OF THEIR EYES, THE STEAM RISING FROM THEIR FLANKS. ATOP THE BOX, GULL AND NETLEY ARE TWO SHADOWY BUT RECOGNISABLE FIGURES. EVEN THOUGH THEIR FACES ARE HIDDEN BENEATH THEIR HAT BRIMS. GULL HAS HIS GLADSTONE BAG BESIDE HIM AS HE SITS. POLLY LOOKS STARTLED, BUT NOT MORTALLY FRIGHTENED. WHAT SHE IS FRIGHTENED OF, AFTER ALL, ARE THE SCABBY HORDES OF THE OLD NICHOL MOB, WHO SHE KNOWS DO NOT TRAVEL IN FINE CARRIAGES. THIS PANEL IS SILENT, BUT I WANT THE PICTURE ITSELF TO CONVEY THE SOUND OF THE HORSES WHINNYING AS NETLEY TUGS BACK VICIOUSLY UPON ITS REINS WITH HIS STRONG, THICK LITTLE ARMS, TWISTING THE HORSE’S HEAD BACK; THE SOUND OF THE LARGE COACH WHEELS CRUNCHING TO A HALT UPON THE COBBLES, THE CLATTER OF HOOVES STRIKING SPARKS FROM THE DARK ROAD.
No dialogue.

BIG HEADS & fancy frocks

I've been showing a few pages from Chapter 5 of FROM HELL over the last three weeks (jan 25, 29, feb 2, 11, 12). As you've seen, this was a chapter where we thought hard about the differences between the well-off and the downtrodden. I pondered at some length over how different society must have looked then. It's a matter of historical record that Britain's officialdom didn't realize how far the relative health of the classes had drifted apart until they were drafting men in 1914 at the outbreak of World War 1. It was observed with some concern that the enlisted men were of a smaller stature than the officers. This gave rise to a more thorough health system in the years after the war, including free milk at schools etc.
It's interesting how since then, there is always some scientist with his eye on the height chart: "Americans used to stand tall as the people with the highest average height in the world. However, since the middle of this century, several Scandinavian countries have moved ahead and now have taller citizens on average than the United States."
"MEN FROM EARLY MIDDLE AGES WERE NEARLY AS TALL AS MODERN PEOPLE"
The guy in the above link is measuring old bones, but from my point of view as an artist, it's not necessary to go that far. The eyes will do it. As every artist must or ought to know (and there is evidence to suggest they might not) the head to body ratio in a figure will tell you what height the person is supposed to be. (I couldn't tell you how many heads or whatever, that's for people who depend on rulers rather than eyes). The body grows more and at a faster rate than the head, therefore the ratio of body to head will always be increasing during the period of growth until it halts at its final relationship depending on total height. As a kid in the mid sixties I was fascinated with Jack Kirby's concept of the figure; his heroes were big, bold and blocky. But as I came to look at a lot of classical art and even other comic book art, it struck me that Kirby's figures, especially in the early sixties and especially when he was galloping through a job, had their own particular proportions. The figure of Giant Man (above right) in Avengers#4 from 1964 has not been conceived as a gigantic being, but rather as one of small stature simply scaled up. If you take away everything else in the picture, the figure would be read as a fit and well built adult male of around five foot one inch. Kirby probably noticed this tendency in his work, because it submerges as the decade advances. Later I came to know that Jack was a wee fellow himself, and this undoubtedly figured in his concept of ideal proportions. And so it should.
It would be difficult to not show Jackie Estrada's famous photo of Jack Kirby and Alan Moore together at this juncture (and I do so with permission). Even allowing for a natural distortion of perspective, it's the sweetest way to make the point.
I'm not saying I thought about this a great deal while drawing From Hell, but it was certainly a constant in my thinking that the world of Victorian London would look and feel very strange to those, or most of us, living at the far end of the twentieth century. Another question was: just how filthy would it have been? By many contemporary accounts, sickeningly so. "Streets were fog-and smoke-cursed, and the humbler houses noisome... the park was impregnated with a sort of black stuff left by winter smoke, and St. Paul's Cathedral was so besooted that it seemed built of coal". I was quite happy with the first printing of the big From Hell in 1999 because, in addition to all my efforts to contrive an art style that was dirty and sooty, Preney's printing job had increased the effect; you couldn't handle the book much without moving some of that soot around in the margins
Talking about those coloured dresses the other day got me thinking back to my childhood in Glasgow, another big sooty city, even as late as the early 1960s. Everybody dressed in economical nondescript colours unless they were going to a party (or else to bed; pyjamas could be gaudy). But I have to interrogate myself to ascertain whether the absence of colour in my memory is due to the tv and newspapers of the time all being in black and white. Bright dresses are what they wore in films based on Broadway musicals that your auntie would love, like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. (pictured) I was too busy watching Cagney and Bogart in noir, where everybody, including angels, had dirty faces. Even kids comics were in black and white in Britain. Discovering Marvel in the mid sixties was like opening the skylight of the universe.
I recall a line from Chabon's Kavalier and Clay, but I can't locate it again so this may be inexact. It's about the colorful costumes of the superheroes, created in a period when kids were dressed like small adults: "...created by people not given leave to dress themselves. No doubt about it, this was kids' stuff." The heroes don't dress like that so much now, or at least not in the movies, and kids now dress themselves, and the world is now run by kids, or at least the world now permits adults to remain being kids. It's just that their heads are out of proportion.

* * * *
And speaking of wee men with big heads, an email from Hayley Campbell, who types like archie the cockroach: 'oh by the way, it was revealed yesterday in a tabloid interview with robbie williams' ex-lover that he was 'obsessed with googling himself and wouldn't leave the house until he'd done it'.

Woman's World

One reason I started this blog is that I had amassed a considerable pile of books that seemed to be telling me that we are in the middle of an important artistic event in the life and history of the BOOK. We're too close to this cluster of phenomena and it's too early to suggest a schematic showing accumulated interrelationships and anyway I have come to distrust critical writing that casually connects more than two things in one move. And so the blog turns out to be the best way to put it all across, in single mouthfuls, with weeks in between. I've already written of the crisis in the field of illustration and the idea of 'authorial illustration', of picture books, who are they for?, and a playfulness with typographical novelties in the current novel here, here, and here.
Woman's World by Graham Rawle is one of the most extraordinary books I have come across in the last couple of years. Rawle has been plowing his own furrow in the world of popular amusements for a number of years, with his various cartoon/collage series including Lost Consonants and When Words Collide. He had a book out in '98 titled Diary of an Amateur Photographer: a mystery. If we had to relate it to something else in order to describe it, we'd call up thoughts of Nick Bantock with his Griffin and Sabine series of picture books. My pal Sean MacKinnon at Bent Books has mentioned that Bantock's works are very popular with the ladies, and I can imagine that would be so, with their bright and charming sentiments. They reside in a place of the mind where the habitual fans of the graphic novel would probably not trip over them. Rawle's work is quite different. Diary has its own kind of masculine neurosis, with a grubby protagonist who passes time on his daily bus rides playing a mental game where he must have sex with every tenth woman he sees. This starts to involve considerable circumnavigation and timed closing of eyes in order to provide a pleasing result. The entire book is 'pictorial', with photos and cuttings and everything glued in and photographed. Even the typed parts of the story are typed onto to old murky papers and glued in. There is a ponderous feeling to all of it which makes approaching it an act of will. And if you are like me you will find the effort worthwhile.
You can find an interview with Rawle in the British Association of Illustrators (AOI) Journal of September 2003. This is the 'authorial issue' which I mentioned in the first link above. Lethem also mentioned Diary in The Ecstacy of Influence, his Harper's essay on Plagiarism much celebrated in this blog last week. couple of reader reviews here

Rawle's second 'novel' takes us somehwere else entirely. It is wholly constructed from words, phrases and even paragraphs, all cut with scissors from 1960s women's magazines. The illustration at right, taken from Rawle's website, will give you the idea. The whole book is done like that, all 437 pages. It's reviewed here, by Tom Phillips, (himself an interesting figure-more on him another day), and in Eye magazine, by Rick Poynor, a key critical witer in the 'authorial illustration' movement mentioned above'. I won't talk about the plot here as it makes an interesting experience to start into it not knowing the premise let alone the plot. So if my recommendation isn't enough for you, check those reviews warily.

Woman's World is a touching and beautiful work with psychological depth, belying its unusual origin. I would have expected from the circumstances not much more than a facetious job. You could get rid of all the cut-outs, copy the words into regular type, and it would be an impressive piece of writing. The manner of the book's composition would cast its influence as a sub text of course, since the particular words and 'found phrases' are integrated into the very substance and meaning of the work. Rawle's accomplishment is that he has written a first rate modern novel, which at its end is quite deeply moving and unforgettable.

The hardcover has 2005 date, and on its dust jacket it is described as 'a novel'. The softcover which you can see at the top of my post, tries a new gambit: Woman's World: a graphic novel. A 'graphic novel' indeed, and it was reviewed as such alongside Burns' Black Hole, Clowes' Ice Haven and the latest Acme Novelty Library from Ware in the London Times of Dec 3 2005.

If you have been following this blog since I contemplated putting "It's not a graphic novel, Percy" on a t-shirt, you'll know i have no time for arguing about labels, but I wondered who had thought that putting 'graphic novel' on the cover was the correct strategy and suspected the publisher. I introduced myself by email and asked Graham Rawle himself, who replied:
"I have no idea what the term ‘graphic novel’ means. Then why is it on my book?
Well, when the hardback came out, I wanted it to be viewed as a novel, not a novel-ty. As you know, text and image (graphic novel?) combinations tend to be lumped together with those cheap crappy Christmas books and I rather grandly wanted mine to be taken seriously. Initially I even suggested we printed it as ordinary text. For me the story was more important than the method by which it was created, but I finally decided that the two, the story and the method, were inextricably linked. It would have been daft not to show the pages. My publishers agreed and suggested it should be a traditional novel format and that we should add ‘a novel’. Just to give a clue. The result was that it got reviewed as a novel, which was good, but that browsing customers didn’t look inside to see the rip-roaringly lovely visual delight of each page. It was (my) publisher’s idea to add ‘a graphic novel’ to the paperback. They recognised they had missed out on the ‘graphic novel’ market (whatever that is), or more accurately that art bookshops, museums etc. were less inclined to stock the hardback because of the ‘a novel’ tag. I think people expect graphic novels to be comic books these days. Mine will no doubt be a disappointment to this audience because there are no drawings.
I don’t think about these labels much. I don’t know why we put ‘a novel’ and not ‘a story’. I think I suggested ‘a collaged novel’, but the publishers advised me against it. I also suggested putting some of the text scraps on the front to give some indication of what was inside. They said that would make it look less like a novel. I don’t know. I just want people to read my book. There is talk now of a film of WW. Now is that a ‘romantic comedy’ or a ‘comedy drama’? The film people want to know."

I can see this property as a movie. It wouldn't be too hard to find televisual analogues for all the quoted advertising phrases. But I can also see it ending up in American hands and the chances are they'd misunderstand the delicate beauty of it. In which case all we could hope for would be that Rawle would pocket enough dosh to go to ground for another five years (the time it took to make Woman's World) and produce another gem.

Assorted artists, glimpsed from the back of a galloping horse.

Thought for the day:"I don't think much of my face. I think it falls somewhere between Fu Manchu and Desperate Dan - but a Robert Redford lurks inside." Michael Gambon.


Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter has an interview with Paul Grist, reminding me of a series Paul drew to my script way back in 1990 titled LUCIFER. It was a three issue comic book mini-series which was then collected in soft cover, but it's never been seen since then. I got to work with Paul again in 2005 when first rate DC editor Joey Cavalieri assigned him my five page script for a cockeyed Flash story in the second Bizarro collection. It's a day in the Life of superhero the Flash, narrated by him in abbreviated shorthand. Yet another illegible Campbellian offering! (Joey was a helpful editor by observing that 'parallel world' made for a difficult abbreviation and suggested instead 'alternative universe') There's a Mirror Master story (in an alt unvrs), and a Grodd the Gorilla story; the second one provides the solution to the first one and the whole thing is bookended by Barry (Flash) Allen and his wife Iris in domestic contentment. It's a lot like a 1960's comic; you got plenty story for your ten cents in them days.
And my old pal Phil Elliott provided the colours (he drew the first of the three LUCIFERS). It was like 1986 British small press all over again.

* * * *

I mentioned the apparently magnificent Hogarth exhibition a few days ago (and I'm wishing I was in the neighbourhood). Ben Smith, in comments two days back, alerted me to the fact that cartoonist Steve Bell has written on the subject. While I think he is supreme at what he does in cartoons, abusing the establishment and other pomposities, he is clearly not a deep thinker (as we suspected after reading his Comics Journal interview some time recently.) But then, it's useful to have big noisy uncontrollable dog around to deter people from coming in and stealing your bike.

"He was the first to take the idea of telling a story in comic strip form, in multiple panels, and do it justice."
"I think he must have been quite pugnacious." (that second sentence is from a different papragraph.)

No, give me Jenny Uglow, whom I spoke of here on 26 Jan, a writer who has written extensively and well on the eighteenth century. her piece on the exhibition appeared on Jan 13
"While Hogarth's Progresses are still theatrical - telling Moll's story, for example, through a sequence of "dramatic" moments, such as her seduction by the bawd, Mother Needham; the crash of the table when her sponsor discovers her infidelity; the tiptoeing of the magistrate through the door - their suggestive use of detail and complex creation of character also link them to the emerging novel. One reason for the enduring appeal of the Progresses is their ambivalence, their reservation of judgment. Hogarth shrewdly marketed his prints, tabloid style, as moral lessons rather than prurient stories, but - rather as Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones are unlikely "heroes" - he also created a heroine, Moll Hackabout, and a hero, Tom Rakewell, who rise above typecasting to complex individuality. Each is both victim and predator: their fate draws our sympathy, rather than acquiescence in rightful punishment. Yet Hogarth is less optimistic than Fielding: his ironic titles, echoing Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, suggest that hectic urban society is more conducive to madness and decline than to spiritual progression."

Here, instead of a reiteration of that crap about Hogarth and the comic strip we get a genuine insight into what he was about. I have for some time felt that a connection to 'the emerging novel' is one place to start a discussion of Hogarth. It is this mainly that differentiates him from all the cartoonists who followed him, except perhaps for George Du Maurier in the late 1800s, whose informal assortment of cartoons in Punch lampooning the aesthetic movement built a recurring cast of characters and provided the cartoonist with a trying ground for the novels he eventually did write, including Trilby, which gave the world the character of Svengali. There is a great deal to consider there, but the comics fraternity is hung up on the simplistic obsession with a single formal procedure ('multiple panels'), and their mindless blatherings, like that of Bell referenced above, give me no pleasure at all.
Uglow's final remarks are relevant to my theme of the Fate of the Artist, that growing suspicion that it will all add up to nothing.
"In his final print, The Bathos, the artist's palette lies broken. The main actor, old Time himself, lies prone, croaking: "Finis"; the backdrop is a gallows on a lonely plain, the scenery is collapsing in ruins. Yet even this bleak print shows Hogarth as a man of theatre. In 1766, two years after his death, his long, intricate, back-and-forth relationship with the stage, as well as his bluff nationalism, received due tribute in Garrick's prologue to The Clandestine Marriage, which drew on Marriage à la Mode... (etc)"

* * * *

Weeding my list of bookmarks, I find this Guardian review of Reading Pictures by Alberto Manguel, from march 11 2001. I had been googling the phrase 'The Fate of the Artist" in preparation for using it as the title for my book (in case somebody else had used it recently etc.)
"This leads Manguel into a discussion of the career of Edward Weston who, in his attempt to 'see' his subject with the least possible interference, refused to crop his final prints. But, as Manguel goes on to note, this commitment to the 'truth' can become addictive and lead to the abandonment of art - photography, even - altogether. This was the fate of the artist Tina Modotti who gave up photography because seeing and portraying the social reality of Mexico's poor was too mediated a form of witness. She had to get much closer than her camera would allow and so she retreated into artistic silence."

* * * *

Drjon links me to a piece about the lately rereleased Walt Kelly's 'Songs of the Pogo' album. Walt Kelly! Now there's a voice I miss in the world.

"Break out the cigars, this life is for squirrels
We're off to the drug store to whistle at girls."

Judging a book by another book's cover.

I have three pieces of Shakespeare that have accumulated in a file on my desktop. They are not by the bard himself, but humorous cover versions if you like, as written by the slangmeisters of 80/90 years ago. I'm not making any connection between them or placing them in a larger context. They are simply here. First is a rendition of Romeo and Juliet in an excerpt from The Sentimental Bloke by C J Dennis, the Australian versifier. The 1916 publication of The Sentimental Bloke sold 65,000 copies in its first year, and by 1917 Dennis was 'the most prosperous poet in Australian history'. Prosperous poet!!? That was another age altogether, what? Long narrative ballad poems were once the rage, in the days when Casey first struck out. In this sequence the Bloke is describing a performance of Romeo nad Juliet to his girl friend, Doreen. The copy I have has a 1950s style cover that is not unattractive, but this needs a period feel, so I'm illustrating this with a cover from a different book, Edward Dyson's Fact'ry 'Ands from 1920, which is much more in tune with the proceedings, with a cover by his brother the great cartoonist Will Dyson.

"Then Romeo, ‘e dunno wot to do,
The cops gits busy, like they alwiz do,
An’ nose around until ‘e gets blue funk
An’ does a bunk.
They want ‘is tart to wed some other guy.
Ah, strike! She sez. ‘I wish that I could die!’

Now, this ‘ere gorspil bloke’s a fair shrewd ‘ead.
Sez ‘e ‘I’ll dope yeh, so they’ll think yer dead.
(I tips ‘e was a cunnin’ sort, wot knoo
A thing or two.)
She takes ‘is knock-out drops, up in ‘er room:
They think she’s snuffed, an’ plant ‘er in ‘er tomb.

Then things gits mixed a treat an’ starts to whirl
‘Ere’s Romeo comes back an’ find ‘is girl
Tucked in ‘er little coffing, cold an’ stiff.
An’ in a jiff.
‘E swallows lysol, throws a fancy fit,
‘Ead over turkey, an’ ‘is soul ‘as flit.

Then Juli-et wakes up an’ sees ‘im there,
Turns on the water-works an’ tears ‘er ‘air,
‘Dear love,’ she sez, “I cannot live alone!’
An wiv a moan. She grabs ‘is pockit knife. An ends ‘er cares…
’Peanuts or lollies!’ sez a boy upstairs."

* * * *
"archy and mehitabel," By Don Marquis, first appeared 1916 in the New York Evening Sun. pete the parrot and shakespeare, whence comes my excerpt, is a later entry in the series, I believe from 1927. I have a Faber edition from 1967 with no illustrations or picture on the cover, so I'm scanning this other edition's cover with illo by the great George Herriman from the booklet of a Herriman exhibition in Angouleme in 1997 (very nice if you can find a copy). archie, as you know, is a cockroach who jumps around on the typewriter but can't get to the shift key. bill is Wm Shakespeare

"well says frankie beaumont
why don t you cut it bill
i can t says bill
i need the money i ve got
a family to support down in
the country well says frankie
anyhow you write pretty good
plays bill any mutt can write
plays for this london public
says bill if he puts enough
murder in them what they want
is kings talking like kings
never had sense enough to talk
and stabbings and stranglings
and fat men making love
and clowns basting each
other with clubs and cheap puns
and off color allusions to all
the smut of the day oh i know
what the low brows want
and i give it to them"

* * * *
Finally, an excerpt from Julius Ceasar according to Milt Gross. His schtick, when he wasn't drawing sunday funnies, 'was to retell familiar stories in the Yiddish-influenced dialect of first- and second-generation urban Jews'. I don't know from where this comes, as I found it here thanks to David Kathman, so I'm illustrating it with the cover of another of Milt's books, Dunt Esk!!, from 1927, which I am very pleasd to own thanks to my pal mr j.

How It Got Bomped Huff Julius Sizzer
Pot Two
-------
Sootsayer: "Bewerr from de Hides from Motch, Sizzer!!"

Sizzer: "Why I should bewerr from de Hides from Motch??"

Sootsayer: "It stends in de Crystal Ball signs you should bewerr from de Hides from Motch!"

Sizzer: "Noo, it stends ulso in de sobway signs I should dreenk Cula-Cola!! Is dees a criterion?? Hm -- geeve a look a whole mob -- Hey wot you teenk diss is, boyiss? De Kenel Stritt sobway station? Should I know why it lays a cheeken haggs?? Boyiss -- put away de deggers -- Deedn't I told you guys -- neex on de mommbly-pag beezness -- Whoooooy -- Hay -- I tink wot dey trying to essessinate me!!"

Kraut: "Hm -- You ketch right hon, dunt you?" Wot dey gafe heem witt de deggers so -- wot it looked gradually de gomment like it came beck jost from a wat-wash lundry.

So dees was de cocklusion from Julius Sizzer.

FROM HELL: 5/23

This page of FROM HELL script is the one following the page I showed yesterday as I want to give you the sequence leading up to the first murder. In itself there is nothing significant or special about this page, but note Alan's observation about the appearance of the women's outdoor dress in panel 1, as I referred to this problem back on jan 29 while remarking on the treatment of costume in the movie. I've drafted an essay about the general difficulties of reconstructing a period authenticity, which will show up here sometime soon. There were a number of pages in From Hell which were simply detailing actual evidence and we used them to mark blocks of time. Again the wide silent panel at he bottom is part of that, a sequence of pages ending in large silent panels chiming the next hour in turn, as described yesterday. Alan used the same effect leading up to the Mary Kelly murder at the end of chapter 9, with the measured pacing creating an oppressive feeling of foreboding, with everything locked into an unalterable pattern.

CHAPTER 5 PAGE 23 (886 words)
PANEL. 1
NOW A SEVEN PANEL PAGE IN WHICH WE SHOW WHAT’S GOING ON WITH POLLY. THERE ARE THREE PANELS ON EACH OF THE TOP TWO TIERS AND THEN ONE BIG PANEL TAKING UP THE BOTTOM TIER, AS ON OUR LAST PAGE. IN THIS FIRST PANEL, WE ARE IN THE WHITECHAPEL ROAD, LOOKING ACROSS IT TOWARDS THE CORNER OF OSBORNE STREET. (WHERE, INCIDENTALLY, ANOTEHR PROSTITUTE NAMED “FAIRY FAY” HAD BEEN FOUND STABBED TO DEATH DURING THE CHRISTMAS WEEK OF 1887.) IN THE FOREGROUND, VISIBLE ROUGHLY HALF FIGURE AND FACING SLIGHTLY AWAY FROM US TOWARDS THE CORNER OF OSBORNE STREET IS A WOMAN THAT WE HAVE NOT SEEN BEFORE, ALTHOUGH SHE WEARS THE TRADITIONAL DARK CLOTHING AND BONNET, AMLOST A UNIFORM FOR THE WOMEN OF WHITECHAPEL IT WOULD SEEM. SHE IS HOLDING UP ONE HAND IN GREETING AS SHE CALLS OUT TO THE FIGURE STANDING ON THE CORNER OF OSBORNE STREET, SMILING AS SHE DOES SO. THIS WOMAN IN THE FOREGROUND IS NAMED EMILY HOLLAND, WHILE THE FIGURE ACROSS THE STREET IS POLLY NICHOLS, WHO HAS BEEN HEADING DOWN THE WHITECHAPEL ROAD. SHE PAUSES OUTSIDE THE GROCER’S SHOP ON THE CORNER OF OSBORNE STREET (JUST OPPOSITE THE WHITECHAPEL CHURCH ACCORDING TO PAUL BEGG IN JACK THE RIPPER: THE UNCENSORED FACTS)) AND LOOKS BACK OVER HER SHOULDER TOWARDS US IN SURPRISE AS SHE HEARS THE WOMAN’S VOICE. NEARBY, THE CLOCK SET INTO THE TOWER OF CHRISTCHURCH SPITALFIELDS RINGS THE CHIMES FOR HALF-PAST-TWO.
EMILY: Polly?
EMILY: Wherever are ye goin’, woman? It’s half past two!

PANEL 2.
CHANGE ANGLE SO THAT NOW POLLY IS IN THE FOREGROUND, FACING SLIGHTLY AWAY FROM US TOWARDS EMILY HOLLAND AS THE OTHER WOMAN COMES ACROSS THE WHITECHPAEL ROAD TOWARDS HER. POLLY, OBVIOUSLY STILL SOMEWHAT THE WORSE FOR DRINK, SMILES CHEERFULLY AT HER IN GREETING AS SHE SPEAKS.
POLLY: Oh, ‘ello, Emily.
POLLY: I’m off to earn me doss money. Won’t take me long. I’ve made it three times today already, and spent it!

PANEL 3.
CHANGE ANGLES SO THAT EMILY HOLLAND IS NOW HALF FIGURE TO HEAD AND SHOULDERS IN THE FOREGROUND. SHE FACES SLIGHTLY AWAY FROM US TOWARDS POLLY AS SHE SPEAKS, PERHAPS INDICATING BEHIND HER WITH HER THUMB IN THE DIRECTION OF RATCLIFFE DOCKS. LOOKING BEYOND HER WE SEE POLLY. POLLY’S EYES WIDEN AS SHE LISTENS TO WHAT EMILY IS SAYING, AND A LOOK OF STARTLED SURPRISE SURFACES THROUGH THE DRUNKEN FOG OF HER FEATURES. EVERYTHING AROUND THE TWO WOMEN IS DARK.
EMILY: Well, good luck.
EMILY: Meself, I just been watching that fire dwon by George’s-In-The-East…
POLLY: What?

PANEL 4.
REVERSE ANGLES AGAIN SO THAT POLLY IS HEAD AND SHOULDERS IN THE FOREGROUND, FACING SLIGHTLY AWAY FROM US TOWARDS EMILY, WHO IS LOOKING TOWARDS US FROM THE NEAR BACKGROUND. WE CAN STILL SEE POLLY’S EXPRESSION, HOWEVER, WHICH IS ONE OF UNEASY BEWILDERMENT AS SHE LISTENS TO WHAT EMILY IS SAYING. PERHAPS SHE EVEN RAISES HER FINGERS TO HER LIPS IN AN UNCONCSIOUS GESTURE, IF THAT DOESN’T LOOK TOO STAGEY. EMILY HOLLAND, FACING TOWARDS US FROM BEYOND, SEEMS OBLIVIOUS TO POLLY’S EVIDENT UNEASE, AND IS STILL SMILING ENCOURAGINGLY. SHE IS STARTING TO TURN AWAY FROM POLLY, AS IF ABOUT TO LEAVE. PERHAPS SHE INDICATES HER ROUTE WITH ONE THUMB AS SHE INVITES POLLY TO ACCOMPANY HER.

PANEL 4.
EMILY: Oh, a big fire broke out down Ratcliffe Highway, at the docks, about one o’clock. It’s still burnin’.
EMILY: Come on..let’s go back to the lodgin’-house together.

PANEL 5.
REVERSE ANGLE AGAIN. EMILY HOLLAND HAS TURNED AWAY FROM POLLY AND IS WALKING TOWARDS US, RESUMING HER STROLL DOWN THE WHITECHAPEL ROAD BACK IN THE DIRECTION OF THRAWL STREET. SHE IS STILL SMILING PLEASANTLY, BUT NOT LOOKING BACK AT POLLY AS SHE SPEAKS. RATHER, SHE IS GLANCING DOWN TOWARDS HER OFF PANEL FEET, AS IF TO MAKE SURE WHERE SHE IS PUTTING THEM AS SHE WALKS. LOOKING BEYOND HER WE SEE POLLY, MORE OR LESS FULL FIGURE AS SHE STANDS ALONE SOME FEW PACES AWAY. SHE GAZES AFTER EMILY AS THE OTHER WOMAN LEAVES, AND SHE WEARS THE SAME LOOK OF UNEASE AND UNCERTAINTY UPON HER FACE AS SHE SPEAKS TO EMILY’S RETREATING FORM.
POLLY: Uh..no. No, me doss money.
POLLY: I have to find it.
EMILY: Suit yerself. Me, I’m off. You take care, now, Polly.

PANEL 6.
NOW WE ARE STANDING JUST BEHIND POLLY AS SHE WATCHES EMILY WALK AWAY INTO THE DARKNESS, SO THAT WE SEE POLLY HALF FIGURE TO HEAD AND SHOULDERS FACING SLIGHTLY AWAY FROM US IN THE FOREGROUND HERE. SHE RAISES ONE HAND IN A FEEBLE LITTLE WAVE TOWARDS EMILY HOLLAND’S DEPARTING FORM IN THE BACKGROUND, BUT HER EXPRESSION IS STILL VAGUELY TROUBLED AND UNEASY. IN THE BACKGROUND WE SEE EMILY, NOW A SMALL FIGURE SOME DISTANCE AWAY AND ABOUT TO MERGE INTO THE DARKNESS. PAUSING ON THE VERY THRESHOLD OF VISIBILITY, SHE TURNS ONCE AND WAVES BACK TOWARDS POLLY AS SHE DEPARTS. SHE IS THE LAST PERSON, OTHER THAN THE MURDERERS, WHO WOULD SEE POLLY ALIVE.
No Dialogue

PANEL 7.
THIS LAST WIDE PANEL IS JUST A TIGHT CLOSE-UP OF A FIRE. WE ARE SO CLOSE IN THAT WE CANNOT EVEN SEE WHAT IS BURNING: ALL WE CAN SEE ARE FLAMES AND SMOKE, AN ALMOST ABSTRACT PICTURE OF CONFLAGRATION. THE FIRE IS HOT AND BRIGHT AND ROARING. WE MIGHT BE IN HELL.
No Dialogue

FROM HELL: 5/22

The eleventh in my series of pages of Alan Moore's FROM HELL scripts. I've always been fond of this scene, though there are two or three things going on in it, and since Alan wanted to emphasize the darkneess, it was by no means easy to draw. My fondness is due to Alan's casting of the murderer and his lackey in a pair of comedic roles, and to this end I took the liberty of stretching the dialogue over more panels than was requested in the script, in order to work the timing better. Thus the first and last panels, silent in the script, now have speeech. The final panel, which was supposed to take its place in a rhythmic march toward unavertible doom ( a sequence of five pages with wide silent finishing panels), now has dialogue measured out from the sequence above, which may endanger the overll balance of the pages. I never cleared it with Alan, and he has never mentioned the matter. Maybe when we're cranky old geezers we'll fall out over it.

CHAPTER 5 PAGE 22 (724 words)
PANEL1
NOW A SINGLE SEVEN PANEL PAGE IN WHICH WE RETURN TO GULL AND NETLEY, THE LAUREL AND HARDY OF SERIAL MURDER, AS THEY PROGRESS THROUGH THE EAST END. THE TOP TWO TIERS HAVE THREE PANELS EACH WHILE THE BOTTOM TIER HAS ONE WIDE PANEL. IN THIS FIRST SILENT PANEL WE HAVE A LONG SHOT OF THE DARK BULK OF THE COACH AS IT CREAKS AND RATTLES THROUGH THE MIASMAL BLACKNESS, ONLY JUST DISCERNABLE TO US AS A RECOGNIZABLE HORSE AND CARRIAGE. OTHERWISE, IT IS JUST A VAGUE AND THREATENING MASS TRUNDLING AWAY FROM US THROUGH THE NARROW STREETS. A SINGLE COACH LAMP BURNING DIMLY AND BALEFULLY INSIDE IT
No dialogue.

PANEL 2
NOW WE ARE UP ON THE BOX BESIDE GULL, WITH GULL ONLY PARTLY VISIBLE TO ONE SIDE OF THE FORGROUND.ALL WE CAN REALLY SEE OF HIM ARE HIS LAP AND HIS ARMS AS HE SITS THERE JUST OFF THE PANEL. HE HAS A BAG OF GRAPES IN HIS LAP, AND IN HIS HANDS HE HOLDS THE SMALL BOTTLE OF LAUDANUM, NOW OPENED, AND A SMALL PAINT-BRUSH. HE IS JUST DIPPING THE BRUSH INTO THE LAUDANUM HERE, HIS SPEECH BALLOON ISSUING FROM OFF-PANEL. LOOKING BEYOND GULL’S HANDS, THE GRAPES AND THE LAUDANUM WE CAN SEE A HALF-FIGURE SHOT OF JOHN NETLEY AS HE SITS THERE NEXT TO GULL ON THE BOX, HOLDiNG THE REINS IN ONE HAND AND HIS WHIP IN THE OTHER. HE IS GAZING AHEAD INTO THE DARKNESS AS HE RIDES, RATHER THAN LOOKING TOWARDS US OR GULL, AND HE WEARS A FAIRLY NEUTRAL EXPRESSION.
GULL: (OFF) : Hark, Netley! It is two o’clock, and still our bag is empty.
Gull (off): You DID locate the woman earlier, according to instructions?

PANEL 3.
SAME SHOT. IN THE FOREGROUND, GULL IS NOW APPLYING THE LAUDANUM-SOAKED PAINTBRUSH TO THE GRAPES, PAINTING THEM WITH THE STICKY TINCTURE. LOOKING BEYOND GULL’S HANDS WE CAN SEE NETLEY AS HE TURNS TO FACE US WITH AN ANXIOUS EXPRESSION, WORRIED THAT SIR WILLIAM MAY BE DISPLEASED WITH HIM, AND ANXIOUS TO GIVE A GOOD ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF. BEYOND NETLEY THERE IS ONLY DARKNESS AS THE CAB CONTIUES TO MOVE SLOWLY AND ALMOST SILENTLY THROUGH THE EAST END
NETLEY: Oh, yes, sir. Three of ‘em. Two I’ll know again. The third I singled out by givin’ ‘er a token, like you said.
GULL (OFF): Excellent! How shall we know her?

PANEL 4.
SAME SHOT. IN THE NEAR BACKGROUND, NETLEY TURNS HIS EYES BACK TO THE ROAD SO THAT HE IS ONCE MORE IN PROFILE AND NO LONGER FACING TOWARD US OR SIR WILLIAM. HE ALLOWS HIMSELF A SMUG, SELF SATISFIED SMIRK, PROUD OF HIS GREAT INITIATIVE AND CLEVERNESS. IN THE FOREGROUND, GULL’S HAND PAUSES HALFWAY BETWEEN THE GRAPES AND THE BOTTLE OF LAUDANUM, TOWARD WHICH IT WAS HEADING TO REFILL THE BRUSH.
NETLEY: I gave ‘er a bonnet, sir.
NETLEY: A black bonnet.

PANEL 5.
NOW A LONG SHOT OF THE COACH, SIMILAR TO PANEL ONE. IT IS MOVING AWAY FROM US INTO THE DARKNESS OF WHITECHAPEL. AN INDISTINCT BLACK SHAPE AGAINST THE EQUAL BLACKNESS BEYOND. IT IS NOT YET TOO FAR AWAY FROM US HERE, SO THAT WE CAN STILL JUST MAKE OUT THE HUDDLED FORMS OF GULL AND NETLEY AS THEY SIT ATOP THE COACH. OTHERWISE, THE PANEL IS ALMOST COMPLETELY BLACK. WHITECHAPEL IS BLACK. THE COACH IS BALCK. YOU CAN BARELY SEE YOUR HAND IN FRONT OF YOPIUR FACE.
GULL: A black bonnet. How very helpful.
GULL: Netley, do you know what your foremost distinguishing feature is?
NETLEY: Why, I… I can’t think, sir.

PANEL 6
SAME SHOT, ONLY NOW THE COACH IS FURTHER AWAY, MOVING FURTHER INTO THE IMPENETRABLE DARKNESS OF THE BACKGROUND, THE SHADOWS SMOTHERING THE IMAGE.
GULL: Precisely.
GULL: Head for Whiitechapel Road, and let us hope your eyes are equal to the task your ailing wits have set them.

PANEL 7.
NOW A BIG WIDE PANEL IN WHICH WE SEE A GENERAL VIEW OF THE EAST END AT NIGHT, DIFFERENT FROM THE SHOT WITH WHICH WE CLOSED PAGE TWENTY ONE, BUT EVOCATIVE OF THE SAME THINGS. THERE CAN BE PEOPLE ABOUT, OR NOT, DEPENDING ON HOW YOU FEEL. MAYBE WE’RE LOOKING ALONG THE DARK LENGTHS OF THE COMMERCIAL ROAD, FOR EXAMPLE, WHERE SMALL KNOTS OF MEN GATHER IN FOGGY CONVERSATION AROUND THE GLOW OF THEIR CLAY PIPES.
No dialogue.