Continuing with my semi-regular Halloween entries, my theme today is that infamous Jack the Ripper.
JACK THE RIPPER
I'm not morbid, or anything, but I was a bit fascinated with Jack
the Ripper when I bought my first issue of "From Hell", the comic book
by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. It's not so much the story of Jack
the Ripper that interested me - but the appendixes at the end of each
issue!
I would often read a few pages and then instantly flip to the appendix to see why the writer decide to portray certain things. Moore is simply a brilliant storyteller, drawing his own conclusions based on actual details.
Here's an example of the appendix:
CHAPTER FIVE, Pages 28&29
written by Alan Moore
(excerpt)
The details of Polly's murder are a fiction, although pieced together from certain facts. It is my belief that Polly Nicholls was killed by strangulation somewhere quite close to Buck's Row and then carried there physically before the body was mutilated. The fact that Polly was dead before the mutilations started would seem to be borne out of the lack of blood around the body, most of it having seeped into Polly's clothing. Arterial blood from a living body does not seep. It spurts, anything up to six or seven feet. Therefore, given the bruising upon Polly's neck and the sides of her face (see Jack the Ripper, A to Z by Begg, Skinner and Fido), I suggest that she was first killed by strangulation or by the more efficient method employed by [William] Gull here, that of squeezing shut the carotid artery. She was then taken to Buck's Row before the mutilations started, since there was no trail of blood leading into the street and I suggested the encounter with her killer and subsequent strangling could not have happened in Buck's Row without causing more noise....
Anyone interested in reading a fictional story based on factual reports on Jack the Ripper, I highly recommend "From Hell" (First Printing, November 1999). The paperback should set you back $35, but I'm sure you can find it used or new at a discounted price. I own all the original First Printing prestige formatted books as well as a collected version from Top Shelf Productions.
So here are some songs called "Jack the Ripper". I've previously mentioned about the Morrissey version, and in my research, I did find these new songs... one by this band called Casey Jones & The Governors. The the Jones song is actually very fun and I love it.
I found out that the song (as most "Jack the Ripper" songs) is actually originally by horror rocker Screaming Lord Sutch. He's very famous in England, but outside of the UK, he's virtually unknown. The weird thing is that in his live performances, he usually dress up as Jack the Ripper. The creepiest thing was that he committed suicide by hanging in 1999, apparently Lord Sutch suffered from clinical depression.
I got The White Stripes's "Jack the Ripper" Peel Session from devin306, I believe all the Peel Sessions were compiled in a bootleg.
The Horrors also covered "Jack the Ripper" as the intro song on their album Strange House (2007).
Other notable mentions:
- LL Cool J has a song called "Got You (Return of Jack The Ripper)", but unfortunately has nothing to do with the killer, so I've decided to not include the song here.
- Link Wray's 1963 "Jack the Ripper" is a surf-instrumental song. You can find out more information about the artist and song on www.linkwraylegend.com. Also, The Raybeats covered Link Wray's "Jack the Ripper", so essentially it sounds like the same song.
There are loads of Jack the Ripper band names, the most popular one is a from Paris, France.
PS, "From Hell" was eventually adapted for a major motion picture in 2001. The movie failed to capture what was interesting about Jack the Ripper (William Gull's character), but instead concentrated on Inspector Frederick George Abberline (played by Johnny Depp).
I wish the movie would've followed the book more closely, however I can understand that it is a movie and is very different from the book it's based on.
10/29/2007 08:05:34
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