The Spirit Archives Volume Twenty-Seven!

Following on after DC's long run of The Spirit archive editions, Dark Horse Books in conjunction with longtime Kitchen Sink owner Denis Kitchen put out a twenty-seventh volume in the style of the DC books which gathered together the nine issues of The Spirit - The New Adventures. After many years of trying to talk Eisner into allowing other creators to play with The Spirit's universe, he at last convinced him of the idea in 1998. Some of the best comic men of the time took a dip in those Central City waters. 

The debut issue of The Spirit - The New Adventures features three tales by the super-star team of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, who also produced the cover. "The Most Important Meal" features Dr. Cobra who tells his origin story. "Force of Arms" offers up a possible clue to the identity of The Octopus. And the final story "Gossip and Gertrude Granch" tells us what really happened to Dr. Cobra's muscle-bound assistant. These stories all are connected in strange ways with that subtle Moore magic. 

The second issue offers up a cover by Will Eisner Mark Shultz. Under it is "The Return of Mink Stole" by Neil Gaiman and artist Eddie Campbell and combines a Spirit story with one torn from the realm of Quentin Tarrantino which propels a timid writer into a shady story of theft and more. "Sunday in the Part with St. George" by Jim Vance and artist Dan Burr has The Spirit race to the aid of a woman dangling from a flagpole where he meets an old enemy. "The Sphinx the Jinx in the Game of Life" by John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra features a hapless chap just released from jail but doomed by fate to return. 

The third issue features a striking cover by Brian Bolland. The first story "Last Night I Dreamed of Dr. Cobra" by writer Alan Moore and artist Daniel Torres is a strange affair set in a distant future in which Central City is the site of an archeological endeavor and in which strange discoveries are made. "Ellen's Stalker" by Mark Kneece and artist Bo Hampton features Ellen Dolan when she is at first saved then pursued by a man who imitates the look of The Spirit. 

The fourth issue sports another new cover by Will Eisner, this time with the assistance of William Stout. "The Samovar of Shooshnipoor" was written by Kurt Busiek and drawn by his partner on Astro City Brent Anderson. It features Sand Saref in a tale in which she tries yet again to manipulate The Spirit in a bid to gain riches. This issue also has a pin-up by Moebius of The Spirit looking a lot like Humphrey Bogart. "The Weapon by Michael Allred, Matt Brundage and Michael Avon Oeming has The Spirit fighting Nazis and their robot allies on the docks of Central City. "Dr. Broca Von Bitelman" by Mark Schultz and artist David Lloyd features Satin and a mad doctor and his deadly "Super-Beetles". 

The fifth issue features a cover by Paul Chadwick and John Nyberg and is a key scene from the issue-length story titled "Cursed Beauty" by the same team. This one deals with a gorgeous woman who leaves the scene of a murder naked save for a barely concealing overcoat. There are lots of twists and turns in this story which also showcases Ebony White in a key role. 

The sixth issue features a gritty cover by Tim Bradstreet. The first story titled "Swami Vashtibubu" was written by John Ostrander and drawn by Tom Mandrake, and has The Spirit go around in drag to knab a gang of fraudsters led by a murderous couple. "Baby Eichbergh" by Scott Hampton on both script (with assistance by Mark Kneece) and art tells of a terrible kidnapping which features a strange quartet of good Samaritans. 

The seventh issue features a cover by Peter Poplaski. Under it is a story titled "Golf Anyone?" in which Commissioner Dolan cajoles The Spirit onto the links for a game to relax him, but of course that only ends in the duo finding more crimes to solve. A long-missing cast member shows up unexpectedly. "The Pacifist" was written by Eddie Campbell and Marcus Moore and drawn by Campbell and Pete Mullins and tells the tale of a bullet with ambitions beyond that for which it created. "The Ghost of Tiger Traps" written by Jay Stephens and drawn by Paul Pope features a trio of boys including Sammy and P.S. Smith as they try to get to the bottom of a notorious gangster who seems to rise from his grave. 

In the final issue we get a cover by Mark Nelson. The story "Sweetheart" was written by Joe R. Lansdale and drawn by John Lucas. This issue-long adventure features a naked woman who refuses to stay dead and in the morgue despite repeated attempts. It's a ghoulish ending to a strange series which seemed to want to update The Spirit for a modern audience. 

In a later edition of this same volume put out by Dark Horse a story originally intended for the series by Gary Chaloner was added. In the meantime, Chaloner had adapted it in his John Law edition reversing the order of things with the epic Sand Saref tale from so long ago.  

There are lots of very good stories in this volume and I recommend it. But if you're looking for the same jolt you got from those classic Eisner tales, beware as the creators here go off the reservation as they should have done when given the okay. Eisner only limited them in two ways -- The Spirit could not be married nor could he be killed. As we've learned killing The Spirit is virtually impossible. It's been fantastic this past year reading these classic tales. I'll have wee bit more to say on this year-long odyssey later. 

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From Hell And Back!

The word I'd used to describe Alan Moore's and Eddie Campbell's From Hell is unrelenting. This bleak tale of the Jack the Ripper murders is presented with a rough-hewn realism that is simultaneously utterly symbolic. Campbell's style is rugged and rough but from those thin scratches comes a sense of the world as it is, not in any way romanticized. Moore's story is staggering in its detail, which seeks to put forth the theory that the Ripper killings were done to cover up the birth of a royal bastard by way of a local prostitute. The women killed were murdered to see that none of this truth came out. The murderer according to this story was Sir Willima Gull, the royal surgeon and he did his foul deeds under the direct orders of Queen Victoria herself and was assisted in covering up his crimes by the top men in the police force, who like Gull were Masons. 

Where From Hell succeeds most brilliantly is in its suggestion that the Ripper murders presage the 20th Century, a time when staggering violence in World Wars I and II will rip the common understanding of what it means to be civilized. We follow the mad Gull not only on his nighttime prowls to slay women, but we follow him into his mind where we get to share the bizarre visions which motivated him and all him to make some foul sense of his actions. He is a madman, and we are invited into his mad mind so that we can find meaning in these hellish acts, at least by his cracked terms. 

Moore and Campbell do an excellent job of humanizing the victims and many of the other various characters who populate the story. The women are seen in full view, not reduced to mere sex workers who prowl the night, but women who have had lives before the arrival of the Ripper. Many of those lives are tragic ones, the reason they find themselves isolated in the streets of London's Whitehall district. We also follow the policeman Aberline, who himself is a rich character beyond his search for the Ripper. He is a man of conflicting passions, though he seems to be an honest enough copper. 

The story of "Jack the Ripper" is told based on many sources, but also from Moore's and Campbell's imaginations. They make this story, which has been told and retold so many times that we all think we know it, come alive again with vivid details that elevate above the mere true crime or horror categories it often gets slammed into. This is a mythic tale of coming to terms with the modern world and in so many ways failing to do so. The story comes with copious notes that explain Moore's sources and his thinking in regard to certain sequences which are more speculative. 

The movie version starring Johnny Depp is not bad given the limits of the medium, but it fails to capture the bigness of this story, and truth told a single film cannot capture the complexity of this work regardless. Maybe a min-series would be the best way to bring this to the screen. 

Below are the covers of the series as they appeared in the 90's from Mad Love Publishing. 

It's a hefty tome to get the collected series from Top Shelf, but at forty bucks it's a relative bargain given the depth of this story. 

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