19 December 2007

Chilling unsolved crime as recorded by a contemporary, with Geary's fantastic pictures



Jack the Ripper: A Journal of the Whitechapel Murders 1888-1889
(Treasury of Victorian Murder series)

Rick Geary

Nantier Beall Minoustchine Publishing, 2001

The title page says it all: "A Journal of the Whitechapel Murders 1888-1889 Adapted by Rick Geary." Don't expect shocking new "revelations" or speculations as to the identity of the Ripper; the text comprises excerpts from the journals of an anonymous Victorian chronicler of the Ripper's crimes. Yet it is precisely the ordinary, "following the day's news" quality of this account that is so chilling---it reminds the reader that the lost lives of these poor women were REAL and that their murders were never solved. Geary's renderings, as always, succeed admirably in fleshing out the journal entries, and his use of maps as backgrounds for many of his panels is ingenious. Reading this book was a fine approximation of taking a Ripper walking tour through Whitechapel.

(This review was originally written on July 10, 2006.)

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