I think I like From Hell more than you, Colin, but I will agree it very much felt like homework to read. But the good kind of homework, that you're glad at the end of it you were forced to read. (I feel the same way about David Copperfield, an asbolute tome of a book I'd never have dared attempt as a schoolboy except our English teacher was a Dickens nut; it took most of the year but it was wirth the effort).
But for sure it's a book that does no favours to anyone by being held up as some great work of comics, because it is first and foremost a book for people who are interested in serial killers, Victorian London, and occult/class shit. I'm more into superheroes than any of those things, so for sure I'll turn to Watchmen more readily than From Hell. But I'm still glad to have read it, I totally think it explores those themes in interesting and intellectually stimulating ways. (Don't tell anyone, but I feel the same way about Eddie Campbell's 'Alec' comics. Intellectually interesting, but emotionally just not my cuppatea.)
But for sure it's a book that does no favours to anyone by being held up as some great work of comics, because it is first and foremost a book for people who are interested in serial killers, Victorian London, and occult/class shit. I'm more into superheroes than any of those things, so for sure I'll turn to Watchmen more readily than From Hell. But I'm still glad to have read it, I totally think it explores those themes in interesting and intellectually stimulating ways. (Don't tell anyone, but I feel the same way about Eddie Campbell's 'Alec' comics. Intellectually interesting, but emotionally just not my cuppatea.)