Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper

Robert Bloch’s Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper
Stephanie Davidson

All right, I admit I’m still new to the world of graphic novels. I am, however, a serial killer buff, and I could not resist picking up Robert Bloch’s Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper. The WWII-era Chicago setting (‘sup, Chi City?) and monotone, blood-spattered cover complete with distressed lettering was enough to seal the deal on this read.

Back to my inexperience—I’m still familiarizing myself with the nuts and bolts of comics and graphic novels, but the first thing I have to say about this book is that the writing is incredible. The foreshadowing is in the language. Everything down to character name choice and slang usage screams a warning. I cannot praise the writing enough here. It actually gave me chills.

Enamoured as I am with the writing, I did raise my eyebrow at first when presented with the colour scheme. The entire book is shadowy, and done in black, white, and a dusty teal-green—with splashes of red to show blood, pentagrams, darkroom lights and lipstick marks. My initial reaction was “oh, how Sin City this is!” But the colour choice, paired with the story, is stunning. Red is the warning light; red means Jack the Ripper.

The shadows created with the limited colour scheme seem almost to add sound to the book. The relative stillness and quiet of the more mundane scenes (still offices, unmoving cars, deserted streets) make Jack’s scenes loud. You can’t “hear” the everyday sounds in the everyday scenes, but you sure as hell can hear Jack’s snarl.

I love that this book is tight and neat. It draws on the legend of Jack the Ripper, and brings in elements of prophecy and ritual to lead the story to an inevitable finish that is both expected, and shockingly surprising. The use of the pentagram as a symbol of evil magic is exceedingly well done, and there’s a little twist added in that I really appreciated.

The limited cast of characters does have a tip-off in terms of figuring out “whodunit.”  A red herring  is tossed in there in such a way that I doubted my skills of deduction, but all in all, there is a touch of predictability here. Aside from Jack himself, I must say that my favourite character is the portly little Sir Guy Hollis. I was instantly fond of this man, but I think that may be due to the fact that he looks like the Monopoly guy.

 I did notice some strong similarities in the portrayal of Jack to Bram Stoker’s Dracula—a horror legend borrowing from another horror legend. Our first glimpse of Jack mirrors the first incident that shows Dracula’s supernatural nature: a terror of a shadow, crawling lizard-like down a wall. The similarities continue when it is revealed  that Jack must ritualistically kill to sustain himself, just as Dracula’s physical and mental feedings bring him youth. I enjoyed this tip of the hat to one of horror’s greatest.

This book was a fantastic introduction, for me, to the world of graphic novels and the complete storylines they contain. Every page contains subtle intricacies that display master storytelling skills, in both art and writing. I look forward to re-reading this one and finding more and more of these intricacies, and getting those chills again.