World Famous Comics: The Beast of Chicago: An Account of the Life and Crimes of Herman W. Mudgett, Known to the World As H.H. Holmes (Treasury of Victorian Murder (Graphic Novels))
The Beast of Chicago: An Account of the Life and Crimes of Herman W. Mudgett, Known to the World As H.H. Holmes (Treasury of Victorian Murder (Graphic Novels))
By: Rick Geary Publisher: ComicsLit Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: ComicsLit Number of Items: 6 Number of Pages: 80 Publication Date: 2003-08
Book Description: He was the worldÕs first serial killer and he existed in the late 19th century, operating around the Chicago WorldÕs Fair, building a literal house of horrors, replete with chutes for dead bodies, gas chambers, surgical rooms. He methodically murdered up to 200 people, mostly young women. The infamous H.H. Holmes is the next subject of GearyÕs award-winning and increasingly popular series.
Not as good as some of Rick Geary's other Victorian murder books As always, Rick Geary's art is stupendous, yet as other reviewers have noted, much more could have been done with this graphic novel. The bizarre nooks, crannies, and asphyxiation rooms of H.H.Holmes' castle would have made for a visual feast, but unfortunately Geary focuses on these matters relatively briefly, choosing instead to spend time following Holmes step-by-step as he abandons one wife and child after another and murders his way through most of the children in the Pietzel family. Still, a competent introduction to one of the more horrifying figures of 19th century America.
Need Background Information before Reading After reading Erik Larson's non fictional/fictional Devil in the White City book which received critical praise I decided to look at Rick Geary's pictoral novel. Recommended for children in 8th grade i feel this book fails to deliver alot of the back ground information into the 1893 World Fair nor H.H. Holmes. Instead this book gives anyone interested into learning more about both topics alot of holes in the story making it hard to completly understand H.H. Holmes and his murderous rage he left on Chicago. For those who have background knowledge on this subject thi book acts as a quick refresher. Those looking to know the real story of H.H. Holmes I recommend reading The Devil in the White CIty.
A good start... Rick Geary, The Beast of Chicago (ComicsLit, 2003)
Man, this is a brilliant idea: a graphic novel about H. H. Holmes, who after decades of obscurity has returned to prominence thanks to The Devil in the White City. (Put aside that Allan W. Eckert attempted to revive the Holmes mystique in the thrilling The Scarlet Mansion twenty years before, one of the formative books of my childhood and youth, and one that desperately needs to come back into print at this particular point in history.) Think of all the fun stuff you could do with a serial killer graphic novel! Oh, wait, you don't have to, you can read From Hell. (And you should.) But, let's face it, we know a lot more about H. H. Holmes, and we suspect even more, and all the great floor plans for that fantastic house are simply begging for graphic novel treatment.
So why is Geary's attempt at the subject matter a paltry, albeit quite gorgeous and wonderfully packaged, eighty pages long? I've no idea. (As a side light, this is the first graphic novel I've read recently where the people who catalog this stuff at the library shouldn't be fired outright for putting it in the YA section, which is rather ironic given its subject matter.) He could have spent eighty pages just on drawings of various aspects of the house, with all its twisting passageways, secret rooms, laboratories, and the like. Instead, the Castle itself gets about a fifth of that, with Holmes' exploits both before and after taking up considerably more room.
His is worth checking out, because it is quite beautifully drawn and does shed light on a much-neglected chapter of American history, but it seems more like a skeletal outline than a finished product. Hopefully, there will be a revised, expanded edition somewhere down the line that does Holmes-- and his victims-- the justice they deserve. ***
Disappointing Sometime around 1998 I discovered a paragraph or two about the killer Herman Mudgett on some amateur websites, the kind of seat-of-the-pants efforts that consigned them to early webdeaths. They offered measly details about Mudgetts appearance and his castle, but the rousing story arc was there; A fiendish charlatan preying on travelers trekking to Chicago to see the 1893 Worlds Fair, followed by a chase and his "castle" in flames. The details were sparse but they had the intended effect; they were spine-tingling. A lack of photos kept the imagery just out of reach. It was tantalizing to wonder what the castle looked like. Was it something to compete with Chicago's contemporaneous Potter Palmer castle? How had Mudgett's castle escaped mention in all the Chicago architecture histories I'd read? How had Mudgett fallen from the collective memory of a city and a nation, while Lizzie Borden's parents made their bloody exit and she remains notorious to this day? It was like the kids in A Nightmare on Elm Street, growing up oblivious about Freddy Krueger, what he'd done, and what their parents had in turn done to him.
The re-emergence of the Mudgett narrative in the last 5 years has been disappointing. None of these efforts have caught my imagination like those junky retellings where I first learned about him. I'd long ago accepted that Mudgetts "castle" was outwardly just an unremarkable 3-story corner store. The recent best seller, Devil in the White City (about the same topic), had narrative problems that continue here. Relievedly absent is that books excruciating A/B storyline structure, but just as D.I.T.W.C. foundered and got lost in insurance schemes, location shifts, and a rollcall of lesser figures, so does this.
It's the first time the story is told with imagery. One would think that the real opportunity here was the chance to envision those things that we haven't seen till now, and what is really unique about the case. The material should benefit from diagrams and graphics. But it just didn't come to life for me. In other titles in the series Geary's fastidious research and factuality are what make them compelling, here the facts concern the least interesting aspects of the crime: ancillary pawns that Mudgett encountered, and documentation of what he confessed after the fact. There's still way too little about the house. If you wrote about Sarah Winchester, would you start with her very factual checkbook entries? The story requires streamlining. As I read, I became impatient; how much longer would these uninteresting cross-country switcharoos continue? When would the castle and bodies show up? I wished Geary had consigned more of the late victims and shadowy flunkies to anonymity. For me the story IS Mudgett's house, and the way it's design assisted in the dispatch of victims. He saves those details for quite late in the story and then presents them in unpeopled tableaux. There is no horror per se. Worst of all, nearly all the victims simply disappear between panels in the drawings. The tease just goes on too long. Insurance claims, swindles, and train rides aren't especially frightening when visualized.
Unhelpful also is the delineation of "secret" rooms which are drawn exactly like the non-secret rooms you use all day. (How secret can they be..? the door's right there.) Likewise for callouts naming some of the castle's secrets which are not self-explanatory and never make it into the narrative. (The Maze, Five Door Room, Sealed Room, The Hanging Blind Room & Mysterious Closed Room...??!!)
Mudgett is just one of several deviate serial killers associated with Chicago (along with John Wayne Gacy, Larry Eyler, Leopold & Loeb and Richard Speck. And Jeffrey Dahmer snared some of his victims at Carols Speakeasy on Halsted, another Chicago location erased from the collective memory) Makes you wonder if there's something in the water.
This is my 4th title in the series. It is my 4th favorite.
H. H. Holmes, Plain and Simple This is the latest in Rick Geary's series A Treasury of Victorian Murder. Many people have become fascinated with H. H. Holmes thanks to the book The Devil And The White City. But unlike that book, this is not a dramatization. Instead it is a simple chronological account of the man based on what little evidence actually exists.
Not a whole lot is know about Dr. Holmes, much is supposition and here say. Geary does an excellent job of recounting the facts as well as highlighting many inconsistencies in the legend (i.e. at one point Holmes admitted to the murder of 27 people but some of them were still alive).
Although Geary's series is written in a comic book format, this is not really a comic book. The reader is drawn in quickly and then the story is presented in a very clear and straightforward manner.
Whether this is your first account of Holmes or your tenth, I am sure you will find the story fascinating.
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