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"Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings" by Jonathan Raban
A stunning account of a sea voyage, and a rare book set in the outdoors that isn't about a disaster.
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Dear Mr. Blue
Could I have been any more inept?
First I fell for my wife's friend. Then I put it in writing. Now my life is sheer hell.
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[10/26/99]

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Strictly Southern
The author of "Sophie's Choice" picks five great contemporary Southern novels.
By William Styron
[10/25/99]

Ivory Tower
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"The New New Thing" author once said J-school ate his brain. Guess where he's teaching now.
By Alex Salkever
[10/25/99]

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"Pu-239 and Other Russian Fantasies" by Ken Kalfus
In his new collection, the author of the kaleidoscopic "Thirst" focuses on a single setting -- Russia.
By Laura Miller
[10/25/99]

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When DC Comics published "Watchmen's" 12 issues in the mid-1980s, comics were viewed as the bottom of the pop culture barrel, no more than adolescent fantasies of brightly-costumed characters in never-ending, rock 'em-sock 'em fight scenes. But "Watchmen" proved as far removed from standard superhero fare as "Trainspotting" is from "Reefer Madness," and gave adventurous readers a brand-new addiction. "Watchmen" and its contemporaries not only popularized the term "graphic novel," they made it a necessary distinction that set these new, deeper works apart from juvenile-sounding "comic books."

From Hell By Allan Moore Kitchen Sink Press, Inc, 64 pages Fiction Buy From Hell by Allan Moore

Other comics depicted alienated supermen and antiheroic vigilantes before "Watchmen," but never before had they seemed so much like people of flesh and blood, instead of ink and pulp. "Watchmen" also made the ordinary lives of street-corner bystanders as crucial as the doings of its atom-age übermensch, and could intercut fate-of-the-world confrontations in Antarctica with quiet, awkward moments of middle-aged romance. Dr. Manhattan, the book's only "super-powered" individual, becomes so detached he grows to prefer the surface of Mars to the company of his lover or colleagues. Like Billy Pilgrim in "Slaughterhouse-Five," he perceives time from all angles, flashing backwards and forwards, from scenes of love and teamwork in his youth to his perfect isolation on Mars' airless deserts.

Welles didn't invent the landmark filmic techniques (as well as the ideas from radio and live theater) that he used in "Citizen Kane," but he gave them an electrifying new showcase. Likewise, Moore drew diverse cinematic, literary and cartooning styles together in a style unprecedented in comics. But creating an encore to an instant classic is a tricky business, and Welles never equaled "Kane." After "Watchmen," the Moore's most significant graphic novel is "From Hell," an epic autopsy of the Jack the Ripper slayings, serialized through the 1990s and now finally being published in book form by Eddie Campbell Comics.

As ambitious and affecting as anything ever rendered in pictures and word balloons, "From Hell" combines an intricate mystery, insightful social criticism and unflinching brutality capable of unnerving the most desensitized pop audience. It's publication as a book promises to give it a new lease on life. That's what happened with Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer-Prize winning "Maus," which was originally published in installments in the arty comic "Raw." "From Hell" is the only graphic novel since "Maus" to rival its ambition and historical depth.

One of the rare comic book masters who's solely a writer, Moore first made his mark in the 1980s with serials in British comic book anthologies. But he became a sensation when he took over DC Comics' "Swamp Thing." With Moore at the helm, the lurid horror title about a shambling plant man offered Hitchcockian thrills, debates about hot-button issues from gun control to incest and visual flights worthy of psychedelic rock album covers.

"Swamp Thing" shook up staid DC Comics, home of Batman and Superman, and became the first mainstream comic book to be published without the seal of the industry's self-censoring Comics Code Authority. Moore began catching up with his earlier serials, including the British dystopian tale "V For Vendetta" and the first of his revisionist hero books, "Miracleman." His work for DC culminated with the 12 issues of "Watchmen," which perfected a cinematic writing style replete with jump cuts, "tracking shots" and close attention to recurring symbols; each issue had its own equivalents to the famous "Rosebud" sled and shattered snow-globe from "Kane."

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