Abstract
Although a fluid concept, ‘psychogeography’ retains consistent themes from its Lettrist and Situationist beginnings to its present-day British vogue. Despite this commonality, some of psychogeography’s key elements are absent from From Hell’s fourth chapter, which dominates discussions of it with respect to Alan Moore’s comics. Psychogeography is better represented by several other elements in From Hell in light of its consistent semiotic and political themes. Furthermore, new ways of reading spatial relations in Moore’s other work, such as Watchmen, appear when one considers psychogeography in a manner consistent with its history. A preliminary analysis of the role of psychogeography, as constructed in light of its French legacy in these two graphic novels, reveals deep structural similarities between them. These similarities include a celebration of the everyday citizen, comparable to the Situationist psychogeographers’ own rejection of fine art as a specialised cultural category removed from the aesthetic practice of everyday urban life.