I knew very little about the background of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen before I started reading it. I had seen the movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0311429/) a very long time ago and had some vague memories: Invisible Guy, Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, and some kind of chase scene in Venice. Or something like that. Also, I knew that I was going to be reading a graphic novel. That was about it.
Well, I really enjoyed this one. Maybe that's just because it's a graphic novel; I've yet to read one that I hate (or even outright dislike). I find that with graphic novels you get out what you put in to them. What I mean by that is the more time you spend on each panel, the more rich your reading experience becomes. It's possible, and sometimes tempting, to quickly read each panel, briefly glancing at the images before moving on to the next. And I'll admit that I'm prone to doing this more often than not, but when you slow down and really stop to look at each panel, appreciating the art and details, the novel becomes a lot more interesting. I really tried to do this as I read The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and it definitely increased my enjoyment level. Sometimes I would just stop for a minute to stare at all the things put into the images, all the minutiae, the people in the background, the building facades, everything was carefully crafted to go along with the text. It's just as important, if not more. When you stop to take it all in, you submerge yourself a level deeper into story. This was the first graphic novel I read where I really made an effort to do this, and I though it really increased my appreciation of the story.
Like you, I didn't really know anything about the background of the League. I enjoyed it, but there were parts that I was very confused on, but maybe I just needed to know more of the background of the characters. I also stopped at some points and actually looked at the panels and tried to figure out what was going on. This definitely helped because I began to recognize the characters faster than I usually do in graphic novels.
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