My Friend Dahmer: Derf Backderf (Graphic Biographies)

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This subject is extremely lurid but My Friend Dahmer is sober and thoughtful. At the heart of the story is the problem that you really never do know what’s happening with your son, your friend, your brother, your husband, your colleague, your boss, your father, your sister, your mother, your partner. As the Chiffons sang in May 1965, when Jeff was 5 years old a b "Newswatch: Boneyard Press Wins Suit: Fisher Debates Families of Dahmer Victims on CNN". The Comics Journal. No.172. November 1994. p.23. I had normal friendships in high school... and really never had any close friendships after high school. - Jeffrey Dahmer

Subverted in regards to Lloyd Figg, whom Jeff is compared to. Lloyd appears blatantly Ax-Crazy next to the more quiet and awkward Jeff... but Jeff is the one that became a Serial Killer. Johnson-Elie, Tannette (May 14, 1992). "Dahmer comic book in demand in city". Milwaukee Sentinel. p.1, 13A. Jason Thibault (June 1, 2009). "Hart Fisher on Comics Journalism, Frank Miller, Running Danzig's Verotik and Life in Los Angeles". Optimum Wound . Retrieved February 6, 2013. I have much appreciation for Derf's project. Not everyone is a Ted Bundy "golden boy with a taste for murder"-style sociopath. In the same way that addiction is often an expression of pain or reaction to traumas, with killers like Dahmer there is something more than pure psychopathy at the root of his behavior. As with addicted persons, we absolutely don't OK or excuse his behavior nor should we refrain from punishing him for the consequences of it; but we do recall that all behavior has a root cause, that some of us are better at coping and overcoming these roots, and that a person is not essentially just his behavior.Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Double-Subversion in Jeff. On one hand, he does become one of the grisliest serial killers in modern history. However, he's presented somewhat semi-sympathetically (at first) in the comic and comes off more as a Reluctant Psycho than a gleeful sadist. Interview with Hart D Fisher "The Scariest Man in America" ". Film Courage. February 3, 2011. Archived from the original on April 11, 2013 . Retrieved January 30, 2013.

Lloyd Figg, a crude, disruptive, kleptomaniacal student that Derf regards as the class psycho and someone even Jeff is offended by. He's even Derf's first guess when he hears that someone from his high school class is a serial killer. Groth, Gary (February 1997). "The Sledgehammer: A Chat with Hart Fisher". The Comics Journal. No.193. p.34-36. The Larry King Live show in 2008 included a segment with Fisher about Jeffrey Dahmer memorabilia, including Fisher's comics. [16] The episode also has a young Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, an employee of Fisher's in the early 1990s. Fisher also discussed the Dahmer comic book on a panel at the 2011 South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. [17] Legal issues, tragedies, and controversies [ edit ] However, I went to the movie theater recently and they showed a preview about a movie based on this graphic novel. The trailer is why I decided to read this bookCavna, Michael (July 15, 2013). "2013 HARVEY AWARD NOMS: Chris Ware, 'Saga' among top nominees". The Washington Post. Washington DC: Nash Holdings LLC . Retrieved October 19, 2018. The sketches Derf drew of Jeff as the "Minister of Propaganda" for the Dahmer Fan Club. He put Jeff in his drawings for student election flyers and Revere High's yearbook (where the other characters are all speaking in "Dahmerisms.") A unique graphic novel which gives an insight into one of the most depraved minds ever, the author provides a perspective on the late Jeffrey Dahmer's school years. Neil: Dunno. It's so weird. I didn't really know her well, but she didn't act suicidal. She was cute...Nice bod. But to off yourself! I just don't get that! I mean, at our age...how bad can life be? Adaptation Name Change: A number of supporting characters' names are not what they were in Real Life, presumably for legal reasons. Lloyd Figg was not really "Lloyd Figg", while "Neil" and "Kent" were likely also pseudonyms (only John/Derf and Mike go by their real names). Cindy Zlatka (the suicide discussed in the fishing scene) likely didn't go by that name.

Narration: Some instinct warned me off. I was always wary of Dahmer. I was willing to hang out with him at school, but there was no way I was going to forge a closer friendship. This could have been a much more powerful book if Derf confronted his own cruelty more directly. He keeps pointing the finger at "the adults" but seems oblivious to how painful making another kid a joke-mascot might have been. There is a scene near the end where he and a friend use Dahmer for their amusement, and discuss right in front of Dahmer how they are going out to a movie together without Dahmer. I felt like throwing the book across the room at that point. It's not that Derf and his friends' behavior is unusual for teens, but that he could have made some poignant points about sensitivity, kindness and bullying, if he had been braver about looking at his own younger self.Chekhov's Gun: Jeff's dumbbells. They never play a part in the actual story itself, but Derf mentions that they were used to kill his first victim in the afterword. There are no excuses made for what Jeffrey Dahmer eventually became, just a sort of filling in the blanks of the timeline of his downward spiral into insanity . . .

In 1992, Boneyard sued Marvel Comics over Marvel's Hell's Angel/Dark Angel, as Boneyard was already publishing a comic with the title Dark Angel. [18] JFINNEKE (2014-01-29). "Alex Awards 2013". Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) . Retrieved 2022-08-05. This is an excellent graphic novel, it depicts the high-school years of Jeffrey Dahmer as observed by one of his then friends. The art inside is much better than the one in the cover so do not be dissuaded by the simple cover.Besides Fisher's own work, Boneyard published " mature readers" material in the genres of unauthorized biographies, true crime, horror, [9] and erotic comics. The company's longest-running title was the 12-issue horror anthology Flowers on the Razorwire (1993–1997). Creators published by Boneyard included John Cassaday, Troy Boyle, Gerard Way, J. G. Jones and Angel Gabriele. Threshold Press was a Boneyard Press imprint. So when I produced, at long last, the final incarnation of the book, I sent out the completed first draft. It was essentially done,” Derf points out. “Because I knew, once someone started to read it, they would get swept up in the story. And that, in fact, is exactly what happened. First with my agent, Matthew Carnicelli, and then with my editor at Abrams, Charlie Kochman. He didn't even want to read it, but Matthew convinced him. And once he did, that was it, he wanted it.” The first time around I pitched the book as a proposal: a sample chapter and a typed synopsis. What I learned is that this book can't be pitched, because someone sees My Friend Dahmer and what they think is; murder, necrophilia, cannibalism, heads in the refrigerator, no thanks,” explains the artist. “Now my book is about none of those things. In fact, there's no violence to speak of at all! All that looms ahead, but as foreshadowing only.”