My Friend Dahmer

Derf Backderf

ISBN 10: 1419702173 / ISBN 13: 9781419702174

Published by Abrams, 2012

About this Item

My Friend Dahmer is the hauntingly original graphic novel by Derf Backderf, the award winning political cartoonist. In these pages, Backderf tries to make sense of Jeffery Dahmer, the future serial killer with whom he shared classrooms, hallways, libraries and car rides. What emerges is a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of a young man struggling helplessly against the urges, some ghastly, bubbling up from the deep recesses of his psyche. The Dahmer recounted here, although universally regarded as an inhumane monster, is a lonely oddball who, in reality, is all too human. A shy kid sucked inexorably into madness while the adults in his life fail him. The crimes Dahmer committed are incredibly depraved, infamous and unforgettable, but in My Friend Dahmer, Backderf provides profound insight into how, and more important, why Jeffery Dahmer transformed from a high school loner into the most depraved serial killer since Jack the Ripper, coming as close as anyone yet has to explaining the seemingly unexplainable phenomenon of Jeffery Dahmer.

Seller Inventory # CIN1419702173G

Bibliographic Details

• Title: My Friend Dahmer
• Publisher: Abrams
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1419702173
• ISBN 13: 9781419702174
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

A national bestseller, Derf Backderf’s Alex Award winner My Friend Dahmer is the bone-chilling graphic novel that inspired the major motion picture.

You only think you know this story. In 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer―the most notorious serial killer since Jack the Ripper―seared himself into the American consciousness. To the public, Dahmer was a monster who committed unthinkable atrocities.

To Derf Backderf, “Jeff” was a more complex figure: a high school friend with whom he had shared classrooms, hallways, and car rides.

In My Friend Dahmer, a haunting and original graphic novel, writer-artist Derf Backderf creates a portrait of a disturbed young man struggling with the morbid urges emanating from the deep recesses of his psyche.

With profound insight, what emerges is a Jeffrey Dahmer that few ever really knew, and one readers will never forget.

Also available by Derf Backderf:

• The Dissidents
• Trashed
• Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio

About the Author

Derf Backderf is an Eisner Award–winning cartoonist and graphic novelist whose books include My Friend Dahmer, Trashed, Punk Rock & Trailer Parks, The Dissidents, and Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio. Before focusing on graphic novels, he created the long-running comic strip The City, published in alternative newspapers nationwide. His work draws on first-hand experience to explore working-class life, history, and overlooked systems through dark humor and narrative storytelling. He lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio.