My Friend Dahmer: Derf Backderf (Graphic Biographies)

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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 . The Monster true story is a brutal, yet thorough account of Jeffrey Dahmer's life and crimes, but it also tenderly tells victims' stories, and that of their families. Hormone-Addled Teenager: Since this is Jeffrey Dahmer we're talking about, this manifests in very disturbing ways. In the yearbook photo, he's just another smiling student, eager to leave high school behind forever.

Supporting Protagonist: Derf is the narrator and viewpoint character, but the comic is clearly Jeff's story. Derf later points out that Jeff was taking the body to the landfill because it was starting to smell.Our resources are crucial for knowledge lovers everywhere—so if you find all these bits and bytes useful, please pitch in. I wasn't crazy about the art style (I think if the heads were just a SMIDGE less elongated, I would have been less uncomfortable) but it's a well constructed story. Maybe better than fine, but who knows with such massive twin albatrosses of mediocre writing and leaden insight which contribute nothing to a narrative of predictable tropes and "revelations. Fisher testified for the prosecution at the trial, [21] and the perpetrator was convicted of the murder and given a death sentence.

Rather, it's the sad account of an odd kid who didn't even fit in at home, much less the dog eat dog world of high school. In fact, near the end of this book the author admits while he was visiting his hometown/having a mini-reunion with some old high school buddies there were jokes exchanged about “Dahmer probably being a serial killer by now” .

Even Evil Has Standards: According to Derf's notes, even Jeff was outraged when Lloyd Figg — a classmate with severe behavioral problems that he briefly befriended — ran over a neighborhood pet for yuks. I would occasionally see him at company parties, quietly watching from the back, this tall dude with a long face who usually seemed pissed at something. While he was initially quite scrawny, Jeff grew tall and muscular during his high school years, thanks in part to frequent workouts with the dumbbells his dad gave him. The Stinger: At the very, very end of the book, after the comic epilogue, after the text epilogue, after the author's notes, comes two final comic pages depicting the moment Derf finds out that Dahmer has been arrested for multiple murders. In 2017, the novel was adapted into a film directed by Marc Meyers and starring Ross Lynch as Jeffrey Dahmer.

It's also sad because a lot of the warning signs were there and yet no adult recognised this - or if they did, they merely ignored it. edited to add: I do think there is potential in an examination like this, but it's a task for someone believably invested in the human experience, which Backderf, clearly, is not.There they found a number of pictures of mangled bodies and, more damning, a human head in the refrigerator. When recounting an incident where a kid fell and landed on his shoulder near Jeff, Derf notes that the latter was very much this. The depiction in the Monster true story, incidentally, utilized the actual news archive footage which showed the removal of human remains. Along the way, Derf asks pertinent questions about why nobody – especially the adults– ever saw the warning signs of what Dahmer was becoming. To Derf Backderf, “Jeff” was a much more complex figure: a high school friend with whom he had shared classrooms, hallways, and car rides.