My Friend Dahmer: A Graphic Novel (2024)

"Dahmer is probably a serial killer by now!" - Derf Backderf, 1988

4.5 stars. A truly fascinating tale. I picked the graphic novel up as I had no idea when I would find the time to travel to see the movie, but I'm pleased I experienced the story in it's original form first.

I've been interested in this story since I saw the movie trailer. The perspective of a past friend of a serial killer is not one we are often exposed to, let alone in more than a brief interview at the time of the killer's arrest. I found Backderf's contributions to the timeline of Jeffery Dahmer's adolescence and his actions which could act as predictors to Dahmer's future transgressions to be extremely valuable. If you are a true crime aficionado, this graphic novel is absolutely a quick, worthwhile read.

I'm compelled to note that there is A TON of abelism in this novel. Backderf recounts the many times Dahmer mocked his mother's home decorator who had cerebral palsy as well as imitated his mother's physical fits due to her anxiety. The "Dahmer Fan Club" also would join in. Objectively, this is a non-fiction novel that displays the behavior of a serial killer from the 70's, so I would not expect political correctness to be a present theme within the story. I will state that Backderf does address the actions of him and his friends and describes their mockery as "inexcusable" in the "Notes" section, so it is not left totally unchallenged. Although, there are also a few Hitler jokes that are not addressed.

I'd also like to mention that I feel this novel aims (and does) attempt to provoke some sympathy for Jeffrey Dahmer's past. (Mark Meyers, writer/director of the film My Friend Dahmer confirmed this was partially the intent of the film on twitter). I hate to admit there were a few moments where I truly wanted to empathize with someone who at the time was just a troubled teen, with faint knowledge of what he would become in the future. There was even a moment where I was almost moved to tears regarding his situation at the time. This is a powerful novel, but it is important to recognize the severity of Dahmer's crimes. The outcast depicted in this story is still the same man who murdered 17 young men. When consuming media as this, we cannot separate the two. As a criminal justice minor, I'm able to balance the desired empathy for him as a teen with the condemnation of his actions. It's unfortunate that many readers/viewers of the film won't do the same. I do wish the novel made more of an effort to legitimize the seriousness of Dahmer's crimes (though I have no doubt Backderf does in his personal life). The line between explaining the past behind criminal behavior and empathizing with the murderer is a fine line to walk, and I'm not entirely sure this novel does the best job at making that distinction.

Nontheless, I really enjoyed my time reading this book. 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. If you're someone like myself who enjoys serial killer documentaries or is interested in the past of one of America's most known, I would recommend it but I do recommend it with caution. This is a novel that must be read with a critical eye and a retention of reality so we do not place our sympathy for Dahmer over the sympathy of the lives of the victims that he willingly took.

This was really disappointing. So... it's sorta a memoir by this guy who knew and kinda bullied Jeffrey Dahmer when he was in High School. Sounds okay! How can that be boring.

It's kinda boring.

Problem is, I'm more sympathetic to Dahmer than Derf! That's crazy! I mean, it's Dahmer and Derf is just like... a douche. But even then the douchiest douche can't possibly inspire more negative feelings than a goddamn serial killer! I mean... can it?

Derf's not even that much of a douche. Kinda flawed in the self-reflection department (a glaring weakness in this memoir, and dammit memoirs need genius level self-reflections to be readable), but one of those nice, ambitious boys who got out of midwest suburbia to work in creative fields. Still, reading his book just made me kinda angry. Like, didn't he learn anything? Everything in this book is emotionally defensive. Like... okay Derf, you knew Dahmer? Do you feel regret over not treating him as kindly as you could have? Do you feel scared knowing that someone capable of doing such things was a relatively normal-seeming human being standing right next to you? Do you feel fooled? Derf spends like one second on uncomfortable, unflattering questions and then, snap! blames the "adults" and moves on. It seems like the most emotion he can display here is disgust. So that's this book. Disgust and tired armchair psychiatry. I guess what I mean is Derf should have explored his own emotions and actions instead of trying to figure out Dahmer's, which was obviously something out of his psychiatric and empathic league.

But the art was great.

Gush! Times a thousand...!

THIS IS THE BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL I'VE READ ALL MY LIFE...*!

There. This is a profound, one of those once-in-a-life, lightning-in-a-bottle-type experience... This dude is master chronicle (auto)biographer, expert storyteller, and amazing cartoonist all in one... & this is the project that only HE could produce... A type of unicorn, really (you CANNOT possibly let it pass you by). I've never been shaken by something in this genre, like, ever. Until now.

* Lie. Actually, it IS a tie. "Fun Home" by Alison Bechdel also shares this accolade.

PS Movie sucked

I was a teenager in 1991 and still remember the day we all gathered around the TV to watch the shocking news about Jeffrey Dahmer. The stations were talking about it continuously and kept showing the footage of officers taking bags, boxes and containers out of Dahmer's apartment. It was upsetting and revolting.

For those who don't know, Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial killer apprehended on 1991 (Click here for his wiki page.)

That is why when I first heard about this graphic novel a few years ago I decided not to read it, I thought it too dark for me.

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 book

Watch the TRAILER here.

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.

Based on the stories inside, not many people could have predicted the monster lurking inside young Dahmer. Maybe, nowadays an observant parent or teacher could have noticed some signs and sought help but not back in the late 70s where, according to the author, some signs of Jeff's disturbing behavior was dismissed as awkwardness.

Overall the art and storytelling was excellent. I highly recommend this graphic novel.

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EDIT: I had to update the review to include that Jeff Dahmer was a serial killer, a friend of mine -
who is younger - didn't know who he was

Sometimes when reading non-fiction it feels like it is just an extended research paper. But, when the author was actually involved in the events, it gains a bit more of a personal investment. My Friend Dahmer is definitely the most intense first-hand non-fiction I have ever read. It's not just another exposé on a horrifying story, it is well fleshed out, truthful retelling of previously little known events from before the nightmare began.

I can tell that Backderf went out of his way to as truthfully as possible share this story that was close to him using the medium he was most comfortable with. It may seem to some that graphic novel is an odd format for this story, but it translates surprisingly well and I think even benefits in that the author could recreate scenes for us (as cartoony as they might be).

Some critics might slam an author for profiting from a tragic story like this. But, as we all know, every scandalous and horrific story gets told and retold hundreds of times through books, movies, television interviews, etc. We all crave information about people who have lost their minds and/or cross over twisted criminal behavior. Sometime these retellings are obviously sloppy, done just to shock, full of untruths, and riddled with unfounded opinions (in which the author is trying to advance their agenda more that actually share information). In this case, Backderf followed the graphic novel with several pages of notes to show how close to the real thing it was and how he attempted to keep any speculation out of the story. And, in the prologue he talks about how this story was the result of many years of reflection on his years with Dahmer, not something he rushed to get on the shelves ASAP once the story broke. For me, this was truly powerful and heartfelt.

I think the art is very interesting. Backderf has a style that stands out. For some reason it kept reminding me of cartoons I used to read in Mad Magazine. At first I was not sure if I was going to care for it, but it grew on me as the story progressed. I look forward to check out some of his other graphic novels.

This is a facinating telling of Dahmer's high school years. There is a little bit of gruesomeness, but most of that came later. So, if you have been turned away from the Dahmer story because of the details of his mad scientist-esque crimes and cannibal behavior, that is barely a part of this story. This is the origin story. This is a telling of the early signs of madness. These are the stories where there may have been a chance to stop the horrors of the future if things were slightly different or if someone had stepped in - but no one ever did . . .

Looking through my old high school yearbook, you'd never be able to pick out which one of the kids chased his girlfriend across a parking lot and put a bullet in her head before turning the gun on himself. Yet, that's exactly what he did just a few years after graduation. There's nothing about his picture that would lead you to believe he would be capable of such violence. He did not win an award for "Most Likely to Commit Murder." In the yearbook photo, he's just another smiling student, eager to leave high school behind forever.

You can't tell by looking at someone what they are capable of doing.

Jeffrey Dahmer graduated from high school in 1978, just one year before I did.
Most of his classmates, when they thought about him at all, considered him weird, but another student was regarded as the "class psycho."
As classmate, author and "friend", Backderf tells it, "He was the loneliest kid I ever met."

Was Backderf actually Dahmer's friend? He visited Dahmer's house close to a dozen times, and was once his lab partner...but "friend" as in "You're my bud; let's share our thoughts, fantasies, and hopes for the future." Well, Dahmer really didn't seem to have one of those.

Instead, Dahmer seemed to be almost a mascot. Several boys formed "The Dahmer Fan Club," and enjoyed pranks like trying to sneak Dahmer into as many yearbook photos as possible and making him the star of cartoons. The club was fond of Dahmer's one talent - mocking the family's interior decorator who had cerebral palsy. He was willing to perform his "spastic" act on command, but once the performances were finished, the other boys went off together. Dahmer went home alone.

I was surprised to learn of Dahmer's binge drinking in high school. Backderf once watched him drink an entire 6-pack in 10 minutes, and he frequently roamed the halls with liquor on his breath as early as 7:45 in the morning. How could the teachers have missed this? As the author points out, high school in the seventies was a far different word from today's almost prison-like schools. Teachers wanted to appear hip. They wanted the students to think they were cool. And narcing on a student wouldn't have been cool.

You can't tell by looking at someone what they are capable of doing.

And Dahmer's parents? They were basically indifferent, caught up in their own brand of marital warfare. His mother may have suffered from some mental problems.

Jeffrey Dahmer killed his first victim, a hitchhiker, shortly after finishing high school He would later kill 16 more people before his conviction. He was murdered in prison in 1994.

There is much speculation in the book about what could have "saved" Dahmer. The author maintains that the adults in his life were too "incomprehensively clueless and/or indifferent." I agree with the indifferent part. One of my son's teachers once told me, "The quiet one's tend to get ignored." And I can tell a difference in my son's friends. The one's whose parents play a significant part in their lives are more outgoing. They look you in the eyes when they speak.

But what would have changed the way things turned out for Jeffery Dahmer and his 17 victims? We'll never know. I can't help thinking
the one thing that might have made a difference was a true friend.

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/

"This is the grand finale of a life poorly spent and the end result is just overwhemingly depressing . . . A sick, pathetic miserable life story, that's all it is."

- Jeffrey Dahmer

I need to get one thing out of the way before I begin . . .

That being said . . .

Sorry. Mitchell made me post that.

For serious, though, My Friend Dahmer was a fascinating read – and one of those books that will have your co-workers saying “it was weird enough when she started reading comics awhile back, but now she reads comics about SERIAL KILLERS?!?!?!?!?!” (*screaming/mass exodus from my corner of the office commences*)

This story was absolutely fascinating to me. I think it’s nearly impossible to contribute any “human elements” to a psycho killer who you’ve only seen on television. We see them as monsters from our nightmares brought to life, plain and simple. Like a train wreck, I loved getting the opportunity to discover a little about what was beneath the completely benign appearance of someone like a Jeffrey Dahmer. I mean, really . . .

My Friend Dahmer is about Jeffrey Dahmer’s life before he began having his “dates over for dinner.” It tells of a sad, neglected, not-ever-quite-right kind of boy whose problems were ignored by his family, classmates, and teachers alike . . .

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 . . .

Derf Backderf’s story is nearly hypnotizing and its graphic novel format makes it one that can be read in less than an hour. Backderf also did something in his story that I don’t believe I’ve ever seen before. There were no moments of “oh, he was so normal” or “he always seemed so quiet.” Dahmer was weird and everyone knew it. 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” . . .

Little did they realize while they were joking that Dahmer had already begun doing exactly what they were laughing about . . .

I had thought all you needed to know about Jeffrey Dahmer was in
1)The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer by Brian Masters
2)A Father’s Story by Lionel Dahmer
3)The Stone Phillips interview with Mr and Mrs Dahmer and Jeffrey available on youtube
But now comes this peculiar addition, a graphic novel about the author’s friendship (kind of) with JD during his high school years at Eastview Junior High School in Bath, Ohio. This was the kind of friendship where a group of guys fairly low down in the social hierarchy adopt a mascot even lower down and more despised than they are. Jeffrey was the freak they adopted. What made him a freak at the age of 15 and 16?

He threw fake epileptic fits and mimicked the slurred speech and spastic tics of someone with cerebral palsy

He would do this in the cafeteria or in the corridors in order to entertain his classmates, who otherwise entirely ignored him.

Looking back on it know, knowing what we know, it seems incomprehensible that Dahmer could get away with such bizarre behavior. But it’s not as if he was the only freak at school.

Backderf develops his argument very carefully and convincingly – Jeffrey Dahmer fairly quickly went completely insane when he was a teenager and there was no adult intervention, because in those days, adults did not take any notice of kids. They would see right through them. The parents were involved in their own bitter fighting, which ended in a very nasty divorce. The teachers (some of whom were young stoners like the students) either turned a blind eye or were oblivious to Jeff’s weird behavior and also the fact that he was mostly drunk at school (he had no problem getting hold of alcohol).

So when Jeff was 18 the father left the house, then the mother left with the younger brother, and Jeff was all alone. No friends now, having left high school. Father moved back to the house in a couple of months. As the devil makes work for idle hands, that’s when Jeff killed his first young male, who was a hitch-hiker, on 15 June 1978.

Backderf illustrates an incident which happened three days later, when Jeff was trying to dispose of the corpse. The cops stopped Jeff in the middle of the night while he had bags containing the remains in the back of the car smelling to high heaven. Instead of taking a look at the offending items, and making a grisly discovery, the cops gave Jeff a sobriety test and a citation for drifting over the centre line. Just imagine, they could have saved the lives of Jeff’s next sixteen victims, but again, the adults of Bath, Ohio weren’t paying any kind of attention.

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

Nobody knows what’s going on in my mind but me

While reading the preface I was struck, quite negatively, by this line urging readers' to "Pity [Dahmer], but don't empathize with him." Given the title, this seemed like a rather ironic plea, but I held out hope that this was just an overzealous attempt to assure the world that Backderf was in no way endorsing mass murder, but the novel itself would still be an attempt to draw out some depth of humanity to such a well-known horror story. Alas.

The art is fine. 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." Did you know Dahmer was a bit weird in high school? That's basically the entire 200 pages. Forget pity or empathy. This book is so banal, so trite, I felt not revulsion, horror, fear, or sadness. I was left feeling indifferent and bored as the story contained nothing aside from the brave and nuanced stance that serial killing is, in fact, bad and serial killers, are indeed, disturbed. Is it risky to insist we all know that already?

Instead, what was more infuriating is this is essentially a tale of some nondescript dudes who are amused by a peer's offbeat behavior in high school. Bizarre, I know. But this friendship (if you can call it that, and I wouldn't if you're concerned with accuracy) is a purely superficial distraction infusing the story with absolutely nothing of substance.

If the POV of Backderf's graphic novel is any indication he still has no self-awareness of his own behavior as a milquetoast douchebag after all these years--or if I'm being generous, is unable to translate that dimension onto pages that sorely need something to make them even a modicum more interesting.

And as if all of this weren't enough, nearly every fourth word is in BOLD. You know, for EMPHASIS. Just in case the hackneyed writing didn't make the points remedial enough.

Probably the most pointless book I've read all the way through. A morality tale for 10-year olds.

Please someone assemble all the people that put this on their "Best Of 2012" lists. I need answers!

*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.

Intimate, nuanced, complex, dark, grotesque, sordid, disturbing, horrifying, haunting: an instant true-crime classic that brings to mind the psychological insight of Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, the restrained depravity of Rick Geary's Victorian murder documentaries, and the subversive cartooning of Robert Crumb and Howard Cruse. Highly recommended to fans of alternative comics!

"He was the loneliest kid I'd ever met."

Written (and illustrated) by a classmate of one of America's most notorious serial killers, Jeffrey Dahmer, My Friend Dahmer depicts the teenage years of Dahmer's life and his slow downward spiral into murder.

As much as I love the gory graphic details associated with serial killers and true crime, I also have a real interest in what makes a serial killer. Why do they kill? Is the urge something you are just born with, or is it a consequence of life events? In this graphic novel, Backderf attempts to explain some of the reasons why Dahmer went down the path he did.

I didn't necessarily expect to find myself feeling sympathetic towards Dahmer, his backstory is surprisingly very sad. However, this is NEVER going to excuse the horrendous acts he goes on to commit. Plenty of people are lonely teenagers, or grow up in a house with an ill parent, or have to witness the messiness of their parent's divorce. This will never ever be an excuse for what he did. At times Backderf reflects on how intelligent Dahmer was, how he was able to wrangle his way into the Vice President's office on a school trip, and how, ultimately, this intellect was wasted.

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. Perhaps if Dahmer had gotten the help he needed during his teenage years, a number of lives could have been saved. Or perhaps not. Maybe Dahmer was destined to become the sick individual he was. Either way, his eventual abandonment during his formative teenage years appears to have been a trigger for his first murder.

I wasn't a huge fan of the illustrations, they're not really the style I would usually gravitate towards. And at times I felt like the author was pretty heavy handed with trying to hammer home the fact that Dahmer's home life was a pile of crap. OKAY, I got it. It just got irritating after a number of times. I actually felt like I got most of the important details and information from the "Notes" section at the back of the graphic novel, where Backderf reveals his sources for each part of the story.

I enjoyed it overall though, it provides quite an interesting insight into the earlier life of Dahmer, although I do feel like the term "friend" is being used loosely here. He merely seems to have just been a classmate! This one gets 3.5 stars out of 5 from me - rounded up for goodreads!

Um, well, Backderf seems like a pretty awful person. And sure, Dahmer's worse, on account of the murder and cannibalism and necrophilia and all that. But it was pretty uncomfortable how unselfconsciously he discussed participating in all these cruel schemes in high school and how if only some adult would have done anything. I mean the blame rests with Dahmer, not Backderf or his fellow peers, but... for a book that seems to argue over and over again that adults have failed him, I mean, Derf doesn't meet his own criteria for decency. And though he claims repeatedly in the source notes not to be excusing his own behavior, these sentences are almost always followed up with "but we were just kids" lines. I just... f*ck, I get what he was going for. It's something powerful. Just not really in the way the author intended. For me.

Like, consider just what he prints about Joyce, Dahmer's mother, and tell me he's not an asshole. Derf and his friends find Jeff's act of mocking his mother's fits (and/or his interior decorator's cerebral palsy) so funny that they have to sneak it onto every page of the yearbook and newspaper they can. (That bit about Hitler totally killed, too.) And this act is literally so funny years later that he feels the need to include it on dozens of pages in his book. And then include a bunch of notes that detail her illness and talk about how she was always so self-centered and also when it comes to discrepancies with Lionel's account, well, he's the more reliable and also her kid didn't even want to stay with her. You know, they don't even have to be lies to be pretty sh*tty things to say, to spend so much time trashing her in this book. Including a "throwaway" line about Dahmer keeping or eating body parts to keep his lovers from leaving... like his mom... da da dahhhhhh. I don't really even know much about Dahmer's murders or the case or anything surrounding it, being born in 1985 and not really interested in self-educating on the topic even once I was aware. I just think that Backderf hasn't shown so much growth, that he seems to constantly walk the line of blaming/not-"blaming"-just-"noting" how adults or maybe some loose definition of society have failed to provide support for Dahmer, while exculpating himself and his friends.

Also, there might just be a matter of taste. In that I thought he might show a little more reticence using some of the slurs in the book. But, erm. The art was evocative and the panel layout was creative, easy enough to follow, and adaptable. It was about the right length and the story was told in a way that seemed like the memoir of a friendship, not stretching the plot too far out of what he and his friends could attest too, covering their overlapping timelines. The sources are super-sketch. Like, using MIL for one of two papers in Milwaukee and never offering specific articles, authors, or page numbers even if a journal title is offered; using FBI for anything pulled from FBI files. Meh, it's also a comic book. So, yeah, I'm not pointing fingers, but people in glass houses could mind how condemnatory their tone sounds.

The artist mostly known as “Derf” was a bit of a mystery during my tenure at the Cleveland Scene and Free Times. He was the guy behind the coolest comic strip in the paper, The City, which ripped on Cleveland every week but also seemed to celebrate its crazy residents at the same time. 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.

There was this rumor he’d been friends with the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in high school. I’d never doubted it. But I was a little surprised when he dared to turn his artist’s eye to that part of his life. It would be tempting for any storyteller, sure, but in order to go there you have to show Dahmer as a sympathetic character. Because he was, after all, human. And a friend to some people. And would readers really want to go there?

Earlier this year, Derf finally got around to telling his story in My Friend Dahmer, a thick, gorgeous graphic novel that presents the cannibal killer as a tragic character, someone who might been saved even, if only one f*cking adult had bothered to wonder why Jeffrey was acting so strangely and had cared enough to get him some help. Dahmer did not go quietly into full-on sociopathic insanity. The signs were there — animal mutilations, binge drinking at 15, a shocking lack of empathy for fellow human beings — and they were hard to miss. It’s like watching Anakin turn into Darth Vader, only slowly and with no definable event to motivate the fall.

The book covers Dahmer and Derf’s last years of high school in bucolic Bath, Ohio, one of the safest neighborhoods in the state. And by the end of the summer following their senior year, both have discovered their passion — Derf has become a fledgling artist, Dahmer a practicing psychopath and murderer. Drawn in high-def contrast, with his slightly-grotesque portrayal of the human form, this book serves as the universal countering force of Dahmer’s own dark obsession. The art’s creation only made possible as a result of the acts it chronicles and the effect it had on the artist.

In summation: way cool.

I debated between one star and two, but in the end the GR description of one-star won. I did not like this book. It felt exploitative.

Although the author mentions he researched the case of Dahmer, this book focuses on Dahmer's teenage years in high school. I'll explain why I felt like the author tried to milk knowing Dahmer and writing a book about his "friendship" with him. This is only my impression, and I may be way off base.

Derf knew Dahmer from middle school but never spoke to him. Dahmer was always weird and even the nerdy kids stayed away. High school started off the same way, but his sophom*ore or junior year, Dahmer started doing impressions of his mom's house decorator. In reality, he was making fun of these epileptic attacks his mom would get. All of a sudden, Dahmer became the "it boy" amongst Derf's small group of friends, who would use Dahmer for laughs. Yet despite being the "it boy", Dahmer never really became one of the guys in this group of nerds. No one really befriended him outside of school. There were very few times when any of the guys hung out with him because they still thought him too weird, yet they called themselves The Dahmer Fan Club. It was hard for me to believe they would call themselves that when none of them really wanted to be alone with him.

Senior year, they all stopped hanging out with him. So now I'm supposed to believe that the author was his friend, knew Dahmer's inner demons, and there are even at times when he wonders if their bunch could have prevented Dahmer from committing his atrocious crimes? The author never even sees Dahmer anytime after graduation. Yet the book is titled My Friend Dahmer.

Couldn't buy it. The author did not come across as a likeable player in all this and the graphic novel format did not seem suitable for the subject matter. The drawings were too juvenile, perhaps? I couldn't tell some of the characters apart. And why is the author still calling himself Derf? Looks like someone hasn't gotten over his high school years, especially when he can claim to have gone to school with one of the most famous serial killers out there.

This book comes closest to answering the 'Dahmer question' than any other book I have read on the subject. Derf went to HS with Dahmer...think 'Fast Times at Sociopath High' and you are there. Really shows that there were lots of warning signs as far as Dahmer - one is let wondering if he would have become who he became if someone had connected with him in a positive way while there was still time.

This is the story of necrophiliac cannibal serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer’s high school years told from the perspective of John “Derf” Backderf who went to the same school as him and knew him a bit socially too. The book doesn’t go beyond high school graduation but presumably most people coming to this book will know the horrific crimes Dahmer committed from age 18 onwards until he was finally caught and sent to prison where he was murdered by a fellow deranged inmate.

The book’s tone presents Dahmer as a tragic figure whose unpleasant home life and repressed inner life led him to the dark places he would inhabit for his entire adult life. His father was distant and his mother suffered from seizures and was heavily medicated. Dahmer would mimic these seizures as well as his parents’ interior decorator’s multiple sclerosis which would make him a celebrity in high school, those exaggerated and cruel impressions becoming his trademark and gave him entry into Backderf’s circle of friends.

Backderf uses various sources to go beyond his own experiences with Dahmer to give the reader a more detailed look at his teenage years. Dahmer’s parents went through a brutal divorce with Dahmer unable to speak to them about the strange urges he was getting. He expressed these through dissolving animals in acid his father had (he was a pharmacist) and then later dissecting roadkill. As high school neared its end, Dahmer drank heavily to still the voices in his head until he was an alcoholic when he graduated, missing most of his classes to hang around the school premises, not being around his hateful parents and drinking himself into a numbing stupor. The desperation is tangible.

Backderf makes the case that no-one helped Dahmer out when he most needed it. No teacher at school cared beyond checking a cross next to his name, no counsellors were available, and Dahmer had no real close friends to turn to for help. His parents were emotionally and physically absent - at the time of his graduation, his father was living in a motel and his mother left Jeff in their home while she took his younger brother and moved to another state! Dahmer’s isolation and increasing madness, no longer kept at bay by the alcohol he’d gotten used to, led him to act out his sick fantasies, unchecked. While the tone of the book shows Dahmer as a tragic figure, this only applies up until his first murder at age 18. Backderf no longer feels sympathy for the man after this, instead believing that the person was now gone and the monster had taken his place.

The book is an extraordinary story of a damaged and truly disturbed individual who would become a notorious symbol of human depravity and pure evil. Backderf tells the story well, illustrating it beautifully (his depictions of Dahmer’s mother’s seizures are truly unnerving), and creating a must-read book for all fans of true crime comics. “My Friend Dahmer” is a powerful and haunting read, made all the more compelling for knowing what this boy would do in later years. Easily one of the best comic books of the year.

My Friend Dahmer is an account of Derf Backderf's high school friendship with an oddball named Jeff Dahmer.

Someone recommended this to me way back in 2012 but I'm not normally a true crime fan so I passed. My wife and I have watched some serial killer documentaries lately so I finally picked this up.

Derf Backderf's account comes primarily from his time spent with Dahmer so it's not sensationalist. 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. Dahmer had a few friends among the other outcasts at the bottom of the social ladder but didn't even fit in with them and walks down the road to hell a single baby step at a time. Like Derf asks "Where the hell were all the adults?"

The art has a unique feel to it, underground yet polished. I like it quite a bit. Derf does a great job showing Dahmer as he was, not going out of his way to make him a sympathetic character but still conveying Dahmer's sad circ*mstances growing up. Would a teacher or parent been able to make a difference once Dahmer was in high school or was it already too late by then? No one will ever know, unfortunately.

My Friend Dahmer is a powerful book, an unflinching look at the developmental years of Jeffrey Dahmer through the eyes of someone who knew him. Five out of five stars.

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.

It's more than just some sort of coming-of-age biography of the serial killer, it is a view of Dahmer's life from the author's point of view - before becoming a beast.

The on-point illustrations give it a real creepy feel, it was interesting and overall I liked it.

I had normal friendships in high school... and really never had any close friendships after high school. - Jeffrey Dahmer

I followed up a suicide book with a shut-in book and on those heels My Friend Dahmer. I'm more than a little bummed out right now. Sometimes I'll try to bring myself out of myself by allowing me to act incredibly over the top mopey cry baby. I'll put in a bleak song and really get into it. Somehow this cheers me up. It is out of the system. Reading My Friend Dahmer made me cry. I feel really sick. I really couldn't feel worse. What is wrong with me? Why did I choose THIS to read? I will read prison memoirs when I feel like a freak. I'm not helping me much. It isn't the same. I have a collection of dvds I've owned for years that I am afraid to watch for fear that it will resonate within me that feeling of not belonging. (At this point I will watch a rerun of Fresh Prince of Bell-Air. I've confessed to this before on goodreads. I'm going to have to get a life for more book review material.) The illustrations by high school (well, sorta) chum of Dahmer's Derf Backderf (his parents didn't name him Derf) reminded me of Charles Bronson's prison art (thank god I found a reasonable segue). The incredible pain behind holding onto to an out of reach sanity. The pen is severed at the hand and what I relate to too much to call the knife is mightier than the pen. Derf feels this about Dahmer now, as an adult. He was making his Jeffrey Dahmer comics when they were in school. Dahmer featured in everything he made. I wonder about this like maybe Backderf wanted to keep Dahmer around so he wouldn't sneak up behind him in his own nightmares. Does anyone else feel cold and a need to purge inside like it could keep you safe from any darkness you may share?

There's something else the art reminds me of but I don't know my comic art well enough to place it. Definitely something older, not Doonesbury but the '70s outfits were digging. I should just say it is set in and feels like the 1970s. The kids gestures were reminiscent of Funky Winkerbeam (I'm not showing off. I know I just got that name wrong). Thumbs out and come check this out, guys! Jeans and beer and nothing to do. Cruising on the street. Jeffrey Dahmer's quote that he was a normal kid like everyone else kicks off the book. I don't believe that that was true. That he wanted to be a normal kid is enough. I want to throw up now. Dahmer shows kids the animals he keeps in acid filled jars in the shed behind the family's home. Hey guys, come on and check this out.

When he gets to high school Dahmer finds the first and only friends he will ever have. If you could call it friends. I want to call it friends and I just can't. They call their gang "The Jeffrey Dahmer Fan Club". It wasn't a fan club. More like a freak show affair. The art sidelines the sad truths of Dahmer's life opposite the town rolling everyone by like an uncaring dustbowl before the big bad comes to town with ninja stars on his heels. His antics that are amusing to them are Dahmer reenacting his mother's helpless looney spasms. I wonder about the little brother (Backderf acknowledges the importance of the father and brother. Only they don't enter the self centered high school boys orbit). I don't really want to think about that the only friends he ever had kept him around as a side show attraction. Backderf seems to be both relieved that they did that much for this hopeless person, light from the top of a prison cell it must have been, and also guilty that they lived their aimless teenager days like watching horrific car wrecks on a daily basis. Dahmer must have had something to cling to if he could sit with them in school. He finishes out the school year hiding on the grounds with a bottle. They no longer find his inner fury and pain amusing and run away. Dahmer loses his grip on sanity. There are other closeted hom*osexuals in their school. Dahmer is the only one who fantasizes about dead men. Backderf doesn't dream of a happy life for Dahmer but one at least safe doped up on drugs in the relative safety of somewhere hidden away. Dahmer gets pissed drunk every day. His alcoholic breath could have breathed fire on the adults for all that they paid attention. What would have happened if anyone had tried to do anything? I can't see anything that could have been done. I wish I could see something and I can't. The best that is going to happen is that these boys who didn't really like him let him hang out with them and be fodder for jokes. That's not what is really bothering me it is that feeling that Dahmer must have tried during that time to hold onto something. It is moving that Backderf must've seen this and can't pretend it was nothing. You can't be dumb kids in a small town not giving a f*ck about anything until people aren't even people anymore. Dogs and cats disappear to die in the woods. What next? His mind would have been in a hell far away and so very near. I'm super depressed thinking about this. It's tragic to live losing and that hell was still something to lose and so many paid. It's just dark. I guess writing a review about it didn't really exercise that grief either. I don't want to think about this anymore. Except I still am...

This book humanizes Dahmer in a way that I have thought for years to be kind of necessary. In Derf's conclusion, he states that we should have pity/compassion for Jeffrey up until Jeffrey chose to take a life, and then at that point, Jeffrey "should have turned the gun on himself" and taken himself out of his own misery. I'm not sure how I feel about that exact delineation -- monster or not, I don't wish for anyone to kill himself -- but in cases of famous killers who experienced much alienation, mental illness, and lack of love while growing up (David Berkowitz, Dylan Klebold), I have always taken the same tack of feeling sympathy for their story but losing that sympathy completely at their chosen resolution of that pain.

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.

At the same time: while addiction often isn't a victimless crime (hello, Al-Anon), much of the immediate harm addicts cause is usually to themselves. Murdering people is obviously not comparable. And humanizing Dahmer in this way does absolutely nothing to give comfort to those who are still affected by the lives he took. It will never bring his victims back.

To humanize someone like Dahmer (in his pre-murderous life) is to remember principles that are important to remember every day, as building blocks of compassion and understanding for others. Like: if you can feel this way about someone who was historically a monster, if you can understand him and be gentle with his past in retrospect, you can surely feel this way about the guy who cuts you off in traffic or your boss when she's angry about nothing again.

A humanizing look at an infamous serial killer, My Friend Dahmer does what little works are able to do, and that is make you feel sympathy for the bad guy. And make no mistake, Dahmer is the BAD GUY here. Backderf’s autobiographical account of his teenage friendship with the killer is not the sugar-coated memoir of a lost soul, nor is it particularly exploitative of Dahmer and his crimes. In fact, we hardly even TOUCH on his crimes in here. Instead, this is the portrait of a damaged person (although the origins of this damage are not entirely known, as to carry through with the things Jeffery Dahmer has done, to us not on his frequency, is quite unknowable) as told through someone who was (however briefly) once close to him. As such Backderf treats his subject with the kind of sympathy you’d reserve for someone whom you might’ve once called a friend. Though the author makes it abundantly clear that Dahmer’s actions are miles beyond forgivable, it’s still an interesting new side to a well-known story, and a rare glimpse at the human beneath the monster’s skin.

Also, I REALLY loved the illustrations in this book. Heavy inked, black & white, with a sorta Robert Crumb kinda influence. The art in this book rules.

I don't read many Graphic Novels they're just not my thing. My Friend Dahmer is only my fourth Graphic Novel the other three being the March series by my bae Congressman John Lewis. For me to pick up a Graphic Novel it really has to peak my interest, and I am intensely interested in crime.

You know a book is great when it makes you have sympathy for a depraved serial killer like Jeffrey Dahmer. As I read this I wondered if maybe Dahmer could have been saved from the evil path he took, had someone cared enough to talk to him. Our author Derf Backderf makes it clear throughout this book that everyone thought something was off with Dahmer. Now obviously he didn't know Dahmer would become the monster he became ( On a side note: What did Lloyd Figg do to this author?) but no one sat down Dahmer and tried to help him. His home life was hell, at school no one cared, & despite the name of the book Dahmer never had a real friend in this world. I know I'm a bleeding-heart liberal but I just couldn't help but think about how lonely Dahmer must have been. Alone with his perverse urges.

Bottom line My Friend Dahmer is a powerful work of art & I highly recommend it.

Wow, what a monster.

And yes, I'm talking about the book.

Derf gives his perspective on the youth of a future serial killer. Dahmer was one of his classmates in high school, a "mascot" for his group of friends as Derf puts it. Derf's story about Dahmer was published first in a shorter version, a decade or so ago. Now, Derf gives it the full treatment. 200 pages, to be (almost) exact.

Here's what I liked about it...

1. It was completely subjective. And it's completely transparent in its subjectivity. Derf is honest about this being his perspective. He places blame (on the adults surrounding Dahmer), excuses himself from responsibility (in that way that we adults so often do when thinking about ourselves at a younger age), and makes clear what he saw versus what was only rumored.

2. The illustrations worked SO WELL. I read Punk Rock and Trailer Parks by Backderf, and thought it was fine and enjoyed the content, but didn't really jive with the overall style in such a goofy setting. With this subject matter, Backderf's cartoony, robot-like characters add some lightness that a traumatizing topic like this needs. It also communicates the subjectivity well in a subtle way.

3. Backderf tells the story so well. You can tell this guy has honed his craft and worked this over many times. I freaking adored the end material with notes and extra information about the context. This is the treatment the story deserves. I am able to view the world through another pair of eyes in a way they are inviting me to.

4. It's about deconstructing darkness and tracing the origins of destructive personalities. Dahmer as a teen wasn't so different from kids we all knew in high school. As a youth services librarian, I read a lot of books for and about teens. And a lot of them (perhaps especially the ones I gravitate to) are about outsiders. Dahmer could have been just another outsider kid - one with a messed up family, one with repressed sexuality, one who made jokes out of things that are not funny. Exploring his history helps me to think about how I can influence teens for the good. About how I can influence humanity for the good. And how close we all are to the darkness. To letting our own destructive tendancies to go too far.

It makes me think. And I love that.

P.S. Oh yeah, and I doubt many other books will come with the subject heading "Dahmer, Jeffrey -- Comic books, strips, etc." This makes me chuckle.

Which, I guess, shows my own dark side. ;)

Conocí la película antes que el comic. De hecho, el comic lo conocí gracias a los lectores de mi grupo en Goodreads (Lectores de la Cripta), y decidí darle una oportunidad. Realmente valió la pena, fue una lectura de lo más estremecedora y cruel en todos los sentidos. Este comic documenta la vida del famoso asesino serial Jeffrey Dahmer, a través de los ojos de su amigo de la infancia. Es una oportunidad para volver a repensar muchas cosas sobre su caso, sobre todo los indicios que se iban presentando sobre la personalidad desequilibrada de Dahmer, sus tendencias a lo mortuorio y lo enfermizo.

Tanto el comic como la película me parecieron increíbles, sobre todo porque más allá de mostrarse algunos rasgos violentos de su perfil como asesino (como el maltrato animal), el libro no es morboso en sí. De aquí no se desprenden los sucesos que lo llevaron a obtener 15 cadenas perpetuas consecutivas, sino el lado B de un niño y adolescente que adolece por sus pensamientos más perversos.

3.75 ish stars

High praise for My Friend Dahmer. The artwork is fantastic (very Crumb-esque!) but it is the story that held my attention in a vice-grip. Backderf's perspective is one of guarded empathy. There is “how it is” and there is “how it could have been.” He takes the position, and rightly so, that if someone had cared enough to take notice the outcome could have been something less horrific. But they did not ...and it was not ...and here we are.

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 amusem*nt, 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.

Aside from missing this opportunity in his book, it is a fascinating and sad story. It certainly made me think about my own cruelties to others, while reminding the reader you never ever know how much small kindnesses may mean to another person. It also touches on the nature/nurture question, as Dahmer's mother had problems during her pregnancy with him, and the household, while forlorn, was certainly something many many other kids have weathered better than Dahmer did.

The most touching and tragic thing about the story is how Dahmer seems to have his horrible impulses from an early age, and fights them as best a lonely isolated child knows how. Until, of course, he doesn't.

Content warnings: violence, animal abuse, ableism, hom*ophobia, necrophilia, sexual assault.

My Friend Dahmer is a nonfiction graphic novel about the author's time growing up as a junior high/high school classmate of the infamous serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer. He explains how pitiable of a teen Dahmer was, and the home life that plagued him, as well as going into some of the mental health struggles the killer faced from a young age, such as his obsession with corpses and their insides, or his desperate fantasies of having relations with them.

While this was a really insightful graphic novel, it was definitely an uncomfortable read, though I'm not sure how any nonfiction book about a killer-in-the-making wouldn't be. While there's not actually much talk at all about Dahmer as a murderer of humans, there is a lot of commentary surrounding the animals he abused and killed, as well as his terrible actions towards other human beings. There's an incredibly long-running shtick in the story about Dahmer's crude imitations of disabled individuals, and the length to which the "joke" goes is shocking and distasteful. I don't feel like it was at all necessary to saturate the story so heavily with this one particular aspect, and probably would have given this book 4 stars if it weren't for how incredibly heavy the ableism is.

A rare voice and original style come together to form one chilling, creeped-me-out-to- the-core story. I mean how many people can say they were once friends with Jeffrey Dahmer? *shivers just walked down my spine*

An interesting first-hand account of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer’s high school days. A story that got under my skin. The “if-onlys” and “what-ifs” in life can haunt us if we let them. Mr. Backderf sounded a bit haunted to me.

If only someone had noticed…or what if someone had spoken up…There must be a whole town contemplating those questions even today—years later. *more chills*

I highly recommend this book for any and all graphic novel fans for the illustrations alone. With black & white, gawky, and gangly depictions, the 1970s and these kids come to life. The use and power of shadows, angles, and framing on the page made images and emotions stand out and stick with me. Very chilling at times.

Uma graphic novel que acho que todos estudantes de Psicologia deveriam ler.
Em Meu amigo Dahmer, Backderf contou como foi o período da sua vida em que conviveu com o serial killer Jeff Dahmer (antes de se tornar um dos assassinos mais conhecidos da história).
O livro é um relato muito rico e interessante que nos faz pensar o quanto muitas vezes ignoramos indícios que as pessoas dão.
Por se tratar da história de um serial killer, há conteúdos bem angustiantes e pesados na história.