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Today Derf Backderf’s memoir MY FRIEND DAHMER dropped in comics shops. It’s the true story of some fairly typical loserish guys in high school..one of whom will grow up to be one of the most horrifying serial killers of the 20th century. And who already shows signs of being completely without empathy.

Whenever I hand people a copy of this book…they can’t put it down. Backderf (real name John Backderf) was a high school classmate of young Jeffrey Dahmer’s and as this exclusive preview will show, even then, things were not quite right.

Although Backderf previously released a 24-page version of the story, this 224-page version is not a re-issue, as some have said, but an entire retelling of the chilling story. Backderf has been interviewed for documentaries about Dahmer, but his own punk-influenced art tells the story in the best way.

Meet evil when it’s young.
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7 COMMENTS

  1. I look forward to seeing more of this book & glad to see The Beat laying off (sleep inducing) Marvel/DC reports for a moment and giving us Dahmer & Versace’s killer (suspected of slaying the comic book publisher who is subject two stories below this).

    I don’t think of myself as a “blood thirsty” fellow – but please keep up these (interesting) reports.

  2. 2012 is the year where we have the book of the MONTH, not book of the year. (Other books to look forward to: Gone to Amerikay, Are You My Mother?, Drama!)

    I read an advance copy in November on a Sunday afternoon, picked at random. I read it straight through. Then I recalled my own high school experience, how I managed to survive. (I became invisible, avoided others during lunch, and like the soldiers in Vietnam, I counted the days until departure.)

    Then I thought about the hungers we all have, how Dahmer avoided his own until he left for college, and what sort of person I might be if I satisfied my own.

    I wasn’t the guy people thought would turn out to be a serial killer, that was another guy who drew heavy metal-inspired artwork, and who is now a fairly typical suburban dad.

    The book is well-researched, not sensational, and shows the “secret origin” of why Dahmer became so notorious. This preview shows his weirdness, but it gets even more disturbing when you meet his family.

  3. Like Torsten, I picked this book up thinking I’d read a few pages…and couldn’t put it down and read it in one sitting. It’s an excellent comic. Highly recommended.

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