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findingmontauk1 's review for:
My Friend Dahmer
by Derf Backderf
Every serial killer has to start somewhere, right?
It is clear that Backderf went to to extremes to make this as truthful as possible - if he had not, I do not think he would have included the way he and his gang all talked about and treated their "friend," Dahmer. I mean, Dahmer did act in a peculiar way that would make it difficult to befriend, sure. I found myself glancing at the title of the book so many times thinking, "I wonder if it would be better if this was My Classmate Dahmer or I Went To School With Dahmer because I truly do not think they were friends based on all of this. But maybe friendships were different in the 70s; I wasn't there! But if anything, this non-fiction graphic novel sheds some additional light into a tortured and lost soul of a person before his humanity was completely gone and the monster took over.
I definitely did not think I was going to have any sympathetic feelings for Dahmer before reading this... but I kind of do now. At least during his teenage years. Struggling with his homosexuality in an abusive home with unstable parents and no real friends is definitely rough. That sort of loneliness, isolation, and fear is not something I wish on anyone. I am shocked that his rampant alcohol abuse went so unnoticed by adults and teachers at school. Or did they also just think he was super weird and purposefully overlooked it because of who he was? We will probably never know. But I am sure that if someone was drunk every day in class and skipping school so much these days that SOME adult would be notified and show some interest... right?
At first I was not totally into the illustrations, but by the time I was halfway through, I was definitely enjoying them and appreciating the stylistic elements that make them so different from other drawings I have seen before and other drawings in the countless other comics and graphic novels that I have read before.
3.5 stars from me. It was nice to get an insider scoop from Dahmer's formative years from a classmate (again, not someone I would consider his "friend").
It is clear that Backderf went to to extremes to make this as truthful as possible - if he had not, I do not think he would have included the way he and his gang all talked about and treated their "friend," Dahmer. I mean, Dahmer did act in a peculiar way that would make it difficult to befriend, sure. I found myself glancing at the title of the book so many times thinking, "I wonder if it would be better if this was My Classmate Dahmer or I Went To School With Dahmer because I truly do not think they were friends based on all of this. But maybe friendships were different in the 70s; I wasn't there! But if anything, this non-fiction graphic novel sheds some additional light into a tortured and lost soul of a person before his humanity was completely gone and the monster took over.
I definitely did not think I was going to have any sympathetic feelings for Dahmer before reading this... but I kind of do now. At least during his teenage years. Struggling with his homosexuality in an abusive home with unstable parents and no real friends is definitely rough. That sort of loneliness, isolation, and fear is not something I wish on anyone. I am shocked that his rampant alcohol abuse went so unnoticed by adults and teachers at school. Or did they also just think he was super weird and purposefully overlooked it because of who he was? We will probably never know. But I am sure that if someone was drunk every day in class and skipping school so much these days that SOME adult would be notified and show some interest... right?
At first I was not totally into the illustrations, but by the time I was halfway through, I was definitely enjoying them and appreciating the stylistic elements that make them so different from other drawings I have seen before and other drawings in the countless other comics and graphic novels that I have read before.
3.5 stars from me. It was nice to get an insider scoop from Dahmer's formative years from a classmate (again, not someone I would consider his "friend").