I grew up in a hippy family, so there were always weird left wing newspapers that ran Derf Backderf's comic The City in them. The stiffly drawn (but deceptively difficult) artstyle is immediately distinctive, and I developed quite the fondness for the comic strip over the years. So when I stumbled across a graphic novel by Derf Backderf about his high school experience growing up with Jeffery Dahmer, I bought it on the spot.

![image.png](https://ipfs.busy.org/ipfs/Qmd5Hhx4EmeK7dVmbcxPP84gCz3FPWipEw6BMeubmTvLEn)
[[Image source]](https://smile.amazon.com/My-Friend-Dahmer-Derf-Backderf-ebook/dp/B00807L3WY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1532420041&sr=8-2&keywords=my+friend+dahmer)

Any narrative about a serial killer like Jeffery Dahmer is going to be disturbing, but *My Friend Dahmer* is disturbing in an entirely unexpected manner. This isn't a recounting of Dahmer's crimes- there are plenty of those out there. In fact, only the first murder is even really talked about, and nothing overly graphic are shown. Instead, this is a story of the years leading up to Dahmer's crimes- a weird, alcoholic, but not obviously dangerous high school student trying to find a place for himself. The disturbing thing about this book is how human Dahmer seems- he's not some inhuman monster, but an entirely human monster, who battled with himself for years with his darkness, and eventually failed.

*My Friend Dahmer* is a coming of age story interwoven with a descent into madness story, and it's all the more powerful for the ways the story falls flat- because they remind you that this isn't a well written piece of fiction, but real life, and real life doesn't always translate well into story. In a story, the epic prank spree at the mall would end in a grand finale or serious consequences. Here? It just kinda fizzles out as people lose interest.

What really gives *My Friend Dahmer* resonance is the relative innocence of the author and his friends in their teenage years. Derf Backderf had absolutely no idea growing up that Dahmer would eventually become a serial killer. There were a few off color jokes made about the idea, but they were just silly jokes made by young men- no one took them seriously. Backderf never once claims any sort of prescience, never tries to illustrate himself as an unheeded Cassandra. He was just a high school kid who sometimes hung out with a weird kid named Jeff who would make weird noises and faces for others' entertainment.

While there was a film made out of *My Friend Dahmer*, I haven't seen it, so can't comment on its quality. The graphic novel, however, is brilliant, and I can't recommend it enough.