Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
How do we look in to the eyes of a killer, of a psychopath, of a human being who has fallen under the weight of madness and whose life will go on to unravel to the point of extreme actions taken, and not see either ourselves, or perhaps the part that we have played in that person’s downfall.
It is the argument that has always raged, and for the sake of a civilised society perhaps we should debate the issue further, one in which those who may succumb to such acts of depravity and murderous intentions need all the help they can get and not be cast aside like roadkill, allowed to fester with the maggots imagined in the mind and losing all sense of hope.
It is perhaps with a clearer conscious to those who may have grown up alongside those with that destructive nature to their personality, whether or not evil on the face of it is by design or by nurture, by the culmination of events that led up to that first dreadful act being performed and betrayed by the thoughts of guilt afterwards, that we might look to the answers for, after all sometimes they have played a part in the development of the character formed, not intentionally, but enough to see the effects of possible social exclusion, the damage done, having been a cog in the dynamic breakdown of a human being.
Usually such conversations are ones that are questionable, the one being interviewed about the person they may have had a study class with would sense a moment of recognition to the world being offered, the chance to exact revenge and make the accused and the guilty look as if they were the Devil himself. There is of course the counter argument that someone who has a shared history in their youth with someone who has committed the most heinous of crimes, simply either doesn’t want to recognise the animal they see with their eyes, let alone talk about them, as is their right, or doesn’t have the ability to do the image justice, not to regale the reader with opinion, but instead with facts, not to offer a sympathetic look at the creature, but to show possible reasons.
It is with this in mind that Derf Backderf’s critically acclaimed graphic novel, My Friend Dahmer, is a refreshing, if not disturbing graphic novel in which to search for the answers into how a mind can disintegrate, fracture to the point where what seems just peculiar behaviour and instead becomes the epitome of a troubled and evil soul.
To have this insight, the back-story into a man’s life, one who would eclipse in magnitude the horrific actions of Jack The Ripper 100 before, and to then reveal to the world in a greater form than was originally produced, takes a magnitude of calm, a presence to observe and reflect all the possible points in which they might have interjected, but also where the adults in Jeffrey Dahmer’s life had the opportunity to end the misery of his life’s course and therefore save those who died at his end.
What does come across is that this work is by no means an apology, it is not sensationalised as if put together by someone who has gleaned their knowledge by use of newspaper articles and the odd misinterpretation of events, instead Derf Backderf places himself, his friends, the school, and his parents in judgement, that the signs of mental unbalance were always there but by their actions they fed the machine, they allowed it to spin out of control and the warning signs were left unseen, until it was too late.
It takes fortitude, bravery and resilience to put such a story down on paper, let alone in the form of a graphic novel but it is with determination, style, the haunting passion for truth that My Friend Dahmer resounds and stays in the mind as long as it does. How many of us can perceive that someone we went to school with would turn out to be classed as a monster by the media, as evil personified by the world, and how many of us would not shy away from offering an insight to the way that nature and nurture had a hand in it from the very beginning.
A distinctive and superbly drawn book, both physically and intellectually, Derf Backderf captures the emotional and distance required to pursue the truth.
Ian D. Hall