Originally beginning as a 24 page comic book, “My Friend Dahmer” eventually evolved into a 220 page graphic novel (2012) and then a motion picture (2017.)

The original self-published comic book.

“Dahmer” concerns the high school years of future serial killer Jeffery Dahmer, who would go on to murder seventeen young men between 1978 and 1991.

Author Derf Backderf, a classmate of Dahmer’s, painstakingly goes over the details of this crucial time (Adolescence in the 1970’s.)  Dahmer’s beginning insanity – saving roadkill and dead animals in jars – is a precursor to what he would do to human beings.The MSM, ever vigilant in protecting the image of the homosexual, has glossed over WHY he killed his victims.  Dahmer, who was gay, would sexually pleasure himself with the dead bodies.  It reached the point where the bodies were cannibalized, so “they’d always be with him.”  His goal was to create a zombie slave.

The graphic novel points out that the adult world ignored all the warning signs this madman was giving out – his parents, his teachers, everybody.  This failure is partially blamed on the times, the more tolerant 1970’s, compared to the fanatical cancel culture-snowflakes of our current day.

“My Friend Dahmer”, the graphic novel, is funnier than the film, especially for those who lived through those times and remember how accurately Backderf gets it.  The movie is not so funny, something is lost in the translation, but it’s reasonably faithful to its source.  It also captures the look and feel of the not-so-feel-good 70’s.  What makes it work is a spot-on performance by Ross Lynch – the sad outcast who, for a short time, has an ironic “fan club” based on his weird fake fits he throws, pretending to be an out-of-control spastic.

Ross Lynch as Jeffery Dahmer

Nothing sums it up better when one of the faculty discovers Dahmer posing with the school’s honor roll for the yearbook picture.  She ruthlessly scribbles out Dahmer’s face with a black marker and the picture is run that way.  What better way to sum up why someone goes off the rails?

Text © 2021 – ERN