The Graphic Novel: My Friend Dahmer and Group Discussion

Hello my dear readers!

One of the incredibly popular genres of YA literature is the graphic novel.  Some people call these comic books, but in reality, they are so much more.  The use of images and words to tell a story can give so much added depth for the reader - pictures can sometimes say more than words ever can, and the combination allows for multiple readings of the story while getting different meanings each time.

The novel I chose was My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf.  Backderf went to high school with Jeffery Dahmer and chose to write and illustrate a graphic novel about it.  I was drawn to it because 1. there's something fascinating to me about a serial killer and what made them snap and 2. the art is so interesting - like caricatures.  (You can see what I mean by checking out Backderf's site; he posts weekly comic strips and stuff, which is always fun.)

The book was intense.  The portrayal of Dahmer as this lonely kid who had a horrible home life and was just trying to fit in made me almost empathize with the guy.  Backderf did a really good job at incorporating actual photographs of Dahmer throughout to ground the story and remind everyone that he was a real person; the cartoonish style makes it somewhat easy to forget that these things actually happened, and the photos break that up.

In our group, we talked about how the three of us who read the book immediately wanted to learn more about Dahmer when we were done.  That someone could do something so horrible fascinated us.  We wondered if things had been different (such as Dahmer's parents not being so wrapped up in their divorce or if Dahmer had been able to come out as gay without judgement) if he would have still done the crimes he did.

 We also noticed that Backderf did a great job of changing the use of white space throughout the novel to show the downward descent Dahmer had - by the end of the book, there isn't any white space left in the panels, only darkness.  The panels that had not words at all were also incredibly impactful.  Seeing a young Dahmer walk through the woods at night by himself has a completely different feeling than if it was narrated in text.

Overall, My Friend Dahmer was a really interesting read.  The style is great for people familiar with graphic novels and even if you aren't, the frames are done in a manner that makes it easy to figure out.  I recommend it for mid to late high school students and above.

~Meaghan