September 15, 2005
The City
is a weekly comic by John Backderf (aka "Derf") that appears in numerous "alternative/indie" papers across the U.S.
[And it just happens to be my all-time favorite]
He recently won the First place award for "cartoon published in more than five papers" from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. He was a friend of Jeffry Dahmer throughout junior and high school. He illustrated a fascinating comic on the subject (which use to be on his site in full-length a couple years back, but now only has the first six pages). Famous re-occuring themes: True Story, He-boobies, and White MiddleClass Suburban Man. An Interview. The Average American's View...the Muslim World. It occurred to me that I've never seen mention of him or his work on MoFi before, so thought I would share.
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that's a good comic. I've been following it on and off for... egads, a long time.
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I like the mocking tone and the sense of the absurd in "The City," but the drawing style is so deliberately and unremittingly ugly, that I find it off-putting. I'd heard that Derf had some strong connection to Cleveland, where I live, but I hadn't realized that Jeffrey Dahmer had one as well. Ecch.
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I agree with lagged2Death about the art.
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I like the art, it reminds me of R. Crumb. The Dahlmer story reminds me of Harvey Pekar, too. Is this some sort of Cleveland thang?
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I like Derf's style, the ugliness is part of the underlying cynicism. He reminds me more of Steve Bell than Crumb, however.
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It's satire, and you expect the objects of ridicule to look good? Errr... Yeah, I'd always thought of it as caricature. I wouldn't expect the stars of "People from the suburbs are fat hogs, and they are also stupid" strips to look like The O.C. Would you?
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It's satire, and you expect the objects of ridicule to look good? No, it's not that. It's that his style is (to my untrained amateur eye) one in which it is actually impossible to make anything look good, ever. I might be interested in his Dahmer story, though. Maybe I'll have to suffer through it.
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Chy said it well (as always) for me. The ugliness is key IMHO. That said, I can see how some would definitely be turned off by the style (and that's not necessarily a bad thing either). I might be interested in his Dahmer story, though. Maybe I'll have to suffer through it. For the story alone, I would say it's an amazing comic; insight into the person that was Jeffry Dahmer from someone that was a childhood friend. I think the illustrations give an added "tingle" to the creepiness of it. C'mon, do you really think you'll have to suffer through it?
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I remember reading that Dahmer story when the whole thing was online for free. I wish I'd saved it to disk, now.