内容简介
My Friend Dahmer is the hauntingly original graphic novel by Derf Backderf, the award winning political cartoonist. In these pages, Backderf tries to make sense of Jeffery Dahmer, the future serial killer with whom he shared classrooms, hallways, libraries and car rides. What emerges is a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of a young man struggling helplessly against the urges, some ghastly, bubbling up from the deep recesses of his psyche. The Dahmer recounted here, although universally regarded as an inhumane monster, is a lonely oddball who, in reality, is all too human. A shy kid sucked inexorably into madness while the adults in his life fail him. The crimes Dahmer committed are incredibly depraved, infamous and unforgettable, but in My Friend Dahmer Backderf provides profound (and at times, even strangely comic) insight into how, and more important, why Jeffery Dahmer transformed from a high school nerd into the most depraved serial killer since Jack the Ripper, coming as close as anyone yet has to explaining the seemingly unexplainable phenomenon of Jeffery Dahmer.
作者简介
Derf Backderf has been nominated for two Eisner Awards and has received a host of honors, including the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for political cartooning. His weekly comic strip, The City, has appeared in more than 100 newspapers over the past 22 years. Backderf lives in Cleveland, Ohio.
精彩书评
VOYA As a junior high kid, he collected roadkill and stored it in acid in a shed on the back of his parents' property. He was beneath the notice of all but the bullies. His mother suffered from peculiar neurotic episodes, and eventually his parents divorced. He realized that he was homosexual but never acted on it. He attracted a little more attention in high school, due greatly to the eccentric persona he adapted to thwart adults and humor his peers. He tried to drown his fantasies (which included sexual fulfillment with dead bodies) in alcohol. It is really little wonder that Jeffrey Dahmer went on to become the most notorious serial killer since Jack the Ripper. This reviewer was prepared to hate this graphic novel but is thrilled to be proven wrong. What could have been an exploitative tell-all is instead a sympathetic portrayal of Dahmer's descent into madness. Backderf is a two-time nominee for Eisner Awards, but most do not know that he spent his junior and senior high years as a classmate and acquaintance of Dahmer. Thoughtfully reflecting on the influential school years, Backderf uses a variety of sources—FBI interviews, news stories, Dateline NBC, his own experiences—to chronicle a young man's battle with his own inner demons. Black, white, and ocher panels portray a somber story that needs to be told, if only to warn us all of the dangers of living on the fringe. Reviewer: Rebecca Moore Kirkus Reviews A powerful, unsettling use of the graphic medium to share a profoundly disturbing story. If a boy is not born a monster, how does he become one? Though Backderf (Punk Rock and Trailer Parks, 2008) was once an Ohio classmate of the notorious Jeffrey Dahmer, he doesn't try to elicit sympathy for "Jeff." Yet he walks an emotional tightrope here, for he recognizes that someone--maybe the other kids who laughed at and with him, certainly the adults who should have recognized aberration well beyond tortured adolescence--should have done something. "To you Dahmer was a depraved fiend but to me he was a kid I sat next to in study hall and hung out with in the band room," writes the author, whose dark narrative proceeds to show how Dahmer's behavior degenerated from fascination with roadkill and torture of animals to repressed homosexuality and high-school alcoholism to mass murder. It also shows how he was shaken by his parents' troubled marriage and tempestuous divorce, by his emotionally disturbed mother's decision to move away and leave her son alone, and by the encouragement of the Jeffrey Dahmer Fan Club (with the author a charter member and ringleader) to turn the outcast into a freak show. The more that Dahmer drank to numb his life, the more oblivious adults seemed to be, letting him disappear between the cracks. "It's my belief that Dahmer didn't have to wind up a monster, that all those people didn't have to die horribly, if only the adults in his life hadn't been so inexplicably, unforgivably, incomprehensibly clueless and/or indifferent," writes Backderf. "Once Dahmer kills, however--and I can't stress this enough--my sympathy for him ends." An exemplary demonstration of the transformative possibilities of graphic narrative.
前言/序言
异星回响:失落文明的星际探秘 作者:艾拉·凡尔纳 (Ayla Verne) 出版社:黎明之光文创 (Aurora Lumina Press) 页数:580页 --- 一、引言:群星的低语与文明的灰烬 在人类迈入“大航海时代”后的第三个世纪,星际探索已不再是科幻小说的专利,而是刻入人类DNA的生存本能。然而,广袤的宇宙并非一片宁静的虚空,它潜藏着比黑洞更深邃的秘密。本书追溯了“先驱者计划”的最后一次任务——“奥德赛号”的失踪之谜,以及围绕着一个被命名为“泽塔-7”的遥远星系所展开的,跨越数个世纪的星际考古与文明复兴尝试。 故事从地球历2788年,联合星际理事会(USC)收到的一段异常信号开始。这段信号源自“湮灭区”——一片被认为在数千年前被某种超新星爆发彻底摧毁的星域。它不是简单的电磁波,而是一段结构复杂、融合了数学、音乐与量子纠缠的“信息流”。所有接收者都将其解读为一种明确的邀请:前往泽塔-7,探寻“织影者文明”的遗迹。 “织影者”是已知的宇宙中最古老、最神秘的智慧生命形态之一。他们没有留下任何可被物理接触的遗迹,他们的存在仅存在于数学模型和宇宙背景辐射的微小波动中。人们相信,织影者文明在达到技术巅峰后,并未遭遇战争或灾难,而是主动“撤离”了三维空间,留下的信息暗示着一种超越物质存在的维度跃迁。 二、奥德赛号的航程与时间悖论 为了解码这段邀请,USC启动了耗资巨大的“奥德赛号”任务。这艘飞船搭载了最先进的“卡西米尔驱动器”,理论上可以实现近乎光速的星际旅行。飞船指挥官是饱受争议的理论物理学家——卡莱尔·雷恩博士,一位坚信“时间并非线性”的学者。 本书的叙事结构紧密围绕着奥德赛号的单向旅程展开。飞船首次穿越了著名的“科瓦奇裂隙”,一个被认为连接着宇宙不同时空节点的空间结构。当奥德赛号成功抵达泽塔-7星系时,时间观测出现了无法解释的偏差:根据飞船内部的精确计时,他们只航行了七年零三个月;但通过观测泽塔-7恒星的衰变速率,当地时间已过去了近一万八千年。 雷恩博士将此现象称为“时空折叠滞后”。他们到达的泽塔-7,是一个垂死的世界。环绕着主恒星的,是数以万计的、闪烁着幽蓝色光芒的巨大几何结构——这些是织影者文明留下的“记忆节点”。这些节点并非建筑,而是一种悬浮在真空中的、由纯粹能量构成的雕塑群,它们以极慢的速度,每隔数百年才完成一次结构重组。 三、记忆节点的解码与“同步者”的诞生 奥德赛号的任务核心,是接触并解读这些记忆节点。然而,直接的物理接触导致了灾难性的后果。飞船的电子系统瞬间瘫痪,船员陷入深度昏迷。只有雷恩博士,由于他佩戴了一种早期用于神经接口测试的实验性植入物,奇迹般地保持了清醒,但代价是他必须直接通过精神链接来“体验”织影者的信息流。 接下来的篇幅深入探讨了雷恩博士的内心世界。他不再是单纯的观察者,而是成为了一个“同步者”。织影者的信息不是文字或图像,而是纯粹的、高密度的生命体验。雷恩博士“生活”了织影者文明从诞生、辉煌、到最终集体“升维”的全部历程。 他了解到,织影者并非逃避,而是进化。他们发现了宇宙的终极法则:物质是短暂的,信息才是永恒的。他们将自己的集体意识上传到一个由空间本身构成的“信息矩阵”中,并在物理宇宙中留下了这些记忆节点,作为对后来者的测试和指引。 四、哲学的冲突与人类的抉择 雷恩博士的意识在节点中停留了相当于地球时间三十年的“体验期”。当他被强行从同步中唤醒时,他的人格已经发生了根本性的转变。他带回的不是武器蓝图或能源技术,而是关于“存在的意义”的终极答案。 这些答案在USC高层引发了剧烈的哲学与政治动荡: 1. “升维”的诱惑: 织影者提供的技术路径,意味着人类可以放弃脆弱的肉体,以纯粹的意识形态融入宇宙的底层算法。这是否意味着“人类”的终结? 2. 资源的分配: 少数相信雷恩博士的“真理”的派系,主张投入所有资源研究升维技术;而保守派则认为这是一种精神上的自我毁灭,要求利用织影者的遗产进行星际殖民和军事扩张。 3. “守门人”的警告: 在记忆节点的最深处,雷恩博士接收到了一个严厉的警告。织影者设置了某种机制,防止“未准备好的”文明接触到宇宙的底层真相。如果人类鲁莽行事,可能会触发一个比织影者文明更早期的、已知的“清除者”机制。 五、尾声:星图的重绘 本书的后半部分,聚焦于雷恩博士试图说服一个分裂的、恐惧的理事会的努力。他不再像过去那样是受人尊敬的科学家,更像是一个被闪电击中的先知。他必须找到一种方式,将数万年、跨越维度的复杂信息,转化为当前人类能够理解和接受的语言。 《异星回响》最终没有提供一个简单的答案。它以奥德赛号在泽塔-7星系废弃的场景作结。雷恩博士与几位忠诚的船员,决定留守在这个被时间遗忘的角落,充当“人类与织影者之间的翻译器”。他们将记忆节点视为圣物,默默等待着,或者说,努力引导着下一代人类,去理解宇宙真正深层的结构。 故事的最后一幕是:泽塔-7的幽蓝光芒再次闪烁,这次,它似乎在回应一个来自遥远地球的、微弱的求知信号。人类的未来,悬于对“永恒”的选择与对“物质”的眷恋之间。本书旨在引发读者对时间、意识与文明终极命运的深刻反思。