Downplayed with Dahmer. The animal carcasses he finds and dissolves for their bones were roadkill he finds already dead. The worst we see him do is disembowel a live fish during a fishing trip, and getting really close to killing a neighborhood dog but thankfully stopping himself before carrying out the deed. Derf's author's notes and testimonies from Dahmer himself stated that the mutilated dog head on a stake in the woods was already dead when Dahmer found it; Derf clarifies that this was not the same dog he was close to killing earlier in the story. It's stated in subsequent notes that Dahmer did hunt and kill small animals like squirrels and toads, and people around town found dead animals nailed to trees.

Even Evil Has Standards: According to Derf's notes, even Jeff was outraged when Lloyd Figg — a classmate with severe behavioral problems that he briefly befriended — ran over a neighborhood pet for yuks. Hart Fisher Tells Us Crazy Stories: In The Beginning". Optimum Wound. November 12, 2008 . Retrieved March 15, 2022. However, I went to the movie theater recently and they showed a preview about a movie based on this graphic novel. The trailer is why I decided to read this book My memories of [Dahmer] are of the tormented kid spiraling into madness, not the monster who later committed those horrific crimes. I remember him as bullied and shunned, much as I was. A quiet young boy who devolved helplessly into a twisted soul." Drowning My Sorrows: The more and more his necrophiliac fantasies take shape, the more and more Jeff depends on the bottle to keep them at bay. Soon he is showing up late to class (if at all) and stinking of booze, but the faculty at Revere are apparently none the wiser.In 1992, while still in college, Fisher founded the publisher, Boneyard Press, in Champaign, Illinois. Fisher credits another artist, Mark Beachum, as his inspiration to create his own company. [3] Adaptation Name Change: A number of supporting characters' names are not what they were in Real Life, presumably for legal reasons. Lloyd Figg was not really "Lloyd Figg", while "Neil" and "Kent" were likely also pseudonyms (only John/Derf and Mike go by their real names). Cindy Zlatka (the suicide discussed in the fishing scene) likely didn't go by that name. I debated between one star and two, but in the end the GR description of one-star won. I did not like this book. It felt exploitative. Girtman, Taylor (2021-03-15). "Leander ISD review underway on 'inappropriate literature' in book clubs". impact . Retrieved 2021-04-26.

Lloyd Figg comes off as this, to the point that Derf mentions that when he first heard that one of his ex-classmates became a serial killer, Figg was actually his first guess and Dahmer was second. Subverted in that Lloyd merely grows up to be some troublemaker who still lives with his mom rather than a homicidal maniac. The "Class Psycho" was really just a very disturbed edgelord whose existence is to be the Red Herring. Nidia Yanez (March 27, 2011). "SXSW Files: An insight into Reel Crime". The Bridge . Retrieved October 18, 2022.Attention Whore: What Lloyd Figg, with all his Ax-Crazy antics (though no doubt a troubled kid with serious issues 'upstairs') likely turned out to be. This was really disappointing. So... it's sorta a memoir by this guy who knew and kinda bullied Jeffrey Dahmer when he was in High School. Sounds okay! How can that be boring. The sketches Derf drew of Jeff as the "Minister of Propaganda" for the Dahmer Fan Club. He put Jeff in his drawings for student election flyers and Revere High's yearbook (where the other characters are all speaking in "Dahmerisms.")