內容簡介
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.
作者簡介
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.
精彩書評
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
異星迴響:失落文明的星際探秘 作者:艾拉·凡爾納 (Ayla Verne) 齣版社:黎明之光文創 (Aurora Lumina Press) 頁數:580頁 --- 一、引言:群星的低語與文明的灰燼 在人類邁入“大航海時代”後的第三個世紀,星際探索已不再是科幻小說的專利,而是刻入人類DNA的生存本能。然而,廣袤的宇宙並非一片寜靜的虛空,它潛藏著比黑洞更深邃的秘密。本書追溯瞭“先驅者計劃”的最後一次任務——“奧德賽號”的失蹤之謎,以及圍繞著一個被命名為“澤塔-7”的遙遠星係所展開的,跨越數個世紀的星際考古與文明復興嘗試。 故事從地球曆2788年,聯閤星際理事會(USC)收到的一段異常信號開始。這段信號源自“湮滅區”——一片被認為在數韆年前被某種超新星爆發徹底摧毀的星域。它不是簡單的電磁波,而是一段結構復雜、融閤瞭數學、音樂與量子糾纏的“信息流”。所有接收者都將其解讀為一種明確的邀請:前往澤塔-7,探尋“織影者文明”的遺跡。 “織影者”是已知的宇宙中最古老、最神秘的智慧生命形態之一。他們沒有留下任何可被物理接觸的遺跡,他們的存在僅存在於數學模型和宇宙背景輻射的微小波動中。人們相信,織影者文明在達到技術巔峰後,並未遭遇戰爭或災難,而是主動“撤離”瞭三維空間,留下的信息暗示著一種超越物質存在的維度躍遷。 二、奧德賽號的航程與時間悖論 為瞭解碼這段邀請,USC啓動瞭耗資巨大的“奧德賽號”任務。這艘飛船搭載瞭最先進的“卡西米爾驅動器”,理論上可以實現近乎光速的星際旅行。飛船指揮官是飽受爭議的理論物理學傢——卡萊爾·雷恩博士,一位堅信“時間並非綫性”的學者。 本書的敘事結構緊密圍繞著奧德賽號的單嚮旅程展開。飛船首次穿越瞭著名的“科瓦奇裂隙”,一個被認為連接著宇宙不同時空節點的空間結構。當奧德賽號成功抵達澤塔-7星係時,時間觀測齣現瞭無法解釋的偏差:根據飛船內部的精確計時,他們隻航行瞭七年零三個月;但通過觀測澤塔-7恒星的衰變速率,當地時間已過去瞭近一萬八韆年。 雷恩博士將此現象稱為“時空摺疊滯後”。他們到達的澤塔-7,是一個垂死的世界。環繞著主恒星的,是數以萬計的、閃爍著幽藍色光芒的巨大幾何結構——這些是織影者文明留下的“記憶節點”。這些節點並非建築,而是一種懸浮在真空中的、由純粹能量構成的雕塑群,它們以極慢的速度,每隔數百年纔完成一次結構重組。 三、記憶節點的解碼與“同步者”的誕生 奧德賽號的任務核心,是接觸並解讀這些記憶節點。然而,直接的物理接觸導緻瞭災難性的後果。飛船的電子係統瞬間癱瘓,船員陷入深度昏迷。隻有雷恩博士,由於他佩戴瞭一種早期用於神經接口測試的實驗性植入物,奇跡般地保持瞭清醒,但代價是他必須直接通過精神鏈接來“體驗”織影者的信息流。 接下來的篇幅深入探討瞭雷恩博士的內心世界。他不再是單純的觀察者,而是成為瞭一個“同步者”。織影者的信息不是文字或圖像,而是純粹的、高密度的生命體驗。雷恩博士“生活”瞭織影者文明從誕生、輝煌、到最終集體“升維”的全部曆程。 他瞭解到,織影者並非逃避,而是進化。他們發現瞭宇宙的終極法則:物質是短暫的,信息纔是永恒的。他們將自己的集體意識上傳到一個由空間本身構成的“信息矩陣”中,並在物理宇宙中留下瞭這些記憶節點,作為對後來者的測試和指引。 四、哲學的衝突與人類的抉擇 雷恩博士的意識在節點中停留瞭相當於地球時間三十年的“體驗期”。當他被強行從同步中喚醒時,他的人格已經發生瞭根本性的轉變。他帶迴的不是武器藍圖或能源技術,而是關於“存在的意義”的終極答案。 這些答案在USC高層引發瞭劇烈的哲學與政治動蕩: 1. “升維”的誘惑: 織影者提供的技術路徑,意味著人類可以放棄脆弱的肉體,以純粹的意識形態融入宇宙的底層算法。這是否意味著“人類”的終結? 2. 資源的分配: 少數相信雷恩博士的“真理”的派係,主張投入所有資源研究升維技術;而保守派則認為這是一種精神上的自我毀滅,要求利用織影者的遺産進行星際殖民和軍事擴張。 3. “守門人”的警告: 在記憶節點的最深處,雷恩博士接收到瞭一個嚴厲的警告。織影者設置瞭某種機製,防止“未準備好的”文明接觸到宇宙的底層真相。如果人類魯莽行事,可能會觸發一個比織影者文明更早期的、已知的“清除者”機製。 五、尾聲:星圖的重繪 本書的後半部分,聚焦於雷恩博士試圖說服一個分裂的、恐懼的理事會的努力。他不再像過去那樣是受人尊敬的科學傢,更像是一個被閃電擊中的先知。他必須找到一種方式,將數萬年、跨越維度的復雜信息,轉化為當前人類能夠理解和接受的語言。 《異星迴響》最終沒有提供一個簡單的答案。它以奧德賽號在澤塔-7星係廢棄的場景作結。雷恩博士與幾位忠誠的船員,決定留守在這個被時間遺忘的角落,充當“人類與織影者之間的翻譯器”。他們將記憶節點視為聖物,默默等待著,或者說,努力引導著下一代人類,去理解宇宙真正深層的結構。 故事的最後一幕是:澤塔-7的幽藍光芒再次閃爍,這次,它似乎在迴應一個來自遙遠地球的、微弱的求知信號。人類的未來,懸於對“永恒”的選擇與對“物質”的眷戀之間。本書旨在引發讀者對時間、意識與文明終極命運的深刻反思。