In this 75% longer conversation with graphic novelist Derf Backderf, we dive deeper into Derf's origins as a student journalist; his immersion in Ohio's underground music scene, which inspired the book Punk Rock and Trailer Parks; and his popular alternative comic The City, which ran in over 75 weekly newspapers for 25 years.
Derf's early graphic novel Trashed, a fictionalized account of his time working as a garbage collector, was followed by the graphic memoir My Friend Dahmer, which caught the eye of Hollywood and was adapted into a feature film in 2017.
In 2021, Derf received the Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work for his book Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio. Inspired by the 50th anniversary of the shooting of unarmed students by the National Guard, Derf brought his research skills to this still-contentious subject, weaving in the threads of a local truckers' strike, the radicalization of the Students for a Democratic Society, and the chaotic birth of the avant-garde rock band DEVO.
The original broadcast version of this episode can be found at this link.
- KBOO