With the deployment of National Guard troops once again in the news, we revisit our August 2021 conversation with graphic novelist Derf Backderf.
Derf's graphic novel Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio won the 2021 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work. Inspired by the 50th anniversary of the shooting of unarmed students by the National Guard, Derf brings a native Ohioan's perspective to the events of 1970, 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.
Derf came to prominence in 1990 with his alternative comic The City, which ran in over 75 weekly newspapers for 25 years. Making the leap to graphic novels, he published the books Punk Rock and Trailer Parks and Trashed before his graphic memoir My Friend Dahmer caught the eye of Hollywood and was adapted into a feature film in 2017.
Derf sat down with S.W. Conser to spin wild tales of his punk rock days in Akron and Cleveland, his early forays into journalism, and his chance encounter as an art student hitching a ride with children's show host Fred Rogers.
- KBOO