Wed 10/7 @ 7PM
Northeast Ohio graphic artist/storyteller John “Derf” Backderf has acquired an international reputation for such books as My Friend Dahmer, about his high school friendship with serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer; and Kent State, about the Kent State murders by the National Guard in 1970. For nearly 20 years, his comic The City (which often featured Cleveland landmarks and personalities), was syndicated to 150 papers across the country.
Derf now has a new graphic novel called Dissidents: Autocrats! Vigiliantes! Communists! and Cartoonists! It follows a group of young radicals in New York City the nineteen-teens who worked for a magazine called The Masses, including a character he’s invented of a young German immigrant to Cleveland who moves to New York. It looks at freedom of speech issues and government repression, which became elevated in the era of the Russian Revolution and pacifist resistance to World War I. The story will remind people anxious about government repression and censorship today that we have been here before — and fought back.
He’ll be hosting a book launch event, hosted by Mac’s Backs on Coventry, taking place at the Grog Shop in Coventry Village. It’s free and open to all.