Derf Backderf's latest graphic novel, "Trashed," follows on a theme found in his two previous books -- "Punk Rock and Trailer Parks" and the acclaimed and controversial "My Friend Dahmer" -- the general weirdness and eccentric personalities of small town America. In "Trashed," Derf, whose real name is John Backderf, recalls and fictionalizes his time working on a garbage truck in 1979-1980.

Through the eyes of his thinly veiled alter-ego J.B., Derf unrolls a raunchy tale of working class stiffs finding ways to entertain themselves while toiling in the most invisible labor force possible. There are dead animal carcass pranks, humorless bosses, and plenty of uncomfortable civilian encounters to fuel the antics of the truck crew.

RELATED: Conversing on Comics with Derf Backderf

And because Derf doesn't want readers to come away with only an entertaining ride on the trash truck, he deftly weaves a veritable ton of information about U.S. trash consumption and disposal into his narrative. Once you leave your trash on the curb, you forget it, but it's still out there and it's growing more immense every day.

CBR News caught up to Derf to discuss "Trashed," which went on sale this week from Abrams ComicArts. He also talks about working class doldrums, how our diapers outlast our children and moving on from a colossal hit like "Dahmer."

CBR News: Derf, how long did your tenure as a garbage man last?

Derf Backderf: One year total. That was enough. For a while there, at age 19, it seemed like there was no end in sight.

You touched on this part of your life in the past -- a 2002 comic book version of "Trashed" from SLG. When did you realize that that era of your life was ripe for a richer telling?

After the first floppy came out and was so well received (it got me my first Eisner nomination), I decided to do more garbage truck stories. I would have gotten to it sooner, but I was diagnosed with cancer right after the first "Trashed" was released (probably thanks to all the toxic crap on the truck!), so that cost me four years, and by that time, I had other books I wanted to tackle first.

"Trashed" became a side project, which I released as webcomic episodes after finishing my first two books, "Punk Rock & Trailer Parks" and "My Friend Dahmer." I did it just for fun, to cleanse the creative palette after a long, hard slog on a graphic novel. With the webcomic, I brought the story up to the present day and made it fiction, so I had more freedom to write and because, frankly, the memoir was pretty far in the rearview mirror. Actually, I was planning to just continue it as a webcomic and collect it as a book sometime down the road. It was my editor at Abrams, Charlie Kochman, who said, "Hell no, let's do it as a book right now."

"Trashed" is considered fiction, but the characters and situations are so vivid and remind me of jobs I worked when I was a teen in rural America. How heavily did you draw from your trash-collecting experience? Were any specific characters or instances close to reality?

The two main characters, J.B. and Mike, are very close to their real-life counterparts, one of which is me, at least personality-wise. Their back stories, however, are fiction. My favorite character in the book is the psycho hipster, Magee. He's loosely inspired by someone I knew, but I've changed him quite a bit, and the real dude didn't work with me on the truck. So really, he's a completely fictional creation. The humorless foreman Wile E. is an amalgamation of all such bosses I had as a young guy working in crap jobs, from a grocery store to the garbage crew to temp work. I took bits of each and made a character. That's what I tend to do when creating fictional characters, start with someone real, then add traits and quirks and twist and mold the characters to give me what I need for the story. It's a method that's worked well for me.

Now the stuff that happens on the truck, all that comes from experience. I change the episodes a little bit to better fit the narrative, but, yeah, that's what it's like on a garbage crew.

RELATED: Derf Shares the Story of "My Friend Dahmer"

Mixed amid J.B.'s story, you provide readers with a lot of facts about our trash consumption. Once the garbage hits the curb, we really do forget all about it and many of us don't realize what a major problem all this trash is. It's a major downside to a consumerist culture, isn't it, and nobody realizes how bad it is?

That's the "message" of the book, to show people just how bad it is, because I think that's fascinating, and because folks just have no clue. None. And I only really show a little part of it. In reality, it's much worse than I portray it! I think every American should be forced to spend a day in a municipal landfill, surrounded on all sides by mountains of reeking trash and sinking up to your knees in garbage. That's really the only way to understand what we're dealing with, or rather, not dealing with. We're just burying the problem. Literally.

But I don't want people to think this is some dry, preachy textbook. It's really, at its heart, a raucous comic epic about crap jobs, the bleak future for Millennials, and small town weirdness -- and this crazy job of garbage collection. It's a fun read, with some great characters, I think. It's a combination of stupid fun and the serious, which is kind of my trademark. It's great that so many reviewers are taken with the serious part of it, but it's really just some factual material I wove into the narrative. My prime goal was to craft a fun read.

You certainly accomplished that. I very much enjoyed the dynamic between the various public service departments and the crossing over of their work duties, the gross-out pranks, the eccentric personalities. No surprise that so many of these moments stuck with you, is it?

In my experience, the only thing that makes a dead-end job really interesting is the interplay between people. The other characters in the Village Service Dept. are, to some degree, archetypes, although they all have a few quirks that make them a little less predictable. Frankly, there were a lot of archetypes in the string of dead-end jobs I had in high school and college, so I thought that was a more truthful way to go, rather than making everyone exceptional in some way.

But on the consumer trash thing again, you really make us parents with diaper-wearing kids feel really guilty. You know that, right?

Well, if it's any consolation, using a diaper service and cloth diapers really isn't any greener, when you factor in the diaper trucks and gas, and the chemicals they use to clean dirty diapers. The real issue is that disposable diapers aren't designed to decompose in less than 400 years. That's the main thing with our garbage problem. Until we're smarter as a voracious consumer society, and we don't demand that stuff be made with disposal in mind, our trash will just keep rising up all around us. My favorite factoid that drives this home is that almost a third of the garbage we send to the landfill, the largest single part, is packaging and containers, mostly plastic. In other words, the largest part of our crap is the crap our crap comes in! How nuts is that?

The theme I found most interesting about J.B.'s time in sanitation is his invisibility. It's not just the trash itself that we forget about. Unless something goes wrong or a citizen can't take advantage of the system (nobody wants to wait for appliance day!), nobody seems to realize that he's even there.

Yeah, that's something I remember very clearly. I stopped being a human being when I was on the truck. People were either yelling at us or ignoring us completely. I recall pulling up to a house and a girl I'd known since kindergarten was backing out the driveway. I said hi, even called her by name, and she just stared at me blankly. No recognition whatsoever! She looked panicked that a garbageman was even talking to her.

After the praise and profile surrounding "My Friend Dahmer," do you feel any extra pressure on this book?

No, because I'm an old pro, some would say a grizzled warhorse, not a creator just starting out. I had 30 years of comix career behind me when "My Friend Dahmer" was released. I always knew it would be my best known work, if and when I convinced a publisher to take it on, and I wasn't really intimidated by that, because I figure, hey, it's better to have a best known work than not to have one. I'm never going to top "MFD" -- hell, I probably won't even ever do a book like it, so I didn't really worry about topping it. If "MFD" had been my first work when I was 23, yeah, that would have been a tough act to follow. At 50, I figured I just do another book and another and pretty soon "MFD" will be behind me. I was already thinking of these things when I decided to do "Punk Rock & Trailer Parks" as my first book. First, I needed to ramp my storytelling skills way the hell up, and "PR&TP" did just that, and secondly I wanted to have a first book out there when "MFD" hit.

That was the appeal of "Trashed" when Charlie suggested it as the next book. I'm familiar with the characters and setting and it's easy, and fun, to write. Most of the story was already mapped out, as future web-episodes. And, best of all, everyone has always liked my garbage tales. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made for "Trashed" to be the follow up.

And now it's done, and that's no longer an issue. The nice thing is, my audience is a lot bigger after "MFD" than it was before "MFD."

You worked on a weekly strip, "The City," that ran in alternative newspapers for over two decades, but you recently ended the strip to focus on graphic novels. I imagine it's a different working experience -- less feedback, more isolated -- creating full graphic novels. What sorts of pros and cons have you found working in this new form?

There are no cons! My career has totally taken off since I dropped the mic and walked away from newspapers. I would have abandoned the strip earlier, except I was still making decent money off it up until the final year. I should have closed it down anyways. Once "My Friend Dahmer" blew up, that sealed it. I just didn't have time to waste on newspaper strips anymore. I could have taken it online like the other creators did, but I was bored and wanted to play with a new genre. In truth, my books are a lot better than my strip ever was. Turns out I was working in the wrong field all along. Not that I regret it -- I had fun, and I'm proud of the strip and that body of work, even though it never achieved the lofty status of, say, Lynda Barry's or Matt Groening's. I had my fans, and I made a living at it for 20-plus years, which is something to be proud of, because that ain't easy.

But it's incredible to get this late-career reboot. That's a gift. I'm loving every second.

It seems like you thought about what was next following "Dahmer," but do you already know what's coming up after "Trashed?"

More books! "Work until you die," that's my motto. I'll spend the rest of the fall at various fests and cons promoting "Trashed," then head to France for Angoulême and what's shaping up as another a month-long European tour. When I return home, I'll sit down and decide on my next book. I have a few ideas.

"Trashed" is on sale now.