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Ice Haven
Welcome to Ice Haven! “It’s not as cold here as it sounds,” declares Random Wilder, our reluctant guide to this sleepy Midwestern town. He’s also its would-be poet laureate. Would-be, that is, were it not for the “florid banalities” of his archrival, Ida Wentz, published ad nauseam in the Ice Haven Daily Progress. Among Wilder’s other fellow Ice Havians are the lovelorn Violet Vanderplazt and Vida Wentz; the adorable interracial moppets Carmichael and Paula; the Blue Bunny, newly sprung from prison and the bitterest rabbit in town; and poor little David Goldberg, missing for more than a week now. . . .
The lives of the men and women of Ice Haven are woven into a multilayered tale that, while it owes a debt to Our Town, is ultimately based on and inspired by . . . Leopold and Loeb. No kidding.
Only Daniel Clowes could do it and, luckily for us, he has.
The lives of the men and women of Ice Haven are woven into a multilayered tale that, while it owes a debt to Our Town, is ultimately based on and inspired by . . . Leopold and Loeb. No kidding.
Only Daniel Clowes could do it and, luckily for us, he has.
88 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
23 people are currently reading
2064 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Clowes
105 books1,900 followersDaniel Clowes is an American cartoonist, graphic novelist, illustrator, and screenwriter whose work helped define the landscape of alternative comics and bring the medium into mainstream literary conversation. Rising to prominence through his long-running anthology Eightball, he used its pages to blend acidic humor, social observation, surrealism, and character-driven storytelling, producing serials that later became acclaimed graphic novels including Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, Ghost World, David Boring, Ice Haven, and Patience. His illustrations have appeared in major publications such as The New Yorker, Vogue, and The Village Voice, while his collaborations with filmmaker Terry Zwigoff resulted in the films Ghost World and Art School Confidential, the former earning widespread praise and an Academy Award nomination for its screenplay. Clowes began honing his voice in the 1980s with contributions to Cracked and with his Lloyd Llewellyn stories for Fantagraphics, but it was Eightball, launched in 1989, that showcased the full range of his interests, from deadpan satire to psychological drama. Known for blending kitsch, grotesquerie, and a deep love of mid-century American pop culture, he helped shape the sensibilities of a generation of cartoonists and became a central figure in the shift toward graphic novels being treated as serious literature. His post-Eightball books continued this evolution, with works like Wilson, Mister Wonderful, The Death-Ray, and the recent Monica exploring aging, identity, longing, and the complexities of relationships, often through inventive visual structures that echo the history of newspaper comics. Clowes has also been active in music and design, creating artwork for Sub Pop bands, the Ramones, and other artists, and contributing to film posters, New Yorker covers, and Criterion Collection releases. His work has earned dozens of honors, including multiple Harvey and Eisner Awards, a Pen Award for Outstanding Body of Work in Graphic Literature, an Inkpot Award, and the prestigious Fauve d’Or at Angoulême. Exhibitions of his original art have appeared across the United States and internationally, with a major retrospective, Modern Cartoonist: The Art of Daniel Clowes, touring museums beginning in 2012. His screenplay work extended beyond Ghost World to projects like Art School Confidential and Wilson, and he has long been a touchstone for discussions about Generation X culture, alternative comics, and the shifting boundaries between the literary and graphic arts.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 280 reviews
November 14, 2014
Daniel Clowes's version of Winesburg, Ohio features the dull Midwestopia Ice Haven, and its many sad, sad citizens. The plot revolves around a kidnapped tyke, a crime which may or may not have been inspired by a child abduction that ended in murder fifty years before. This slice of small-town excitement serves as a shaggy impetus for letting the reader play voyeur in the lives of a lazy and untalented poet, a bitter convenience store clerk, an unhappily married pair of private eyes (i.e. Nick and Nora minus the laughs), a ground-zero pubescent who lusts after his older step-sister with Shakespearian gusto, a droll comic-book critic, an unhappy teen who marries her out-of-town beau in secret and a neurotic twenty-something who has ambitions of being the next big literary-something, just as soon as she can find someone who will actually read any of her self-published zines. Another fine comic from Clowes, featuring his love for utilizing throwback comic techniques of decades before and his understanding of the human condition in all its hopelessness and awkwardness.
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May 31, 2016Over a couple weeks in the summer of 2005, I:
1) Quit my job
2) Bought this book
3) Went on vacation to the Jersey Shore with my friend
4) Read this book, on the beach (enjoyed it!)
5) Came home and returned this book to Barnes & Noble because I was unemployed and needed the money back.
It was kind of a great time.
The B&N Lending Library, I called it. "It's okay because they're hardcover!"
This was not the only time that I did such a thing, and it's not that this is an ethically wonderful idea that I would recommend. But if what you really feel you've got to do is take that brand new book on vacation, and you've got bigger problems with no health insurance or credit card, I would say that, well, have a great time. It's hardcover.
1) Quit my job
2) Bought this book
3) Went on vacation to the Jersey Shore with my friend
4) Read this book, on the beach (enjoyed it!)
5) Came home and returned this book to Barnes & Noble because I was unemployed and needed the money back.
It was kind of a great time.
The B&N Lending Library, I called it. "It's okay because they're hardcover!"
This was not the only time that I did such a thing, and it's not that this is an ethically wonderful idea that I would recommend. But if what you really feel you've got to do is take that brand new book on vacation, and you've got bigger problems with no health insurance or credit card, I would say that, well, have a great time. It's hardcover.
March 30, 2009
Co-worker saw me reading this over lunch and commented "oh, some high-level reading, huh?" because it's got, y'know, pictures. Never mind that it's actually written for adults, making it maybe a higher level book than 80% of what I've been reading anyway. Grumble.
Because Dan Clowes is not an easy, breezy read. Ice Haven has a pretty large cast, all of whom have their own individual dramas going on, and every drama is given the same weight--from the parents whose son has been missing for a week to the boy in love with his new stepsister. It's not as linear a story as Ghost World, but it's all interconnected, making this one long comic-strip narrative rather than a bunch of separate stories.
I wouldn't be me if I didn't have one complaint, and that's that Clowes' lettering is so tiny and his comics so wordy that it can sometimes be difficult to decipher. There was one panel I stared at for a long time, trying to figure out why a woman responded to bad news by clutching her husband and crying "oh, my god, tacos!", before realizing that the all-capped "TACOS" was actually "JACOB."
Because Dan Clowes is not an easy, breezy read. Ice Haven has a pretty large cast, all of whom have their own individual dramas going on, and every drama is given the same weight--from the parents whose son has been missing for a week to the boy in love with his new stepsister. It's not as linear a story as Ghost World, but it's all interconnected, making this one long comic-strip narrative rather than a bunch of separate stories.
I wouldn't be me if I didn't have one complaint, and that's that Clowes' lettering is so tiny and his comics so wordy that it can sometimes be difficult to decipher. There was one panel I stared at for a long time, trying to figure out why a woman responded to bad news by clutching her husband and crying "oh, my god, tacos!", before realizing that the all-capped "TACOS" was actually "JACOB."
January 16, 2024
Think Thornton Wilder's Our Town as a comic. A really nice 'slice' of small town pie; all the things that go on even as the world spins round an round. Daniel Clowes rips the 'Band-Aids' off; lots of psychic wounds that never healed are left to fester - some will never heal - some will only fester into the next generation.
January 1, 2022
Ice Haven tells the story of the disappearance of David Goldberg and how it impacts the small town of Ice Haven, told in loosely connected comic strips.
I'm a Daniel Clowes fan and my wife bought this for me for Christmas at the last minute after discovering she'd bought me a book I already have.
So who kidnapped David Goldberg and is he still alive? That's what the people of Ice Haven want to know. Or at least they enjoy talking about it. The individual stories are mostly slice of life tales with the kidnapping of David Goldberg mentioned or simply lurking in the periphery. There are a couple poets, an art critic, a boy in love with his stepsister, a girl in a long distance relationship, and a husband and wife detective team whose marriage may or may not be circling the drain.
A book about the Leopold and Loeb kidnapping is used as a plot device of sorts, partly because of the kidnapping that drives the book and partly because Clowes grew up not far from the Leopold and Loeb kidnapping. The fate of David Goldberg comes out of nowhere, making me want to reread the book in the future to look for clues.
Ice Haven is charming, strange book, like most of Clowes' work. Four out of five stars.
I'm a Daniel Clowes fan and my wife bought this for me for Christmas at the last minute after discovering she'd bought me a book I already have.
So who kidnapped David Goldberg and is he still alive? That's what the people of Ice Haven want to know. Or at least they enjoy talking about it. The individual stories are mostly slice of life tales with the kidnapping of David Goldberg mentioned or simply lurking in the periphery. There are a couple poets, an art critic, a boy in love with his stepsister, a girl in a long distance relationship, and a husband and wife detective team whose marriage may or may not be circling the drain.
A book about the Leopold and Loeb kidnapping is used as a plot device of sorts, partly because of the kidnapping that drives the book and partly because Clowes grew up not far from the Leopold and Loeb kidnapping. The fate of David Goldberg comes out of nowhere, making me want to reread the book in the future to look for clues.
Ice Haven is charming, strange book, like most of Clowes' work. Four out of five stars.
February 6, 2017
Presented as a series of “Sunday comics” style vignettes, this interconnected story of kidnapping, unrequited love, art, and the psycho-sexual drama in Small Town America is WAY more complex and thought-provoking than its short 81 pages would lead you to believe. A dark portrait of suburban ennui that poses more questions than it answers, while still feeling satisfying by the end. It had me enraptured the entire time.
August 15, 2019
Only 88 pages and yet captures the lives of ten anti-heroes in the quaint hamlet of Ice Haven. Oh, and in this short content contains possible murder, throwbacks to Leopold and Loeb, multiple narratives that twist and stumble over each other, misanthropes, misfits, underachievers, loners, introverts, oddballs, and wanderers...personality traits of a trademark Daniel Clowes graphic novel.
And like every other Clowes graphic novel, I relished every grotesque minute of it. I highly recommend reading this one twice to really get into the depth of the mystery of this bizarre town and it’s eccentric citizens.
And like every other Clowes graphic novel, I relished every grotesque minute of it. I highly recommend reading this one twice to really get into the depth of the mystery of this bizarre town and it’s eccentric citizens.
July 21, 2020
4.5 stars/5 (Goodreads when you gonna add half stars, buddy)
Ice Haven by Daniel Clowes was so close to being a masterpiece. It has all the elements I look for in a comic. Smart writing, great art and a clear understanding and stretching of the formal elements of the medium. The only thing about Ice Haven that stops it from being this is how unsatisfactory the conclusion of it all is. I really expected it to wrap up in a more satisfying and clear way. I’m sure upon further rereading and analyzation it becomes more clear, but for the most part I thought the strips connected loosely instead of tightly. I would’ve wanted more connection.
Other than that though, I really enjoyed reading this. The idea of doing interconnected comic strips about a small town is pretty awesome. I loved how Clowes gave each character their own visual style, and of course he utilized each style to its maximum potential. The varying panel sizes and strip lengths are awesome with no strip being more than 4 pages. I loved the connections Clowes provided for these strips, and I guess he made the connections loose because of the standalone nature of each strip, but I still would’ve liked them to be more connected.
9/10
Ice Haven by Daniel Clowes was so close to being a masterpiece. It has all the elements I look for in a comic. Smart writing, great art and a clear understanding and stretching of the formal elements of the medium. The only thing about Ice Haven that stops it from being this is how unsatisfactory the conclusion of it all is. I really expected it to wrap up in a more satisfying and clear way. I’m sure upon further rereading and analyzation it becomes more clear, but for the most part I thought the strips connected loosely instead of tightly. I would’ve wanted more connection.
Other than that though, I really enjoyed reading this. The idea of doing interconnected comic strips about a small town is pretty awesome. I loved how Clowes gave each character their own visual style, and of course he utilized each style to its maximum potential. The varying panel sizes and strip lengths are awesome with no strip being more than 4 pages. I loved the connections Clowes provided for these strips, and I guess he made the connections loose because of the standalone nature of each strip, but I still would’ve liked them to be more connected.
9/10
January 7, 2022
Read my first Daniel Clowes book, and it was a joy. I found this very small hardcover for just 5 euro's and i think that was a steel, i Have seen this one for crazy summs of money, its ridicoulous. Now on to the story. Ice Haven is a group of interconnected comic strips with many characters, but togeter follow a coherent story (sort of) you have a unsuccesfull poet, two small boys, one in love with his his step-sister, two detectives, a visitor in town and many more, they all have desires and dreams and sorrows, and alot of them you see in each others comic strips making the story more layered and better as you put the pieces together. Its also very meta, with someone explaning the book itself and also being a character in the book. The style and artwork are great and the retro feel is a delight, this wont be my final Clowes, thats for sure! Its offbeat humor and dryness are great and i love Clowes overall style and work he puts in, this really is a great small graphic novel (around 80 pages)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ stars.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ stars.
March 7, 2018
Yawn :(
May 1, 2021
This one was ok. I shall write myself in the review like the "comic book critic" character did at the end:
I tend to avoid Clowes but the combination of basement price, number of pages, his lack of being bad and being the right size to help fill out the mass-market paperback height shelf on one of my cases got this book in my life.
I worried that I would avoid it or ditch it half-way because it's barely unified but he used that to his advantage for the way I read.
Here is my take on how this book came to be:
1. He couldn't come up with a full story for the life of him,
2. He thought "I'll adapt something",
3. The Leopold and Loeb case came to mind,
4. He just couldn't gel it,
= he did a bunch of two pagers about people unified by that type of situation.
He did the characters well but the story was barely there at all.
He even jumped off the plot and into a rabbit-faced man just out of jail and killing cops while doing the "White Heat" (Cagney) bit because the story was so loose that he could get away with it.
I tend to avoid Clowes but the combination of basement price, number of pages, his lack of being bad and being the right size to help fill out the mass-market paperback height shelf on one of my cases got this book in my life.
I worried that I would avoid it or ditch it half-way because it's barely unified but he used that to his advantage for the way I read.
Here is my take on how this book came to be:
1. He couldn't come up with a full story for the life of him,
2. He thought "I'll adapt something",
3. The Leopold and Loeb case came to mind,
4. He just couldn't gel it,
= he did a bunch of two pagers about people unified by that type of situation.
He did the characters well but the story was barely there at all.
He even jumped off the plot and into a rabbit-faced man just out of jail and killing cops while doing the "White Heat" (Cagney) bit because the story was so loose that he could get away with it.
January 22, 2018
I don't think I have it in me to review anything by Daniel Clowes. It's always a fabulous, surreal, and every other emotion experience to read his works. The same goes for Ice Haven. I liked it less than I did Ghost World or Death Ray, but it has its distinct charms, each so well put on paper that the reader can't help but be in awe of Clowes' genius.
One question: why is the font so small???
One question: why is the font so small???
October 5, 2007
I enjoyed this more than Ghost World and much more than Twentieth Century Eightball. There was more cohesion and meat to this story than the other two of Clowes' that I have read. The reader meets an array of characters from the city of Ice Haven and through their individual yet connected stories, a crime is solved during the course of the book.
July 15, 2021
I keep falling for graphic novels.
September 30, 2023
Had to read twice for a class on literature about crime... I am proud of story's wit but there is something so masculine and predatory about the main male protagonists that I just couldn't stand ("it was on purpose" - sure, but if I can tell a man wrote the book in this situation, it didn't work out too well). Also I found all the talk about the actual author of the book to be obnoxious.
Pretty good resolution to the story, though
Pretty good resolution to the story, though
January 28, 2015
Sono d'accordo con Clowes: la poesia non ha speranze se confrontata con le volgarità che grondano dai media e a cui ci si assuefa più facilmente che al più puro degli endecasillabi.
Il mio vicino di casa potrebbe essere il più grande poeta vivente ma quali concrete possibilità ha di dimostrarlo? Dovrebbe rapire un bambino e poi scrivere una lettera di riscatto in versi, nell'auspicio che Federica Sciarelli, Salvo Sottile o Barbara D'Urso la leggano davanti alle telecamere.
L'unica strada è che la poesia si appropri di quel linguaggio, di quei temi, diventi essa stessa volgare, violenta, guardona o anche narcisa, egoriferita, non sia ipocrita e dica in faccia quello che pensa (questo, soprattutto), partecipi a qualche reality, ne sia impietosa commentatrice da studio, apra quindi una pagina su facebook e scriva stronzate su goodreads, discutendo infine se stessa.
Quando il processo di trasformazione sarà completato, non la si distinguerà più dalle penose vicende, cronache, dichiarazioni, interviste che ci assediano ogni giorno.
Tutto sarà poesia.
Il mio vicino di casa potrebbe essere il più grande poeta vivente ma quali concrete possibilità ha di dimostrarlo? Dovrebbe rapire un bambino e poi scrivere una lettera di riscatto in versi, nell'auspicio che Federica Sciarelli, Salvo Sottile o Barbara D'Urso la leggano davanti alle telecamere.
L'unica strada è che la poesia si appropri di quel linguaggio, di quei temi, diventi essa stessa volgare, violenta, guardona o anche narcisa, egoriferita, non sia ipocrita e dica in faccia quello che pensa (questo, soprattutto), partecipi a qualche reality, ne sia impietosa commentatrice da studio, apra quindi una pagina su facebook e scriva stronzate su goodreads, discutendo infine se stessa.
Quando il processo di trasformazione sarà completato, non la si distinguerà più dalle penose vicende, cronache, dichiarazioni, interviste che ci assediano ogni giorno.
Tutto sarà poesia.
February 4, 2023
It was alright.
It's very clear to me that Mr. Clowes loves his characters and put a lot of work into each of their personalities and designs, but I really really really wish he took some of that love and applied it to the plot of Ice Haven. The illustrations are wonderful and the dialogue is witty, but the choppy pacing combined with the loose plot made for a muddled and unsatisfying read.
Carmichael and Charles were such interesting characters and I was really invested in their stories, but then I suddenly had to read about a neanderthal murdering another neanderthal? And a crude, violent, Krusty-The-Clown-esque bunny man? Why craft such unique and compelling characters and then neglect their plots in favor of random comics that have nothing to do with the overarching themes of the book? What an odd read.
It's very clear to me that Mr. Clowes loves his characters and put a lot of work into each of their personalities and designs, but I really really really wish he took some of that love and applied it to the plot of Ice Haven. The illustrations are wonderful and the dialogue is witty, but the choppy pacing combined with the loose plot made for a muddled and unsatisfying read.
Carmichael and Charles were such interesting characters and I was really invested in their stories, but then I suddenly had to read about a neanderthal murdering another neanderthal? And a crude, violent, Krusty-The-Clown-esque bunny man? Why craft such unique and compelling characters and then neglect their plots in favor of random comics that have nothing to do with the overarching themes of the book? What an odd read.
May 16, 2024
Desperate Housewives in comic form. The book is ostensibly about a kidnapping set in a suburban town, narrated in fragments from the point of view of several different townspeople and a few visitors. The neuroses of each character are laid bare. Black humour and situational irony recur throughout. The characters are disturbing, violent, abusive and all too real. The interludes are darkly funny in their own way. I knew I was going to enjoy Ice Haven right from page 4 — a verbose 2 am-pee-break-monologue about comics as an art form by the one townsperson who breaks the fourth wall multiple times over the course of the book.
January 16, 2017
As many others have noted, Clowes enters Sherwood Anderson territory here in this multi-narrative exploration of the woebegone citizens of Ice Haven. While there are some piercing moments here--the last three pages in particular--this is also pretty well-traveled ground--the sad lives of mundane middle-Americans (although the Leopold and Loeb motif is a dark wrinkle). I was most intrigued by the piece's formal elements, the novel told in individual comic strips done in various styles that serve as homages to (pastiches of?) other classic strips, the Peanuts being one obvious example.
June 25, 2007
found this at a thrift store, totally stoked to read it. yeah two dollars fifteen cents!
December 25, 2012
God damn do I love this dude. This weird unhappy creeper of a dude. So perfect.
November 11, 2018
Disturbing, funny, and complex! Clowes' characters often come from central casting (delusionally romantic teenage girls, creepy adolescent bullies, bitterly unsuccessful poets), but he always manages to round them out – at least a little. Also, his drawing style has a retro comic-book-y look that's quite appealing.
August 25, 2020
I enjoyed this one. Short enough to read in one sitting.
It’s a series of interlocking stories. He did well to create a sense of longing and rebellion in the many characters.
Some of the stories have a different style of art work which makes it interesting, and the coloring, with faded colors also appealed to the eye.
Great book.
It’s a series of interlocking stories. He did well to create a sense of longing and rebellion in the many characters.
Some of the stories have a different style of art work which makes it interesting, and the coloring, with faded colors also appealed to the eye.
Great book.
January 16, 2022
Hilarious
September 18, 2024
I might like this one more than Ghost World! (Hot take)
May 13, 2020
The world depicted in this (apparently small-town USA) is very unfamiliar to me, so I feel like I'm not in on the joke. At least it's short.
Read
January 26, 2025do you think the author likes me personally
April 1, 2025
Can see how this influenced Drnaso's 'Beverly'... RTC.
December 24, 2008
Finished "Ice Haven".
It meanders between being brilliant and being annoyingly (dare I say) "emo". The most interesting characters to me are ones that seem to come and go in short spurts, whereas the ones that are showcased are very annoying, whiny people.
Perhaps it's because I've never been able to sympathize with that teenage attitude of self-importance, thinking they know everything there is to know about the world and that everyone owes them something. But Violet's abuse towards her parents doesn't have any grounds to feel justified, and her romance with this guy Penrod is almost pathetic in its naivité.
This is why I find the characters in the movie Ghost World to be loathsome creatures, and why I don't think I'd much like the graphic novel on which it's based. That whole "everyone in the world is stupid and lame except me" attitude is so repulsive, I can't imagine feeling close to these characters who are so miserable and mean.
A poignantly sad moment for Charles raised it up a few notches for me, but I still wasn't in love with it. I suppose in Clowes' attempt to create a real, vibrant town, there certainly have to be some people you don't like...but not liking a character, and not wanting to read about them at all are two different things. I felt the latter towards several of them.
I also didn't like Clowes' random descents into intellectualism, where he suddenly increases his vocabulary to a point where he seems to be trying to impress scholars more than he is trying to tell a story.
Anyways, it was pretty good, nothing great. I'd like to read more of Clowes' work, but I'm not in any rush to do so.
EDIT...
I actually felt the stories of the caveman and the blue bunny fit in perfectly. They were great metatextual pieces that both echoed and enhanced certain very important emotions in the story, which in some cases were blatant and others were boiling subtley under the surface.
The more I think about the book, the more I think I loved it.
Like I said about 2 or 3 posts back, my hating some of the characters is very much part of Clowes' creation of a fictional town. When you think of a real town, not everyone there is a wonderful, happy, sympathic character whom you'd love to spend time with. There are lots of self-centered assholes in the world, so he was reflecting that realistically in his portrayal of this little microcosm.
I think I'll bump my rating up.
It meanders between being brilliant and being annoyingly (dare I say) "emo". The most interesting characters to me are ones that seem to come and go in short spurts, whereas the ones that are showcased are very annoying, whiny people.
Perhaps it's because I've never been able to sympathize with that teenage attitude of self-importance, thinking they know everything there is to know about the world and that everyone owes them something. But Violet's abuse towards her parents doesn't have any grounds to feel justified, and her romance with this guy Penrod is almost pathetic in its naivité.
This is why I find the characters in the movie Ghost World to be loathsome creatures, and why I don't think I'd much like the graphic novel on which it's based. That whole "everyone in the world is stupid and lame except me" attitude is so repulsive, I can't imagine feeling close to these characters who are so miserable and mean.
A poignantly sad moment for Charles raised it up a few notches for me, but I still wasn't in love with it. I suppose in Clowes' attempt to create a real, vibrant town, there certainly have to be some people you don't like...but not liking a character, and not wanting to read about them at all are two different things. I felt the latter towards several of them.
I also didn't like Clowes' random descents into intellectualism, where he suddenly increases his vocabulary to a point where he seems to be trying to impress scholars more than he is trying to tell a story.
Anyways, it was pretty good, nothing great. I'd like to read more of Clowes' work, but I'm not in any rush to do so.
EDIT...
I actually felt the stories of the caveman and the blue bunny fit in perfectly. They were great metatextual pieces that both echoed and enhanced certain very important emotions in the story, which in some cases were blatant and others were boiling subtley under the surface.
The more I think about the book, the more I think I loved it.
Like I said about 2 or 3 posts back, my hating some of the characters is very much part of Clowes' creation of a fictional town. When you think of a real town, not everyone there is a wonderful, happy, sympathic character whom you'd love to spend time with. There are lots of self-centered assholes in the world, so he was reflecting that realistically in his portrayal of this little microcosm.
I think I'll bump my rating up.
December 8, 2018
I read Patience by Daniel Clowes, and though I liked the art, the story was just OK. I decided to give him a second chance, and I am glad I did. I enjoyed Ice Haven much more. The art is still gorgeous, beautifully rendered, inched and colored. But here, the story is much better. Small town, sad people, someone said, and indeed, the town and the folks who live there are seen from a bleak point of view. There's your loner weirdo wanna-be poet, who secretly resents (no, hates!) the cheerful poetess who lives next door and is much more successful than him. There are the kids: two boys who are kind of friends and like the same girl, the girl who is kinds of oblivious and does ballet, and the weirdo kid who gets kidnapped. There are the detective couple who come into town to find the boy who was kidnapped. The male detective tells his life like it is some noir novel, focused professionally on the job, yet with disturbing emotional outbursts, no doubt brought on by the incessant avoidance game he's playing, trying to avoid his problems with his wife. The female detective, on the other hand, is bored and trapped by the job, always trying (and, hint hint, succeeding) to escape it. There's the teenager who's having a relationship with an older man. There's her new step-brother, who is one of the kids in town and is in love with her. There's the "perfect murder" of a teenager 50 years prior.
With these characters loosely centered around the kidnapping, Clowes paints the picture with careful, sometimes hilarious, and sometimes bleak mini-strips. Perhaps the most captivating and expert instances are the kids, interacting with each other, philosophizing about life and desire, plotting against each other, all the while experiencing a rather stunted set of communication skills.
Clowes goes meta by including the comic book critic, who "explains" what Clowes might be trying to do in his stories, which I found hilarious. The comic himself lives int he town and is under suspicion for the kidnapping, of course, because he works on comics (for kids, right?)
Overall, Ice Haven is an astute and incisive look at the small town and perhaps the human condition. Recommended for those who like cookies, motel rooms, zines, convenience stores, and reading on the toilet.
With these characters loosely centered around the kidnapping, Clowes paints the picture with careful, sometimes hilarious, and sometimes bleak mini-strips. Perhaps the most captivating and expert instances are the kids, interacting with each other, philosophizing about life and desire, plotting against each other, all the while experiencing a rather stunted set of communication skills.
Clowes goes meta by including the comic book critic, who "explains" what Clowes might be trying to do in his stories, which I found hilarious. The comic himself lives int he town and is under suspicion for the kidnapping, of course, because he works on comics (for kids, right?)
Overall, Ice Haven is an astute and incisive look at the small town and perhaps the human condition. Recommended for those who like cookies, motel rooms, zines, convenience stores, and reading on the toilet.
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