Summary: Presents an offbeat tour of the sleepy Midwestern town of Ice Haven and its unusual inhabitants, including Random Wilder, the narrator and would-be poet laureate of the town; his arch-rival Ida Wentz; the lovelorn Violet Van der Plazt and Vida Wentz; and Mr. and Mrs. Ames, a detective team. - (Baker & Taylor)
Booklist Reviews
/*Starred Review*/ Already highly regarded in alternative-comics circles for such impressive works as Ghost World (1997), Clowes takes his game to another, higher level in Ice Haven, surely one of the most accomplished graphic novels in recent memory. It is a tour-de-force made up of 29 interconnecting stories rendered in styles varying from mock documentary to pseudo-Peanuts, all depicting life in the town of Ice Haven, which is gripped by anxiety over a missing child. Clowes deftly brings an astonishing depth of characterization to a sizable cast that includes embittered poet Random Wilder; his amateur archrival, the grandmotherly Mrs. Ida Wentz; the husband-and-wife detective team investigating the child's disappearance; and Carmichael, a youngster obsessed by Leopold and Loeb. Although the work has a masterful formal complexity, the story itself is straightforward, and despite the emotional chilliness suggested by the town's name, Clowes exhibits a genuine, if submerged, sympathy for even the most misbegotten members of his cast. Ice Haven is relatively short for an ostensible novel--it's a reformatted version of a story that first appeared as a single issue of Clowes' comic book Eightball--but it possesses a depth that few other graphic novels achieve, regardless of their length. ((Reviewed July 2005)) Copyright 2005 Booklist Reviews.
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