Daniel Clowes is an artistic genius, and his new graphic novel "Ice Haven" from Pantheon Books is as chillingly good as his best known works "David Boring" and "Ghost World," the later of which was made into an award-winning independent film. Clowes captures the isolation and hypocricy of suburban America as well as Rick Moody and Breat Easton Ellis in novels and Gus Van Sant and Ricahrd Linklater in films. The plot revolves around a missing boy who becomes the focus of the fictional Ice Haven, a place which resemble suburban cities like Evanston, Illinois and Springfield, Virginia. The story takes us into the lives of those in the city who are seemingly most affected by this breaking story/tragedy. At times, Clowes takes tangents by having a fictional graphic novel critic overanalyze his work perhaps as I am right now. The unique characters include a detective of questionable moral character, a TV-bunnyman who has a horrifying off-screen persona, a repressed 20-something girl who loves a man who doesn't seem to care about her, an overweight amateur writer who finds time in his week to watch "Temptation Island" (haven't we all done something equally insepid)- then complains about how he can't find time to write (and about how time keeps slipping away), little boys who want to falsely take credit for the missing boy when adults aren't supervising them in their backyards. This is not "Peanuts,' but Clowes can be seen as a subversive Charles Schultz who shows quite clearly that in a country with so much opportunity, there are indeed children who aimlessly bang tennis balls against a concrete wall and then deviantly look for ways to make life more exciting. It should alaram us all, but we haven't been paying attention (perhaps, for a very long time). Thankfully, Clowes has!
My rating: three and half stars (out of 4)
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