Ice Haven

At long last, the paperback version of Daniel Clowesrs"s brilshy;liant graphic novel, hailed by Time as "another of his hilarishy;ously slightly off-center worlds that have a vague sense of dread about them. Kind of like where you live." Welcome to Ice Haven! "Itrs"s not as cold here as it sounds," declares Random Wilder, our reluctant guide to this sleepy Midwestern town. Hers"s also its would-be poet laureate. Would-be, that is, were it not for the "florid banalities" of his archrival, Ida Wentz, pubshy;lished ad nauseam in theIce Haven Daily Progress. Among Wilderrs"s other fellow Ice Havians are the loveshy;lorn 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, missshy;ing for more than a week now. . . . The lives of the men and women ofIce Havenare woven into a multilayered tale that, while it owes a debt toOur 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.

Daniel Clowes was born in Chicago in 1961. He is the creator of the comic book Eight-Ball, twenty-one issues of which have been published to date. His work has appeared in Esquire, The New Yorker, Vogue, Time, and Newsweek, among others. A feature film based on his 1998 book, Ghost World, starring Thora Birch, was released in 2001 by MGM. He lives a childless, petless life in California with his beloved wife.