A Pinoy Blog About Nothing

Ice Haven
by Daniel Clowes

Stories like Ice Haven may appear simple at the onset but it leaves a distinct feeling after finishing it. A mental aftertaste if you will. Like most of Daniel Clowes‘ stories, you’re drawn in by the quirky characters and the dark humor in the situation. Yet you can’t help but feel the underlying melancholy long after putting down the book.

While Clowes may not be an Alex Ross or a Jim Lee when it comes to his art, it is effective nonetheless. He is drawing ‘real’ people and not over muscled boys and girls anyway. His talent is in expressing the emotions on the faces of his characters, conveying what they’re feeling even if it’s different from what they’re saying in their little word balloon. Ice Haven is a satisfying read and worth several readings.

Living in a Ghost World

Clowes first introduces us to the characters in a small town called Ice Haven whose main attraction was an oddly shaped mound of dirt. There’s a frustrated poet, a ‘comic-book expert’, a precocious out-of-town guest, a lovesick teenage girl, and a couple of underachieving boys. When a young boy disappears, the whole town was thrown in a frenzy — as frenzied as a small town could get in any case — and a couple of detectives show up to investigate. The case recalls that of a murder of a young boy in 1924, perpetrated by Richard Loeb and Bobby Franks whose sole motive was to pull off the perfect crime.

As the investigation goes on throughout the story, we see glimpses of the lives of the people of Ice Haven and their reaction or non-reaction to the disappearance and perhaps murder of the young child. Some suspect their neighbors, others try to boast that they did it just to alleviate the boredom of living in Ice Haven. Still others go about the mundane business of living as if nothing has changed. Even the detectives were having some friction in their marriage.

A Caricature of Life

While the setting may be in any small town America, it does address some very basic issues which is common to anyone living in our modern times. Questions of identity, parental relationships, unrequited love, ennui, self-confidence are all valid issues which touches people regardless of culture and nationality. In that way Clowes succeeds in showcasing how everyone you meet on the street regardless of how well put together they may be is being tormented by their own demons or dealing with something even if it’s as mundane as trying to figure out what he’ll have for dinner.

As mentioned, Clowes still retains the art style he has employed in his previous work. Some of the chapters in Ice Haven appeared in his earlier publication Eightball. His simple, clean lines clearly evoke the emotions of his characters. They may be saying one thing but from the look of their faces, they’re really thinking of something else. You know, like some people you deal with everyday.

Ice Haven is definitely a worthy collection to your library if you’re into that sort of thing. There’s something to pick up on every time you read it. The characters seem to change at every second reading and they begin to resonate well after you’ve finished the book. You begin to wonder what happens to those who chose to remain in Ice Haven, and to those who have left you’ll wonder if they’ll even miss Ice Haven.

Go visit Ice Haven. They may not have a lot of tourist attractions but the people are definitely memorable.