Ice Haven

Ice Haven is a graphic novel by Daniel Clowes. I like Clowes style of illustration, and the story is as meta as I've ever read in a comic book. Clowes, who I believe is from the Chicago area, refers heavily to the story of Leopold and Loeb - a grim and awful tale of these two kids from University of Chicago who kill someone for basically no reason. The story parallels the tale of L&L, while the entire book is bracketed by the narrative of a comic book (or graphic novel) critic whom Clowes both mocks and elevates, by making him ridiculously self-absorbed and ass-scratching while at the same time allowing the "critic" to remind the reader of the greater themes of the book. Finally the critic explores Clowes biography for "evidence" of the author's worldview, thus providing a rather humorous bio of suspect veracity (at least to me) while continuing to mock the critic for assuming the artist's bio influences the work. Which leads the reader to consider whether it might... Very clever.