Ice Haven: Artistry/Vulgarity

From the panels on page 4, in which comic book critic, Harry neighbors, eloquently addresses the age old of question of what comics are (all the while, urinating, scratching his ass, and eating cereal in his underwear*), I knew Clowes was going to be pulling a few tricks out of his bag for Ice Haven. If there is a mystery at its core, it's not so much "What happened to Danny Goldberg" as it is "what happened to art?" That is to say if it's at all possible to get a handle on what art is. Or to put it in the words of Random Wilder, Ice Haven's self proclaimed future poet laureate "Is there anyone left with the acuity to recognize a genuine artistic sensibility" (9.1) That the reader is not likely to recognize such sensibility in the bombastic Wilder, complicates a reading of his narration as an organizing voice in the larger story of Ice Haven.

Wilder's young neighbor, Vida, is perhaps the only other character in Ice Haven with artistic pretensions and her work finally pushes Wilder to the realization that he is a hack (71-72). In this section of Wilder's story the colors and line have been simplified, reducing Wilder to a more iconic form, a process that appears to have been in motion throughout the book (look at Wilder's legs in "motion" in each of his sections to get the best sense of this). The last section of the book (before Naybor's comes onpage to "explain" everything), is given over to Vida's narration (whereas the first [main] section of the book introduced Wilder as the narrator). Here Vida reveals that she has finally been discovered and is headed to Hollywood to become the "biggest whore ever" (83.4).

Maybe we were better off with Wilder (who in a sense does get the final word as Danny Goldberg recites one of his poems in the book's final frame).

Or maybe the sections of the book that resonate most, don't have anything to do with meta-masturbation. Maybe the heart of the story rests with the human dramas that Wilder would credit to "a public imagination awash in vulgarity" (19.7).

*This sequence is reminiscent of another Clowes' strip depicting an actor playing the author going about his banal morning routines)