This week's recommended comic is Ice Haven by Daniel Clowes.

Ice Haven is a new hardcover collecting one of the greatest single issue comics ever written. Daniel Clowes has gained a lot of mainstream recognition in recent years due to the film version of his book Ghost World so bookstores everywhere will be stocking this, one of his most recent stories originally published in his ongoing comic, Eightball.

Clowes introduces us to the citizens of the town of Ice Haven via twenty-seven occasionally interconnected 1-3 page stories. The stories are almost formatted like Sunday comics and Clowes changes up his drawing style frequently to vary the point of view of his different characters. And they are some of the most interesting characters he has created yet - a lovesick teenager, a husband and wife detective team, a comic book critic, a depressed caveman, and an alcoholic stuffed bunny rabbit.

This book is a testament to the unique stories that the medium can give us and especially to the type of stories that one of it's greatest geniuses is capable of. When this was originally published a couple of years back many rightly hailed it as the greatest single issue of a comic ever published.

One drawback to this collection however is that for $18.95 you are not getting much more than what originally cost about five bucks in comic form. The story has been reformatted but only a few new pages have been added. If you haven't read it yet it's worth the money, but if you already own it be wary of buying the same book twice.

Check out your local comic shop today. If you don't know where your local comic shop is, find it here: http://www.the-master-list.com