Comic Info
Comic Name: Ice Cream Man
Publisher: Image Comics
Writer: W. Maxwell Prince
Artist: Martin Morazzo
# of Issues: 4
Release Date: 2021
Ice Cream Man #22
Reprints Ice Cream Man #20-24 (November 2020-May 2021). The Ice Cream Man is serving up another helping of sweet treats and frosty concoctions. A hard-boiled detective named Ray Kowalski investigates the strange disappearance of a number of ice cream men in the area and the cult that seems to be hunting them. Julie finds the countdown to Christmas tinged with sadness and fear when she learns that she’s eighteen, unmarried, and pregnant. A talk-show host named Mack Benson is rushed to the hospital after an interview goes wrong and the future of Tonight, Tonight hangs in the balance. Jerry Donaldson is dying…everyone knows it but no one cares enough to donate a dollar to help him. When the Ice Cream Man offers treats, everyone gets their just desserts.
Written by W. Maxwell Prince, Ice Cream Man Volume 6: Just Desserts is an Image anthology comic book collection. Following Ice Cream Man Volume 5: Other Confections, the series features art by Martin Morazzo.
Ice Cream Man 6: Just Desserts has a hard path to follow. I like Ice Cream Man, but Ice Cream Man 5: Other Confections was my favorite collection of the series thus far. While Ice Cream Man Volume 6 is good follow-up, it doesn’t quite reach the level of the previous entry.
Ice Cream Man #23
What is interesting about Ice Cream Man is the recurring themes. This volume was heavy on divorce and shattered lives. The people involved stories are all broken. For some of the characters like Jerry Donaldson, he is too broken to fix. A character like Julie still has a potential future and while PI Kowalski decides to screw the past and forge ahead into the future…in classic Ice Cream Man forum, the character don’t know each other but they all fill linked by the world that Prince has been building over the last twenty issues.
The other nice thing about Ice Cream Man is the unpredictability of it. It would be easy for something horrific to happen every issue or for the series to be a continuous and dark downer. Instead the stories are kind of toss-ups. They often have a wry humor (like the telethon), but sometimes they have a lot of heart like the story of the advent calendar which ends in a way that was best for the characters…it isn’t a perfect world, but sometimes hard choices (with consequences) must be made. Ice Cream Man is able to surprise the reader in this sense almost every time.
Ice Cream Man continues to be a fun read. I find the natural freedom of the series to be inspired and realize that because of this freedom and the series’ popularity, that Prince and Morazzo will probably have free rein to decide how long the series will run and where it will go. If the series wraps up nice and neat, I’ll be ok with that but it ends with a ton of ambiguity like the stories in each issue, I’m also ok with that…regardless, I hope Ice Cream Man has a long, nice run. Ice Cream Man 6: Just Desserts is followed by Ice Cream Man 7: Certain Descents.
Preceded By:
Ice Cream Man 5: Other Confections
Followed By:
