What do you think?
Rate this book
Ice Cream Man
Ice Cream Man, Volume 6: Just Desserts
Here comes the Ice Cream Man for another helping of bitter sweets: four more cavity-inducing stories of suffering and surviving―with unlimited sundae toppings. Just try not to rot your teeth on these sickly sequential morsels, which if you’re not careful could lodge themselves under the gums, deep into the roots, far beyond the reach of even the best dentist. Now, open wide...
Collects ICE CREAM MAN #21-24
Collects ICE CREAM MAN #21-24
128 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2021
About the author
W. Maxwell Prince
123 books206 followersW. Maxwell Prince writes in Brooklyn and lives with his wife, daughter, and two cats called Mischief and Mayhem. He is the author of One Week in the Library, The Electric Sublime, and Judas: The Last Days. When not writing, he tries to render all of human experience in chart form.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 93 reviews
November 10, 2021
The sixth volume in the Ice Cream Man horror series, all pastels and sweetness on the surface, with a toothy smiling Ice Cream Man from Hell. We already lost clowns, and now W. Maxwell Prince has ruined ice cream men for us. So these are a collection of shorts, and Prince's idea is to try to do something different with a story every time. In a sense it is more about exploring genre than it is about anything else, though it is also about exploring those genres in the service of creeping you out. And trying to amuse, for sure. I say it largely still works.
This one features a noir tale called, not The Big Sleep, but The Big Sweet, where we investigate why all the ice cream men are disappearing. As I am reading a lot of noir lately, I was intrigued, but alas, this story isn't all that memorable. But I like the fact that it is noir.
The second one, Advent Calendar, I liked a little better, because it is inventive; it makes it clear that a girl is supposed to receive a gift for every day of Advent, but. . . she's pregnant, and so it's less a gift than a real life horror story. At the end Prince suggests we donate to Planned Parenthood, so I wonder if it was created for them to use? One thing Prince does in many of the stories is throw in random stuff to see if sticks, and in this one ducks become part of the horror. So one challenge is: Can I make ice cream men scare people? A secondary challenge is to use other items to see if they can be used to scare people, unexpected things like ducks. Funny/creepy.
The third story is about a TV show, ala Johnny Carson, where the host brings on an animal expert, and in this case they are increasingly murderous. The technical challenge here is that on facing pages, he tells more of the story only in print. Less here about the ice cream man.
The fourth story echoes the Jerry Lewis MD telethon, only in this one they are trying to save a guy's life. Only NO money comes in, ever. This, a second "real world" issue, is actually about addiction, in as the guy we are trying to save in addicted. And he isn't really being adequately helped. So social critique in this one, too.
Okay this four star rating is about grading for effort, about attempts to try new things, though my "liking" rating of the actual stories is closer to three. Does that even make sense? It's more of an admiration for the form than the content. Then, I like it that in what is on the surface purely escapist sweet and sickly pastel horror, he tries to connect us to real, lived horror.
This one features a noir tale called, not The Big Sleep, but The Big Sweet, where we investigate why all the ice cream men are disappearing. As I am reading a lot of noir lately, I was intrigued, but alas, this story isn't all that memorable. But I like the fact that it is noir.
The second one, Advent Calendar, I liked a little better, because it is inventive; it makes it clear that a girl is supposed to receive a gift for every day of Advent, but. . . she's pregnant, and so it's less a gift than a real life horror story. At the end Prince suggests we donate to Planned Parenthood, so I wonder if it was created for them to use? One thing Prince does in many of the stories is throw in random stuff to see if sticks, and in this one ducks become part of the horror. So one challenge is: Can I make ice cream men scare people? A secondary challenge is to use other items to see if they can be used to scare people, unexpected things like ducks. Funny/creepy.
The third story is about a TV show, ala Johnny Carson, where the host brings on an animal expert, and in this case they are increasingly murderous. The technical challenge here is that on facing pages, he tells more of the story only in print. Less here about the ice cream man.
The fourth story echoes the Jerry Lewis MD telethon, only in this one they are trying to save a guy's life. Only NO money comes in, ever. This, a second "real world" issue, is actually about addiction, in as the guy we are trying to save in addicted. And he isn't really being adequately helped. So social critique in this one, too.
Okay this four star rating is about grading for effort, about attempts to try new things, though my "liking" rating of the actual stories is closer to three. Does that even make sense? It's more of an admiration for the form than the content. Then, I like it that in what is on the surface purely escapist sweet and sickly pastel horror, he tries to connect us to real, lived horror.
July 1, 2021
3.0 Stars
Honestly this was a very disappointing collection of stories. The only one I liked was the story of the pregnant teenager told through the narrative of an advent calendar. I liked it, but it definitely wasn't horror.
Honestly this was a very disappointing collection of stories. The only one I liked was the story of the pregnant teenager told through the narrative of an advent calendar. I liked it, but it definitely wasn't horror.
Want to Read
June 2, 2021
March 17, 2023
This one was particularly surreal and dark but at the same time felt a touch more...personal?
Definitely still worth the price of admission!
Definitely still worth the price of admission!
July 4, 2022
Six volumes in and Ice Cream Man continues to be innovative and engaging.
Who doesn't love a Watchmen homage? The first issue in this volume takes this to the extreme, right down to the nine panel grid. There's no superheroes, but the conspiracy involving a cult murdering ice cream men across the country works just as well. There's a reason books like Watchmen (or All-Star Superman in the previous volume) are so easy to reference, but it takes a good storyteller to do it properly.
Next up is a Christmas themed story about teen pregnancy which couldn't have come at a better time, given the state of the USA right now. Thankfully Prince treats this subject with respect and understanding, even while the Ice Cream Man's effects are still felt around the corners of the story. It's one of those rare issues that inspires hope as much as horror, which are the ones that are fast becoming my favourites.
We then go hard on the prose for a story about a chat show host getting attacked by a python. I feel like this one wasn't really worth the effort the reader has to invest in it - the writer literally says that there's no point to the story at one juncture, and while some of the descriptions are pretty neat, it certainly wasn't my favourite issue of the series.
And then the last issue rectifies any ill will the previous issue generated by telling a story from the viewpoint of a man whose entire life is at the mercy of one of those telethon fund raisers. This one's extremely bleak, but it ropes the reader in really well (there are two great page turn moments I won't spoil) to the point where the end of the story is literally your fault.
Three outta four ain't bad!
Who doesn't love a Watchmen homage? The first issue in this volume takes this to the extreme, right down to the nine panel grid. There's no superheroes, but the conspiracy involving a cult murdering ice cream men across the country works just as well. There's a reason books like Watchmen (or All-Star Superman in the previous volume) are so easy to reference, but it takes a good storyteller to do it properly.
Next up is a Christmas themed story about teen pregnancy which couldn't have come at a better time, given the state of the USA right now. Thankfully Prince treats this subject with respect and understanding, even while the Ice Cream Man's effects are still felt around the corners of the story. It's one of those rare issues that inspires hope as much as horror, which are the ones that are fast becoming my favourites.
We then go hard on the prose for a story about a chat show host getting attacked by a python. I feel like this one wasn't really worth the effort the reader has to invest in it - the writer literally says that there's no point to the story at one juncture, and while some of the descriptions are pretty neat, it certainly wasn't my favourite issue of the series.
And then the last issue rectifies any ill will the previous issue generated by telling a story from the viewpoint of a man whose entire life is at the mercy of one of those telethon fund raisers. This one's extremely bleak, but it ropes the reader in really well (there are two great page turn moments I won't spoil) to the point where the end of the story is literally your fault.
Three outta four ain't bad!
May 13, 2021
"Life is short and sweet.
So tell God to go fuck himself!"
Another crackign volume, better than the previous. Still not so much mythology but still geat....
So tell God to go fuck himself!"
Another crackign volume, better than the previous. Still not so much mythology but still geat....
January 26, 2022
Tak, znova to je ako na horskej dráhe a po poslednej knihe ktorá bola skvelá, ma tieto štyri ani trochu nebavili. Nevravím, že to bolo vyslovene špatné, ale oproti tým originálnym príbehom, ktoré dokáže zo seba Prince dostať, je toto čistý priemer. Dúfam, že siedmou to zas napraví.
December 22, 2022
This was a pretty sick collection of stories (especially that last one).
I didn't quite understand everything that was going on in this collection, but they were still pretty interesting nonetheless.
I think my favorites would be the Detective story and the game show story.
Content Warning: Death of a dog (happens off page)
I didn't quite understand everything that was going on in this collection, but they were still pretty interesting nonetheless.
I think my favorites would be the Detective story and the game show story.
Content Warning: Death of a dog (happens off page)
February 5, 2024
The symphony of destruction despair and self pity continues in anthological comic book form and I have to say Maxwell Prince isn't bordering on genius, he has crossed the line and is in full sprint. It is beyond impressive that each book is so varied and unique. The noir detective story that opens things up was wildly entertaining and is followed by an advent calender themed story about non planned pregnancy that handles the debate that is always raging in the US. In a tasteful way. Love this series and ai'm almost caught up after skipping over this one for years.
June 24, 2021
Ice Cream Man continues to be sometimes very good, sometimes not very good, and mostly in-between. There's one really good here, one not very good, and two in-betweeners. The anthology style works in its favor for the most part and the best part of the series remains Prince's willingness to play with the format. Still, it's strictly still "Okay" here because it never manages to stay at its best for very long.
December 30, 2022
Well the one thing about this series is that it certainly likes to experiment a little, albeit within the limited confines of the genre. Although inconsistent, I have to confess that I enjoyed all four of these stories, the art work is still a treat, and I really enjoyed the format of the third story, which I thought worked really well.
A pleasing and persistent 80s Stephen King vibe hangs over this, but then how many books could you say that about?...This is a series which often seems to knock at the door of profondity, hinting at something deliciously deep and enlightening, but yet it never quite opens that door, but we do get the occasional glimpse through the keyhole.
November 5, 2021
As weird, unsettling, horrific, and absolutely strange as this series continues to be, its latest stories have embraced a deeper level of thematic complexity. Still often nihilistic, but more deeply human and occasionally hopeful--the series has given itself the freedom to do whatever it wants, and in the hands of Prince, Morazzo, and the rest, I'll stick around for the ride.
December 30, 2021
Another volume of life never goes as planned, so is it really worth it?
The ice cream man is starting to get to me. Forcing me in a way to stop complaining about the little things and focus on the big things that went right.
The ice cream man is starting to get to me. Forcing me in a way to stop complaining about the little things and focus on the big things that went right.
January 13, 2022
Well. I don’t really have a strong opinion about this volume, other than the fact that this series is starting to disappoint me. Haven’t loved a volume in a while.
October 5, 2023
god what a relief that someone finally made a good fucking horror comic
January 13, 2026
5.5/10
October 27, 2021
One of the creepiest horror comics out right now is Ice Cream Man. Presented like a loosely connected anthology series (think Creepshow, Tales From the Crypt, or Black Mirror), if these Volumes aren't giving you chills up your spine, then maybe you need to check your pulse. Such a well written, well paced, and well illustrated comic series.
Highlights/Summary:
- The Big Sweet - A noir style mystery where a private eye is called in to investigate the deaths of local ice cream men. This issue is an excellent example of how much horror in this title is in the eyes and smiles of the characters.
- Advent Calendar - A young girl lives her life in the holiday season, dealing with her family, an abortion, and a string of odd advent calendar gifts. The ending is a troll, as the creators just wanted to wish us a Merry Christmas.
- Late Night Splashes - This tale is primarily written out like a regular novel, but describes an incident involving a late night talk show host and the Burmese python that attacks him.
- Telethon -Jerry's life is in a downward spiral. We seem to be the only one not seeing the very creepy telethon being held to save Jerry, even though others around him do. Also featuring some chillingly odd 'commerical' breaks.
This unsettling book needs to continue. I love the small dose I get of it about twice a year. So creepy!
Recommend.
Highlights/Summary:
- The Big Sweet - A noir style mystery where a private eye is called in to investigate the deaths of local ice cream men. This issue is an excellent example of how much horror in this title is in the eyes and smiles of the characters.
- Advent Calendar - A young girl lives her life in the holiday season, dealing with her family, an abortion, and a string of odd advent calendar gifts. The ending is a troll, as the creators just wanted to wish us a Merry Christmas.
- Late Night Splashes - This tale is primarily written out like a regular novel, but describes an incident involving a late night talk show host and the Burmese python that attacks him.
- Telethon -Jerry's life is in a downward spiral. We seem to be the only one not seeing the very creepy telethon being held to save Jerry, even though others around him do. Also featuring some chillingly odd 'commerical' breaks.
This unsettling book needs to continue. I love the small dose I get of it about twice a year. So creepy!
Recommend.
August 2, 2021
I enjoy the Ice Cream man series for its quick shots of horror. I really enjoyed the ‘Tonight, Tonight with Mack Benson’ which is told in written, character snippets with panels of the key scene from the story.
Always been mixed on the artwork of this series. I find it can be hard to tell characters apart but sometimes it feels this is intentional, that the Ice Cream Man is everywhere.
Always been mixed on the artwork of this series. I find it can be hard to tell characters apart but sometimes it feels this is intentional, that the Ice Cream Man is everywhere.
January 13, 2022
This continues to impress me with the way W. Maxwell Prince starts these dark tales in familiar settings and then weaves them into something more. Another amazing set of four standalone tales set in the ICM universe so with a unique themes that end up subverting you expectations. You're sure you know where theses stories is going...until you don't. Can't wait for more!
June 29, 2021
Off the rails.
July 6, 2021
Ah, finally time to bail on this series.
Defund Planned Parenthood.
Defund Planned Parenthood.
June 25, 2021
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.
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.
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.
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.
March 2, 2026
Volume 5 (Other Confections) took the time to insert the IP from other franchises into the Ice Cream Man Confection Universe (ICMCU), while Volume 6 (Just Deserts)....I am not sure what it is doing, but it is doing it great.
Riccardus himself is becoming less and less overtly present in this ongoing series, but his subtle invasion into our universe is ever increasing (every story mentions a Rick's Sweets Inc in some form or another).
Some thoughts on each of the installations:
THE BIG SWEET
This is a pulp noir mystery that is GREATLY visually influenced my Alan Moore. At first I thought this was a Watchmen take, but the story was distinct enough from that story, but the art style and specific panels lock this in as Watchmen-inspired.
ADVENT CALENDAR
Not sure what time make of this one...it is not horror, but it does match W. Maxwell Prince and team's talent for trying new formats in telling stories. This story is told in the format of an Advent calendar, with each page introducing the tchotchke, followed by the events in the life on that day of a young woman discovering she is pregnant.
Also in this story are the following:
🦆 and observation that ducks are not migrating
🦆 pregnant ducks showing up in dreams
🦆 ducks going to chuch
LATE NIGHT SPLASHES
It is basically the slow revelation of a Late Night Talk Show episode going wrong as the host gets mauled by a snake (provided by animal handler Rick Saccharine ;) )
There is one page with panels, followed by a page of text that could be a tabloid format?
I am not sure what format this one is aping - it was so-so.
TELETHON
My favourite of the series - sort of a mashup of the Truman Show meeting the Twilight Zone, where a fundraiser is setup for Jerry "Jer" Donaldson (a man whose life and body are falling apart as the fundraiser progresses.
It is just a shame that Jerry is the most uninspiring creature that no one wants to help at all (the telethon marquee forever stuck at 0$).
Sooo funny!
Also, RIP Rosco the Border Collie!
Riccardus himself is becoming less and less overtly present in this ongoing series, but his subtle invasion into our universe is ever increasing (every story mentions a Rick's Sweets Inc in some form or another).
Some thoughts on each of the installations:
THE BIG SWEET
This is a pulp noir mystery that is GREATLY visually influenced my Alan Moore. At first I thought this was a Watchmen take, but the story was distinct enough from that story, but the art style and specific panels lock this in as Watchmen-inspired.
ADVENT CALENDAR
Not sure what time make of this one...it is not horror, but it does match W. Maxwell Prince and team's talent for trying new formats in telling stories. This story is told in the format of an Advent calendar, with each page introducing the tchotchke, followed by the events in the life on that day of a young woman discovering she is pregnant.
Also in this story are the following:
🦆 and observation that ducks are not migrating
🦆 pregnant ducks showing up in dreams
🦆 ducks going to chuch
LATE NIGHT SPLASHES
It is basically the slow revelation of a Late Night Talk Show episode going wrong as the host gets mauled by a snake (provided by animal handler Rick Saccharine ;) )
There is one page with panels, followed by a page of text that could be a tabloid format?
I am not sure what format this one is aping - it was so-so.
TELETHON
My favourite of the series - sort of a mashup of the Truman Show meeting the Twilight Zone, where a fundraiser is setup for Jerry "Jer" Donaldson (a man whose life and body are falling apart as the fundraiser progresses.
It is just a shame that Jerry is the most uninspiring creature that no one wants to help at all (the telethon marquee forever stuck at 0$).
Sooo funny!
Also, RIP Rosco the Border Collie!
September 12, 2023
“Do you really think there’s anything you can do that would hide you from God’s love?”
///////
Gosh, folks just LOVE to search for the moral of a story, don’t they? (In fact, you might be doing so right now!). But here’s a little secret: most stories (REAL stories) don’t have any larger significance; they are not greater than the sum of their parts. It’s all just stuff that HAPPENS to people, over and over again. Nobody learns a thing, and history does it’s repetitive dance through the movements of tragedy, then farce, and then back around again to the beginning. Like a giant, meaningless ouroboros - THE GOSHDARN SNAKE DEVOURS ITS OWN TAIL! (It devours other stuff, too.)
///////
This one’s on you, folks.
It’s like…
How the suffering fuck does this comic just KEEP getting better? How does it keep being so scary and so crushingly sweet and outlandishly funny? While STILL continuing to completely do it’s OWN thing, constantly and consistently building out its own galaxy of dark stars and hapless normals swept into the swirling vortex of buggies, Raspberry Surprise, and cosmic terror?
I don’t goddamn get it but I surely goddamn enjoy it.
Even better, OPENING with a full on Watchmen parody after that volumes “pilot” episode. Then following up with the achingly good Christmas special (that actually justifies its own existence and isn’t just a hacky excuse for an Image creator to make fun of the holidays for 20+ pages).
Also impressive too is how amazing Prince is able still to weave in the other characters, iconography, and supporting leads into the whole tapestry of the series. The telethon issue is the most obvious example of it (“We forgot to plug ‘em in!” Oh Lillies) but it’s all throughout the volume. Every time I noticed something else, I just got a whole new charge. It’s wonderful work and continues to just look absolutely fucking GORGEOUS thanks Morazzo, O’Halloran, and Good Old Neon (who also designs the absolute shit out of the trades themselves).
RIP Jerry. Donate to Planned Parenthood.
///////
Gosh, folks just LOVE to search for the moral of a story, don’t they? (In fact, you might be doing so right now!). But here’s a little secret: most stories (REAL stories) don’t have any larger significance; they are not greater than the sum of their parts. It’s all just stuff that HAPPENS to people, over and over again. Nobody learns a thing, and history does it’s repetitive dance through the movements of tragedy, then farce, and then back around again to the beginning. Like a giant, meaningless ouroboros - THE GOSHDARN SNAKE DEVOURS ITS OWN TAIL! (It devours other stuff, too.)
///////
This one’s on you, folks.
It’s like…
How the suffering fuck does this comic just KEEP getting better? How does it keep being so scary and so crushingly sweet and outlandishly funny? While STILL continuing to completely do it’s OWN thing, constantly and consistently building out its own galaxy of dark stars and hapless normals swept into the swirling vortex of buggies, Raspberry Surprise, and cosmic terror?
I don’t goddamn get it but I surely goddamn enjoy it.
Even better, OPENING with a full on Watchmen parody after that volumes “pilot” episode. Then following up with the achingly good Christmas special (that actually justifies its own existence and isn’t just a hacky excuse for an Image creator to make fun of the holidays for 20+ pages).
Also impressive too is how amazing Prince is able still to weave in the other characters, iconography, and supporting leads into the whole tapestry of the series. The telethon issue is the most obvious example of it (“We forgot to plug ‘em in!” Oh Lillies) but it’s all throughout the volume. Every time I noticed something else, I just got a whole new charge. It’s wonderful work and continues to just look absolutely fucking GORGEOUS thanks Morazzo, O’Halloran, and Good Old Neon (who also designs the absolute shit out of the trades themselves).
RIP Jerry. Donate to Planned Parenthood.
May 28, 2021
#21: Cult, private investigator, cigarettes, theme of ice cream man. I enjoyed this one quite a bit, and it solved the strange ice cream man thing that i was feeling — always felt forced, like the demonic presence of the ice cream man had to be crammed in for no reason. But this one felt right. Really was a character study of the PI guy. Also somewhat of a happy ending for him, which makes it creepier because he was our hero. Giving up the goal leads to happiness while the world falls apart. Or something.
#22: Abortion, Christmas, ducks, roaches, Catholicism. Nothing particularly sinister about this one, but those creepy ICM faces show up in the children carolers, the abortion clinic lady, and a bunch of others. Unsure the meaning. I suppose the irony of aborting an unborn fetus during Christmastime is enough of a story. Well-thought out though. Each page is a day. Good themes.
#23: Tonight Tonight With Mack Benson. Like a short story without an ending. Lots of prose, each page of writing from a different character. Interesting. A bit brutal. Good writing overall but a bit simple. Some cigarettes solving problems theme going from earlier in this arc. Feels like I just spent a lot of time reading without much reward. I suppose that’s the price for these one-off snapshots. Not enough development.
#24: Telethon to save Jerry’s life. Jerry falls apart. Clever interconnected stuff. Pinky ring superhero guy on poster. Same divorce law firm. Same ice cream company (Holt - also they sell lobsters lol). Commercials and whatnot interweaved with the main story. Though I’m not entirely sure the main Jerry story has anything to do with anything. Maybe this one is about the ICM (they’ve even got “ICM” written on some of the backgrounds) — like life is seemingly chaotic but it’s really a matter of who is caring about you. Or the ICM is an inescapable force as we ride towards our deaths. Or maybe none of that, and it’s just a weird story.
#22: Abortion, Christmas, ducks, roaches, Catholicism. Nothing particularly sinister about this one, but those creepy ICM faces show up in the children carolers, the abortion clinic lady, and a bunch of others. Unsure the meaning. I suppose the irony of aborting an unborn fetus during Christmastime is enough of a story. Well-thought out though. Each page is a day. Good themes.
#23: Tonight Tonight With Mack Benson. Like a short story without an ending. Lots of prose, each page of writing from a different character. Interesting. A bit brutal. Good writing overall but a bit simple. Some cigarettes solving problems theme going from earlier in this arc. Feels like I just spent a lot of time reading without much reward. I suppose that’s the price for these one-off snapshots. Not enough development.
#24: Telethon to save Jerry’s life. Jerry falls apart. Clever interconnected stuff. Pinky ring superhero guy on poster. Same divorce law firm. Same ice cream company (Holt - also they sell lobsters lol). Commercials and whatnot interweaved with the main story. Though I’m not entirely sure the main Jerry story has anything to do with anything. Maybe this one is about the ICM (they’ve even got “ICM” written on some of the backgrounds) — like life is seemingly chaotic but it’s really a matter of who is caring about you. Or the ICM is an inescapable force as we ride towards our deaths. Or maybe none of that, and it’s just a weird story.
June 11, 2022
**The Ice Cream Man vol 6: or stop reading or he will kill the dog!** The series can get truly surreal in so many ways. The opening issue I easily recognized as a visual, color, and style metaphor for Watchmen. We have a creepy cult killing off ice cream men. And in a short time it actually hits a lot of the same beats as the original inspiration. I’m not sure how I feel with these issues that are very direct riffs on existing properties but at least I can say they’re well done. The following issue deals with the framing device of an advent calendar as a young girl faces a terrible choice and small creepy horrors around Christman rather than the kind of mind melting stuff usually in the series. I had mixed feelings about the resolution but it was an interesting issue. The third issue however left me rather cold because it deals with a Tonight Show like host who has someone come on with wild animals and it soon goes wrong with a snake attack. The rest of the issue is mostly text dealing with a variety of characters but I don’t feel that the narrative comes together as fluidly as I was hoping for. I always enjoy the twists on formatting but this one didn’t quite work for me because the message has been felt before and more clearly in the series about the banality of life sometimes. In fact, the concluding issue seems to do a much better job of twisting the knife with the quiet inhumanity of people to one another with a guy unknowingly part of a telethon to save his life if anyone in the world actually gives a single care but the counter remains at zero. These are the issues where I crave even a little sample of bitter sweetness to mollify the darker bits. Still, despite my misgivings about sections of this collection, I still must award it for bitter scoops of coffee flavored ice cream out of five.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 5, 2024
Okay fine you got me back. It really was that last comic that really got to me the most. And the whole running ads in the middle like Robocop and them being a part of the world of that comic, so good! I also really enjoyed the comic for the Tonight, Tonight with Mack Benson when I saw the lack of pictures I was at first annoyed, but I really do think it worked. It went against expectation and was also brilliantly creepy with just the words. The Planned Parenthood one made me a little nervous at first, because I was worried that we were going to go to far in any one direction, but it was fine - appropriate. The other stand out one was the first issue with the private eye who was investigating all the ice cream men going missing. I'm really hoping that this is a hint of a through-line and we are getting a balance of random creepiness and more about the Ice Cream Man the character.
April 10, 2022
W. Maxwell Prince’s horror graphic novel series Ice Cream Man has consistently offered up some great stories of universal dread that straddles a fine line between satirically funny and abysmally depressing.
Volume 6, “Just Desserts”, offers up four more scoops of sadness and despair, sprinkled with insanity. “The Big Sweet” is a noir-mystery about a sad-sack private eye trying to find the guilty parties involved in a recent kidnapping spree of the city’s ice cream men. “Advent Calendar” is a Christmas special in which a young teenaged girl finds out she’s pregnant and must decide between keeping the baby or getting an abortion. “Late Night Splashes” (the weakest story in the bunch, or the one that is way too vanilla for my tastes) is about a TV talk show host who is nearly killed by a python on live TV. The last story, “Telethon”, is a televised telethon for a guy named Jerry, to raise money to keep him alive. Sadly, nobody cares enough about Jerry to make a donation…
Volume 6, “Just Desserts”, offers up four more scoops of sadness and despair, sprinkled with insanity. “The Big Sweet” is a noir-mystery about a sad-sack private eye trying to find the guilty parties involved in a recent kidnapping spree of the city’s ice cream men. “Advent Calendar” is a Christmas special in which a young teenaged girl finds out she’s pregnant and must decide between keeping the baby or getting an abortion. “Late Night Splashes” (the weakest story in the bunch, or the one that is way too vanilla for my tastes) is about a TV talk show host who is nearly killed by a python on live TV. The last story, “Telethon”, is a televised telethon for a guy named Jerry, to raise money to keep him alive. Sadly, nobody cares enough about Jerry to make a donation…
February 23, 2022
I am so underwhelmed, this series has been great but this issue was very lackluster. The first chapter was just random and I couldn't really couldn't get into. The advent calendar was okay, but certainly not Prince's best work. I HATED the late night show chapter, I got about 10 pages in and then completely skipped the rest. The pages the described what was happening were uneventful and just overall boring; maybe I would have toughed it out through the end of the chapter if the previous chapter was really good. The Telethon chapter wasn't that bad, more reminiscent of the previous issues, it had that dark comedy and had the ice cream man as the main pro/antagonist.
I am glad I didn't give into my impatience and bought this copy because to be honest I would have thrown it away in complete disappointment.
I am glad I didn't give into my impatience and bought this copy because to be honest I would have thrown it away in complete disappointment.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 93 reviews