Review: ‘Ice Cream Man’ #1

Sure, the neatly dressed smiling Ice Cream Man on the cover looks friendly enough. The children crowded behind him gazing in anticipation of the cone he holds in his hand look happy enough. But a story about a happy-go-lucky guy driving an ice cream truck probably wouldn’t be a book from Image Comics. Yet that story would probably have made it easier to go to sleep.

Ice Cream Man #1, written by W. Maxwell Prince and drawn by Martin Morazzo, offers the first chapter in a creepy tale about almost nothing being what it seems in the small town of St. Generous. Everybody seems to know Rick the Ice Cream Man, and he seems to be watching out for his young customers. That’s what’s so effective about Prince and Morazzo’s collaboration — you’re not sure who to trust, because everybody doesn’t just look trustworthy, they act trustworthy. Until they don’t.

Because as Detective Briggs so colorfully puts it, the town is “filled to the (sic) brim with kooks and crazies and thirty-one flavors of weird s***.” That Rick has the magical ability to turn things into ice cream cones is one of the least weird things going on in town — even one of the least weird things going on with Rick.

It’s a horror book, but a surprising one that plays its darkness against the dichotomy of a bright colorful world where no one is afraid of the ice cream man. Skillfully done, Ice Cream Man has one last bit of magic to it — it’s got me hooked and ready for the next chapter to find out just what the heck is going on. I’m definitely back in for two scoops, maybe three. Who am I kidding? I’m ready for a gallon of Ice Cream Man.

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About Derek McCaw 2503 Articles
In addition to running Fanboy Planet, Derek has written for ActionAce, Daily Radar, Once Upon A Dime, and The Wave. He has contributed stories to Arcana Comics (The Greatest American Hero) and Monsterverse Comics (Bela Lugosi's Tales from the Grave). He has performed with ComedySportz and Silicon Valley Shakespeare, though relocated to Hollywood to... work in an office? If you ever played Eric's Ultimate Solitaire on the Macintosh, it was Derek's voice as The Weasel that urged you to play longer. You can buy his book "I Was Flesh Gordon" on the Amazon link at the right. Email him at [email protected].