Hark the call of the Ice Cream Man, how it jingle and jangles and entices the ears. He brings us treats, cold and sweet. He brings us headaches, painful and frozen. He brings us horror, melted and wet.
Cover by Morazzo & O'HalloranWritten by W. Maxwell Prince
Illustrated by Martin Morazzo
Colored by Chris O’Halloran
Lettered by Good Old NeonNEW STORY ARC
“HOPSCOTCH MÉLANGE,” Part One
A wild western one-shot which witnesses the way the world once was.
The connected anthology format of “Ice Cream Man” has its pros and its cons. On the one hand, it allows for great freedom and a requisite tightness of story. On the other, it means any long term storytelling must be done piecemeal, with solid answers tantalizingly close but always kept just out of reach. This uncertainty, of who the Ice Cream Man is, what he wants, and how he works, keeps the series fresh and mysterious. Now we have an origin story, of sorts, and somehow the Ice Cream Man is even scarier, and more of a mystery, than last we saw him.
Issue #9 is all about playing with perception, to leave the reader disoriented and ever so slightly confused by things that at first blush appear to be familiar but are then revealed to be a distorted version of the familiar.
Take the first page of the issue. There’s a spider crawling through a canyon, with narration telling us this is not our world and that we are now so far back in time that time as a function of numbers is meaningless. Throughout the page, it appears that the declaration is meant both literally and figuratively, thus priming us for differences while evoking a nature documentary.
The point of view kept low with, what we are told is a proto-spider, an animal with a lot of associations, and the subject of the first issue of the series. An arrow flies towards it, landing right next to it, sizing the creature for us. It is big, but not too big. It’s a tool used in many stories to open the world and provide a quick explanation of how it all operates.
On the next page where we’re (re)introduced to the strange cowboy from the last arc, the Ice Cream Man’s foil and we see how he is hunting the spider with his wolf. However, as the narration asserts, we might see but we never truly understand, prompting, at the page turn, the true reveal of the size of Spider. It is massive, the shots before tricks of perspective, and the choice to use a static long shot emphasizes this point.
It is effective in setting the genre of the issue — less horror, more western — while retaining the unsettling atmosphere of the other issues. Something is always off in “Ice Cream Man,” the what changes while the cause remains the same.
All is not perfect, though. Even though the narration serves its purpose, it is oftentimes more heavy handed than it ought to be and circuitous to the point of nonsense. The question of who is doing the narration, and to whom, becomes a mystery when it shouldn’t. It reads, and is formatted and lettered, like a dictionary entry, with yellowed boxes and a striking serifed font. Good Old Neon does a stand out job with the lettering, matching the tone of the words. Riccardus’ variations on the tight, san serifed fonts that these characters share are particularly eerie, despite only varying a little in size, boldness or italics.
Much of that eeriness is thanks to Morazzo and O’Halloran’s artwork. O’Halloran’s coloring is the right balance of realism and surrealism, allowing for a pure lime green background to fit perfectly with the naturally lit browns of the mountainous desert. Much of the coloring surrounding Riccardus feels more artificial than the rest, such as his music notes and the neon green blood of his Spiders, further setting him apart from Uncle, Caleb and the world at large.
Moreover, Morazzo knows how to get the most out of his splash pages, with landscapes that are fully realized and that compliment the foreground actions. The first of the issue is Riccardus’ introduction. He’s leaning against the open doorway, smug and assured, music notes emanating from his palm. His white suit stands in contrast to the brown dusty exterior and begs the question, how does it, especially his white shoes, stay so perfectly clean? It’s a simple image but it is haunting, thanks in part to his coal black eyes and pointed ears.
Continued belowIt is an origin story for the monster that has plagued the first two arcs but, just as with those, provides tantalizingly little in the way of motivation or direction. The shape of the narrative is still ambiguous but now we are being to at least grasp at its edges. By opening up the past instead of dwelling on the present of issue #8, the world of “Ice Cream Man” expands and reframes the horror that is yet to come.
There are very few stories doing what “Ice Cream Man” is doing right now and even fewer doing it as well. It is not for everyone and it does not always succeed in conveying its message in an understandable manner but the rest is something truly special.
Final Score: 8.8 – “Ice Cream Man” #9 succeeds thanks to the power of the creative team in this genre switching origin story that answers exactly the right number of questions and provides the right amount of creepy.
