Review: Ice Cream Man #22

While parents around the world are stressing out over presents for the kiddies. How to explain Santa Claus or what to do with that creep little elf by on the shelf, W. Maxwell Prince in a weird way delivers a parallel Christmas narrative, that touches on the moral issues surrounding Holiday meant to celebrate the virgin birth.

The previous issue of Ice Cream Man #21, is centered around a Private detective, whose investigation uncovers an apocalyptic cult whose ideology revolves around candy and ice cream. They worship the Spider King, Lord of the Lollipops. In the background there seemed to be one solitary message, that the End is Nigh.

The current issue of Ice Cream Man #22 is centered around 18-year-girl named Julie girl, and her family as they celebrate the holidays. Julie has a big secret. That secret contradicts her family’s values, and the only way to fix the situation is to violate another one of the family’s values. Thereby, inducing what appears to be holiday related psychosis.

As always, this issue was chock full of Easter eggs. I derived that the inclusion of the calendar correlates to the fact that the meaning of advent is an announcement that something is finally here. The problem with a book like ICM is that you never know If the errors are on purpose, such as the fact that this year Advent began on November 29^th because advent is the four Sundays preceding Christmas, which is when Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. The candles on the Advent wreath symbolize hope, love, joy and peace but are usually pink and purple.

The art for issue #22 was done Martin Morrazo. Ice Cream Man issues are normally creepy, but it takes a special type of talent to make normal, things like Christmas tree decorating, caroling, Advent calendars, and Nativity scenes so creepy.

I really liked this issue. Way more matter of fact, and ethically challenging than I am used to from ICM, on so many levels.

SCORE: 5 stars out of 5.

As for the future of Ice Cream Man into other forms media, that can be complicated. Universal Content Productions (UCP) is developing an ICE CREAM MAN adaptation for the streaming platform Quibi set to debut in 2021. Which is perplexing because reports indicated that Quibi was is shutting down barely six months after going live

ICE CREAM MAN #22 will have two covers CVR A Morazzo & O’halloran; was drawn by Sam Wolfe Connelly

(W) W. Maxwell Prince
(A) Martin Morrazo
(C) Chris O’Halloran
(L) Good Old Neon