Review: Ice Cream Man #42

If you believed “Ice Cream Man #42” was just an ordinary horror comic book, then you are wrong. Published by Image Comics this comic was an unlikely genre-melding tale, which showed that horror does not merely revolve around the spooky but rather the cerebral. Even the plot is eccentric in the manner in which the characters are, it incorporates dark comedy, blunt political aspects, and mystery, lots of it ‘what the hell just occurred’. But first things first – lets talk about what actually happens in the issue and how it is both a nightmare and an epiphany. And yes, we are going to see how the Ice Cream Man is able to be creepy and still manage to address social issues (what could be more terrifying than this, honestly?). This is the desire any writer would have, and Mercy: Ice Cream Man. It is a remarkably dark story about an ice cream vendor whose patients are all women. The story was narrated in such a way that it is simply unbelievable, for example: the main character loved dogs and crazily enough he usually operated on women with dogs’ assistance.

Is this surreal? It certainly is. Is it funny? Yes, it is. However, beneath the original comedy is a more profound sense of dark humor. It is not the voracious visuals that get you. It is that the Ice Cream Man appears to be running some kind of turbulence and chaos without any rhyme or reason to it — just raw feelings of horror and surrealistic imagery. If this still does not capture your attention, then you may as well give up. Even the pages seem to say, “Come on in, it is only going to get worse.” We are then introduced to the writer (yes, the writer) at a convention — a delicate way of confessing that this – and you should be prepared to be horrified – is what they call a horror comic. But he is not too proud to say that it is an outright horror either. He is mocking the genre a little and yet still brings it back home that in as much as we would like to be coy about it, we are drawn to this mess. Right after this, we are the Gladman family, welcome. Their story begins with a sad event, the death of Aunt Gerdy, someone who dies conveniently for the family as in it comes with an inheritance, a house. Of course, this enthusiasm about the new ownership for the family shifts to apprehension as they go on to find odd and out of this world secrets packed inside.

When the Gladman family looks through the basement, they come across three doors that have the same inscription, “HORROR.” Such a creepy detail, we know, but it only gets better (or worse, depending on your perspective). As stated in Aunt Gerdy’s will, the family is not allowed to approach such  doors under any circumstance. But—because people are fallible, and curiosity leads to bad things—the family had no choice but to ignore the warning. And since there is strength in numbers, they each choose a door to open, only to find that they are trapped in their worst nightmares that seem a little too close for comfort. These aren’t just horror blockbusters. No, there is a surreal horror, which is reflected in our real-life doors, in our competition and the things we afraid to love most about ourselves.

Sure, every door may be an entry point to the repressed fears, but it has an intellectual substance beyond being dread for the sake of dread. The brilliance of the story is how these intimate and social terrors are employed as a device, as a story about the struggles we all live in. It isn’t just a narrative of frights; it is a narrative with a purpose What sets “Ice Cream Man #42” apart from the rest of the horror comics is the writer’s dramatic and continuous destruction of the fourth wall. We do not just watch the unpleasantness unfold; the author consistently interjects funny comments, opinions, and even warnings about the plot. Such narrative construction is useful in knowing the degree of horror experienced as against the degree of humour present in the plot.

Even though the comic has a self-referential tone, it paradoxically allows the comic to critique the genre and still gives the readers the chills. This is not a comical sarcasm that the readers struggles with, this sarcasm helps advance the plot. W. Maxwell Prince is really consistent in bounding between funny and horrific.

Ice Cream Man #42 features art that could be from a 1980’s horror comic that has been modernised. The drawings of Martín Morazzo ilustrations unleash the strange and the horrifying in the most uncomfortable ways possible. The artworks are any thing but bland and delicate, every page is a nightmare and a dream within one encapsulated by the mostly beautiful chaos that is the images. The colors are designed in such a way that the story’s tension soaked rests on an uncanny combination of O’Halloran’s muted tones and twain’s needs color combination one that includes dark angles framing.

Whether you’re in it for the gore, the humor, or the thought-provoking themes, Ice Cream Man #42 delivers on all fronts. If you’re looking for something that combines visceral horror with a deep message, this one’s for you.