There are four unrelated tales in this collection, bound together by the mysterious Ice Cream Man. The tales feature a kid living with the corpses of his dead parents, a couple junkies, a down and out one hit wonder, and a man giving his best friend a eulogy. I loved Martin Morazzo’s art, which was consistent throughout even if the stories wavered a bit in quality. It was like a weirdly perfect mix of the best aspects of Steve Dillon and Frank Quitely, along with some of Morazzo’s own personal touch. Really want to see him draw more books like this. W. Maxwell Prince does have a pretty solid grasp on comic writing too, and I’m intrigued to see what else he does in his career. Never heard of him before this.

The artwork was okay. Definitely not my favorite. Not that I could do better, but I wasn’t “wowed” by what I was seeing. Probably best described as an anthology series. The first few issues follow the events of a town, but by the middle of the book each issue is an unrelated vignette held loosely together by the titular character. I actually tend to like that style of storytelling - Gaiman's Sandman does it very well. This book does it okay. Body Horror: All over the place, the comic usually has at least one nasty example of this per issue. STRAY DOGS is a heartbreakingly adorable suspense thriller by My Little Pony comic artists TONY FLEECS and TRISH FORSTNER. It’s Lady and the Tramp meets Silence of the Lambs. Fun with Palindromes: Issue 13 in it's entirety is a palindrome and is read the same no matter which end the reader starts from. Given all of the surreal and disturbing imagery contained in the issue the effect this has is... unnerving.

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Meet Atticus Sloane: misanthropic criminal, avid vinyl collector, and member of the aristocratic Vampire cabal the First Borns. For the right price, he’ll turn you into a Vampire, too. After all—immortality isn’t cheap. There is a companion six-issue mini series called Haha with the final issue crossing over by telling the origin story of Happy Hank who first appeared in Ice Cream Man #8. Similarly, the mini series Swan Songs crosses over in it's sixth issue. Writer SKOTTIE YOUNG (I HATE FAIRYLAND, Deadpool, Strange Academy) and artist JORGE CORONA (NO. 1 WITH A BULLET, Super Sons, Feathers) follow up their critically acclaimed series MIDDLEWEST with a haunting new tale. An artist named Ro retreats from the grind of the city to an old house in a small town, hoping to find solace and inspiration—only to realize that the muse she finds within may not be what she expected. Fans of STEPHEN KING and NEIL GAIMAN will enjoy this beautiful, dark, and disturbing story of discovery, love, and terror. Crossword Puzzle: The main theme of issue 14, due to the main character being a huge crossword addict. He's implied to get over it by the end of the story and instead begins working on repairing his marriage.

Story 4: I'm not really sure what to make of this one. I can't decide where the ice cream man fits in, but maybe I understand why the interlude happened. Kids whose parents walk out on their lives live with that guilt for a long time. And the parents have to live with it too. The perspective was unique, and I think there was a lesson in there somewhere. That the things we THINK we want aren't actually the things we want after all. Our escapes end up being a trap of their own. ☆☆☆.5 Issue 11 rallies against new media over saturation and the increasingly shorter attention spans of people in the modern age. The main character of this issue is a guy who neglected his family and ended up wishing he hadn't gotten so out of touch with them. Non-Ironic Clown: Happy Hank in issue 8. The only really harmful thing he does is commit suicide and even then, the children whose birthdays he helped entertain care enough about him to give him an amateur, but well-intentioned, "viking funeral." Ice Cream Man�#35 has several poignant, if heavy-handed, lessons on the necessary evils that humanity falls victim to in perpetuity, such as addiction, shame, obsession, and fear, all of which the narrator Jacob believes are� actual monsters, not just concepts or experiences. While W. Maxwell Prince has always been a stellar writer on� Ice Cream Man, this issue really gets to see the talented writer flex his prose skills, and show off the effectiveness of his metaphors, colorful language, and use of esoteric and philosophical ideas. Also, his reference to the the 1892 short “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is the perfect addition to the guide, and Prince’s transformation of the main character in the short story into a kind of cryptid is brilliant.

CHRISTIAN WARD, the Eisner Award-winning co-creator of ODY-C, Invisible Kingdom, and Machine Gun Wizards, and red-hot artist PATRIC REYNOLDS (NITA HAWES’ NIGHTMARE BLOG, The Mask) bring you a fast-paced 100 Bullets-style crime saga with fangs!

Drugs Are Bad: The main theme of issue 2, which follows a junkie and her boyfriend committing various crimes to fuel their drug habit. Confession Cam: Played for Horror in the chapter where a scriptwriter gets Trapped in TV Land by the eponymous Humanoid Abomination and finds himself in increasingly disturbing reality shows. Each time he shifts to another show, there are interludes like this where the guy details how he suddenly found himself in these shows, how disturbed he is by what's going on, and how desperate he is to leave. There are also interviews with the other show participants (like a mannequin woman in a dating show and three zombie women in a Real Housewives sendup) who talk about their roles in the disturbing shows like nothing unusual is going on, as well as an interview with the scriptwriter's uncle who was also pulled into the shows, killed, and is now surprised that he's dead. Jedidiah Jenkins is a simple farmer. But his cash crop isn’t corn or soy. He grows fast-healing, highly-customizable human organs. For years, Jed’s organic transplants have brought healing to many, but deep in the soil of the Jenkins Family Farm something sinister has taken root. Today this dark seed will begin to sprout, and the Jenkins family will be the first to taste its bitter fruit.This is truly one of a kind. Childhood horrors meet adult scenarios and trepidations, encouraging you to fix what you can now before it’s all gone. A major theme in this is that all life ends at the same exact place. All paths are bound for the same destination.