Ice Cream Man is looking to serve up some yummy new tales of horror this summer. The last issue of the Image Comics anthology series was released at the end of January, meaning there’s been a super-sized wait for the next installment. The anthology comes from creators W. Maxwell Prince, Martín Morazzo, Chris O’Halloran, and Good Old Neon, and has been nominated for a 2025 Eisner Award in the category of Best Single Issue/One-Shot. Ice Cream Man is also being adapted into a feature film by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (Wednesday) and Sony’s Screen Gems. But the latest news is good news for comic fans.
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ComicBook can exclusively announce details on upcoming issues of Ice Cream Man, which include Ice Cream Man #47. July will see the release of Ice Cream Man #44, which is centered around a job performance review gone wrong. Additional upcoming issues of the anthology will feature a twisted Hitchcockian Rear Window homage, a completely not creepy tale of cryogenic anti-aging chambers, and a series of vintage medical ads that lead to the shocking side effects. Ice Cream Man Vol. 11 will also hit stores in September.
“Golly. I can’t believe we’ve been putting this book out for 7.5 years,” said Prince. “In comic time, I think that makes us officially geriatric. And so, speaking as a veritable sequential grandpa, I’ll tell you this: I still don’t quite understand how and why we have made it this far. I mean, I am so proud of the corpus of tales we’ve assembled; Ice Cream Man is the defining artistic project of my life. (And I think I can probably say the same for my co-creators).”
Ice Cream Man #39: “Decompression in a Wreck, Part One,” has been nominated for Best Single Issue/One-Shot for the 2025 Eisner Awards. The issue is the first in a two-parter story that shows how time slows down and life flashes by during a deadly heart-and-bone-breaking car accident, resulting in the death of a family. The comic details how decompression works in comics storytelling, and how a mere five seconds of a tragedy can be stretched into a 28-page deep dive. “Each moment sacred, each millisecond housing a loving memory, or a painful reminder, or an enticing glimpse into a future that will never, ever happen…” writes Prince in the comic.
Ice Cream Man #40 continues the story, showing the tragic accident from the perspective of the truck drivers who collided with the family. Both issues have been collected into Ice Cream Man: Decompression In A Wreck Deluxe Special Edition #1, and are included in Ice Cream Man TP, Vol. 10, which collects issues #37-40.
2025 also marked the critically acclaimed release of the all-star edition, Ice Cream Man #43, which featured one-page contributions not just from Ice Cream Man creators, but also short stories written by the likes of Grant Morrison, Patton Oswalt, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Matt Fraction, Jeff Lemire, Geoff Johns, Zoe Thorogood (who also illustrated her own story), Deniz Camp, and Frank Barbiere, with art by Morazzo and O’Halloran.
In the Ice Cream Man anthology series, mysterious horror host, Rick, delivers morsels of delicious terror in every flavor. The genre-defying comic book series features short tales of sorrow, wonder, and redemption, with each installment featuring its own cast of strange characters, dealing with their own special sundae of suffering. And on the periphery of all of them, like the twinkly music of his colorful truck, is the Ice Cream Man—a weaver of stories, a purveyor of sweet treats. Friend. Foe. God. Demon. The man who, with a snap of his fingers—lickety split!—can change the course of your life forever.
Prince added: “It’s an absolute privilege to spin yarns about Rick the Ice Cream Man, his jingly-jangly truck, and, most importantly, everyday people fighting their way through the morass of adult life: grief, regret, addiction, divorce, overdue bills, sick family, sick self, the fall of democracy…it’s never-ending, that list. But I can still see that sliver of light breaking through…We somehow managed to make a ‘horror’ book that is, in fact, about human suffering, with slivers of light and hope streaked through the center of everything. Plus, we’ve gotten to perform some very wild comic-specific formal experiments: a silent, 3-reality, and 3-color issue; a story that’s an actual palindrome; a crossword puzzle; an instruction manual; a dark recreation of beloved children’s books; an advent calendar; a telethon; an issue that is one continuous image when read in landscape orientation.”
“Ice Cream Man is the fulfilling, creative, challenging, cool, and ultimately fun series one can only dream of being a part of when having a comics career,” said O’Halloran. “Having a front row seat to the inventiveness of my collaborators’ hard work for almost 50 issues manages to keep me motivated and inspired with this art form, and just feel very lucky to have my name on this book and be its colorist.”
“Not sure what I can add to what Will and Chris already said, ’cause I feel exactly the same way they do, but I wanted to thank our readers, our fans!” said Morazzo. “It wouldn’t have been possible without you guys, and I’m sure I can speak for the rest of the team now, we’re forever grateful!”
“THANK YOU to everyone who has stuck with us for so long,” added Prince. “We’ve still got a lot of surprises in store for issues #44 and beyond, including the Ice Cream Man, Vol. 11 trade paperback! Eleven volumes to sadden your shelves, stack high as a doorstop, or if you’re in the mood, read entirely in one sitting. And this is to say nothing of our Ice Cream Man movie in development over at horror central, Sony Green Gems, headed by Wednesday and Smallville creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, alongside our amazing producer Aaron Schmidt. Feel free to start your dreamcasting for the Ice Cream Man RIGHT NOW.”
DC recently announced that the Ice Cream Man creators are tackling the Man of Steel in a Black Label series titled Superman: The Kryptonite Spectrum. The five-issue limited series looks to reimagine Superman through a genre-defying lens, and each issue of the series will explore different facets of Superman’s character, mythos, and moral core. The series picks up when four new Kryptonites have been discovered in deep space, and Superman sets out to learn what effect these new Kryptonites have on him. To figure out those effects, Superman calls upon his longtime friend Batman, who seeks to find out what Kryptonite colors like purple and cobalt have in store for Superman.
What do you think about all of the big Ice Cream Man news? Let us know in the comments below!
