Image Teases Grant Morrison's Return To Comics

Morrison appears poised to be taking on the Ice Cream Man.

By Russ Burlingame

Grant Morrison is seemingly coming back to comics, with Image teasing yesterday that the beloved writer is contributing to the upcoming anthology of Ice Cream Man stories. Morrison's last major comics project wrapped up in 2021 (although they did return to comics for a short in DC's 2023 Pride anthology), and they have been focusing on prose novels and screenwriting since. While Morrison had never announced plans to step away from comics, their extended hiatus makes the return notable -- especially since Ice Cream Man itself is generating some significant heat right now. The property is reportedly headed to Hollywood with a screenplay by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, the writing and producing team behind Smallville, Wednesday, and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

Image has not yet fully confirmed the Morrison/Ice Cream Man crossover, instead opting to let fans speculate for a while. The publisher shared an ice cream-themed image with Morrison's name on it in a familiar font.

Morrison has written and/or created some of the most celebrated comics of the last few decades, including The Invisibles, Happy, All-Star Superman, and JLA. They are known for their big, wild ideas and the way they use decades-old continuity in cool, unexpected ways. Morrison's work is a big inspiration for James Gunn, who has repeatedly cited All-Star Superman as well as Morrison's Batman run as influential on the development of DC's new movie and TV universe.

The Ice Cream Man is written and created by W. Maxwell Prince and down by artists Martin Morazzo and Chris O'Halloran. The comic debuted in 2018, and was scooped up for a series at Universal Content Productions almost immediately. At one point, Quibi was developing the project, though it never made it to the screen due to Quibi's eventual shutdown.

After that, Prince provided an update on the show's potential screen future, and thankfully the project was still being worked on, though it wasn't known for what network or service. "I can tell you that it definitely isn't happening at Quibi!" Prince said. "I'll say that the [Ice Cream Man] TV show is very much still alive. We're hoping to have more news very soon."

That news morphed into the recent movie announcement. Given the anthological nature of the series, a TV show might actually hold together better than a movie...but in a race between Quibi and the guys responsible for Wednesday and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, there really is no contest.

Related:

The Image Comics version of Ice Cream Man is not related to the 1995 direct-to-video horror movie of the same name.

What Is The Ice Cream Man?

"Chocolate, vanilla, existential horror, addiction, musical fantasy...there's a flavor for everyone's misery. ICE CREAM MAN is a genre-defying comic book series, featuring disparate "one-shot" tales of sorrow, wonder, and redemption. Each installment features 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."

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