Ice Cream Man (comics)

Ice Cream Man is a semi-anthological dark comedy horror comic book series that premiered in 2018 from Image Comics.

The series is a anthological horror comic series of very loosely connected stories that share a common link- a seemingly normal ice cream man named Rick (who is later revealed to be actually called Riccardus), who possesses inexplicable dark powers which he uses upon unsuspecting people. Rick's role in each issue ranges from protagonist to brief cameo, but appears most often as a supporting character. Rick's nemesis Caleb, a man dressed in an all black cowboy outfit, sporadically appears in the series trying to thwart Rick's plans.

The stories range from bleak and graphic horror to light comedy, but have grown increasingly surreal as the series goes on- issues often incorporate gimmicks into their format (e.g. three stories being told simultaneously with each page containing one panel of each, or an issue meant to be reread backwards).

Since its debut the series has received positive reviews. On the review aggregator, Comic Book Roundup, the series averaged a rating of 8.5 out of 10 based on a sample of 150 critics.^[1]

In October 2018, it was announced an adaptation of the series was in development at Universal Cable Productions.^[2] In February 2020, it was announced the series had been picked up by mobile streaming platform Quibi.^[3] With Quibi's shut down in December 2020, the fate of the series was mostly undetermined.^[4] However, in January of 2021 W. Maxwell Prince mentioned that the series is still in production.^[5] In September 2024, it was announced Screen Gems had acquired the rights to the series with Alfred Gough and Miles Millar writing the adaptation.^[6]

• Ice Cream Man at Image Comics