Ricky Riccardus

so this story follows a handful of low-lifes who frequent storage unit auctions, after purchasing a unit the main character finds a hot zombie chick with whom he grows a bit of an infatuation. despite this, he is still seemingly well intended, but the others are too nosey to stay out of his business and as if they'e never seen a single zombie movie, they collectively make the worst decisions imaginable. infections spread, you get the idea.

there is a fairly interesting plot regarding the means by which she ended up in the storage locker, but mostly this is just typical “don't do that” horror cliches.

i still liked it. maybe i'm easy to please, even moreso when i found this off a discount shelf. it also wasn't too long of a story where it outstayed its welcome. recommended as long as your not completely fed up with the zombie genre. it kind of, kind of, tried to do something new with it.

I closed this book having to really figure out where I stand on it. I had to really contemplate what I just read for a few minutes and wrap my head around whether I got anything out of it.

I really didn't. I like dark, weird stories. I'm not easily offended or anything like that and while I breezed through this I found it to be ... wholy unneccessary? Edwyn is really the only character with any sort of development and I can't say I found him super interesting. The plot sounded crazy enough to intruige me but I can't say anything incredible unique or original was accomplished in these five issues.

if you're looking for a continous narrative where you'll discover the ice cream man's origins and backstory, expect only a few rainbow sprinkles of it.  this book is hardly about the ice cream man himself.  he's somewhere in the background of the stories, pulling strings and manipulatively arranging the puzzle pieces to ensure misery and horror follows all who inhabit this world.

this book hurts to read sometimes.  it hits home in ways i find incredibly uncomfortable but it has a therapeutic nature to it.  i've cried on more than one occasion finishing an issue of Ice Cream Man.  i've laughed many times as well, but there is an ongoing theme of existential dread to these stories that is incredibly sobering. 

i suffer from depression and sometimes these stories feel like they trigger it.  but it does so in a way i find healthy and necessary.  it helps me confront emotions i thought i was feeling all alone.  get out of my head already, rick.

i love this book.  if a book can make me feel something then i like it.  this book makes me want to fight even harder on dark days. 

a quote from the author in this sundae edition struck me in a most profound way and i'd like to share it here to elaborate my connection to this book and my battle with depression:

“All this negativistic thinking is, you might say, my want: to look at the world through the easy lenses of cynicism and despalr, to listen to that voice in my head that's doing its best to convince me that everything is, in fact, prety crappy, and will be for all eternity.  And that voice is what l've come to understand as the Ice Cream Man. Rick, Riccardus, Mr. Sweet, whalever you want to call him. He's the unconsciout mind, the knee-jerk, the first-blush response. The bleak outlook, the bad idea, the depressive tendency. All that awful shit floating around our domes-that's him.”

“don't listen to the ice cream man” has become my own personal mantra, meaning don't listen to that side of you that tells you all those negative things. 

to quote the author once more to conclude my obviously five-star review:

“i see it there, the light.  or at least, i can feel it underneath the rough shell of horror and madness and what-all that the book's come to be known for.  and i hope you feel it too.”

i do.  i feel it.  i've found something intangibly uplifting in these stories. even when they hurt the most.

felt a bit disjointed. an okay read but i'd have preferred a single consistent narrative through each issue/chapter rather than jumping around the way it did.

I want to give this four stars but I'm not quite there. I want to love this but I'm not quite convinced I can. This is a “good book” my desire to call it a “great book” is pushed by my empathy for the author more than the actual story itself.

There are very powerful moments contained. The soft moments of deep love between Eric and Shelly were a stark contrast to the violent revenge kills, not only in tone but fittingly in art style as well. I do agree with some other opinions that the villains in this story are underdeveloped and I do not think graphic novels are excempt from deeper character development. Maybe some aren't looking for that from this story - perfectly cool, but I have to admit I felt that way before coming here and sought out reviews to determine whether I was alone in that.

This is not a bad review, three stars to me is a solid read and a recommended one at that. I just didn't put this down with as much enthusiasm as I hoped given it's mass critical acclaim. I feel as though it would be dishonest for me to rate this higher but I urge everyone to read it and form your own personal opinions on it. I'll likely revisit it one day and see if it grows on me . . after I get through my extensive backlog, at least.

i enjoyed this but fully sympathize with those criticizing it. it gave me pagemaster vibes and i just found it to be fun, even if the ending was a bit cheesy. i'd call it bias being a fan of HaHa and ICM, but I've also disliked some of his works (King of Nowhere, Art Brut). This falls somewhere in the middle for me and that's okay.

i absolutely love the overall aesthetic of the book. a psychadelic acid trip in space full of colors that pop. the visuals were appealing, yes. but often a bit too chaotic for the fast pace action causing me to go back and forth between panels to try and decipher what was happening. the story was a bit one dimensional, too, which is fine, not everything has to be super deep, but i didn't have a whole lot to latch onto here other than “oooh sick skull flying through space, fuck yeah”.. which, i guess was probably the point.. fair enough. just can't say it will stick with me.