Image Comics readies Ice Cream Man ‘one shot’ told through playing cards

Image Comics is set to launch a new ‘one-shot’ for its popular Ice Cream man series – a story told across a deck of 55 playing cards.

Coming from the regular Ice Cream Man team of W. Maxwell Prince, Martín Morazzo and Chris O’Halloran, Ice Cream Man: The Mortal Coil Shuffle is a custom-designed deck of cards. Some cards will tell part of the story and others will cast spells on unwitting characters. Some of the cards have to be joined with other cards to form a complete piece of art – the card deck’s version of a comic book ‘spread’.

“I love storytelling challenges so you can say I’ve always been very pleased with Ice Cream Man,” said Morazzo.

“Now, more than 44 issues in, it’s awesome we’re still trying crazy, never-done-before, stuff!”

Prince added: “When I was nine, I contracted chicken pox. And the only person available to watch me while sick was my German next door neighbour – a lovely woman named Inge, who, over time, would become a sort of surrogate grandmother to me. She taught me how to play Gin rummy that be-pocked week, and if I close my eyes now I can still hear her shuffling the deck, tapping her gigantic press-on nails onto the table between drags of her extra long Kool cigarettes.

“The cards were alive for me back then, and so this little Ice Cream Man experiment is dedicated to Inge: let’s see if we can’t bring some cards to life one more time!”

Ice Cream Man: Mortal Coil Shuffle will be available at comic book shops from Wednesday, October 1st.