Advance Review — ‘Ice Cream Man’ #45 Channels Hitchcock In All His Glory
by Tom Smithyman
Overview
It’s been a long time — too long in fact — since we’ve had an issue of Ice Cream Man to enjoy. The creative team remind us what we’ve been missing as it spins a seemingly familiar tale based on Hitchock’s Rear Window. Of course, nothing is what it seems!
Overall
9.5/10As the saying goes, “Good artists borrow; great artists steal.” To take it one step further — if you are going to steal, steal from the best.”
After a long hiatus (too long really), Ice Cream Man returns with a new issue that is as much an homage as it is a blatant ripoff of Alfed Hitchcock’s 1954 classic film Rear Window. The movie’s main character, played by Jimmy Stewart, witnesses a murder while confined to his Greenwich Village apartment with a broken leg.
In this version, a character named Jimmy Stewart, who looks like the actor Jimmy Stewart, witnesses a murder while confined to his Greenwich Village apartment with a broken leg. For Pete’s sake, the story is even called The Window in the Back of the Apartment. The creative team isn’t trying to hide anything here. And that’s OK. Because writer W. Maxwell Prince and artist Martin Morazzo still manage to put their own spin on the story.
As the police doubt Jimmy’s story, he gets even more paranoid and voyeuristic. The entire apartment building seems to be in on the murder — if there even was one. This is Ice Cream Man, after all, where nothing is really as it seems.
Morazzo shows off his skills here in portraying likenesses, something we’ve rarely seen from him. He’s always been great at expressing emotions through characters’ eyes, and given the themes in this issue, that talent has never been more relevant.
For his part, Prince doesn’t stop at taking on Rear Window. He lovingly references other Hitchcock films, from The Birds to Psycho — all with chilling results.
Although, the last issue of Ice Cream Man came our nearly a year ago, the creative team has kept busy, most notably with the trippy Superman: The Kryptonite Spectrum. It’s great that Prince and Morazzo can still find at least some time to revisit the series that helped to propel their careers. Their readers will certainly appreciate that.
Ice Cream Man #45 — written by W. Maxwell Prince, illustrated by Martin Morazzo, colored by Chris O’Halloran, and lettered by Good Old Neon — will be available in comic book stores and on digital platforms on Wednesday from Image Comics.
