REVIEW: Ice Cream Man : Coat Check Story

Upon reading last weeks most recent “Ice Cream Man”, detailing the tale of a writer growing old with his daughter’s growth in his eyes, just for the story to change perspective and have the daughter to observe her father and the decline of his health … I was prompted on Twitter by “Ice Cream Man” artist Martin Morazzo to go into the back issues and take a look at issue fifteen as I noticed a easter egg or two that was present within the issue.

“Coat Check Story” was the title of the story and it’s contents were nothing short of timeless. As a melaninated person within this reality, I have had most of my lineage hidden from me, but I do know that both my mother and father have untreated behavioral disorders that have nor only affected them but that I have noticed within myself.”Coat Check Story” is that form of ill inheritance taken to extremes.

The reader joins a privileged woman on a typical night : using some schmuck for a dinner date and taking the leftover to her girlfriend, who ends up eating her out instead. But somehow, this happens to be the catalyst for the latent inheritant mental disorder within her psyche passed down from her mother.

Ending up in some of the worst predicaments that can befall a person with mental illness, the main essentially goes through it all as Prince finds a way to turn things that should be symbols of comfort (a warm coat, a children’s balloon, a field of lilies) into twisted instruments of horror. I see why Morazzo recommended this book to me. His art here is a perfect balance of bright and dim. Looking at Morazzo’s pencils here when fused with O’ Halloran’s colors is like watching a wrestling event on a cell phone where the screen brightness keeps shifting, not exactly making it hard to focus … but definitely encouraging a spirit of unsettlement throughout the viewing experience.

Before the book even begins, the opening credits challenge the reader with the question “What did your parents pass down to you?”. I find it fascinating after reading so many books on the statistics of homeless communities and knowing my way personally around such trenches, being absolutely disgusted that the only thing inherited within these communities is typically some disorder … to see a socialite come down from up high like this, against something with which she has no tools to fight, put a smile on my face.

I’d place the enjoyment of this issue of “Ice Cream Man” then on my own learned sadist behavior and my uncomfort with this issue stemming from my “family” mental health history. Other than the personal, any further enjoyment would then be placed on classist ideals looking from the bottom up like Marilyn Manson’s American Family, gazing their button eyes at the latest episode of TMZ, just itching for the fall of star – and not to make a wish …

Lastly, the undeniable nostalgia factor : from Morazzo’s cover looking like it was ripped directly out of a page of Milligan’s “Shade” to the tropes that could easily have found Prince replacing Serling to tell this story on “The Night Gallery” or “The Twilight Zone”; Prince’s “Coat Check Story” is an intriguing read, because though it is easy to root against the main as she gets her comeuppance, in a world ran by opioids to quell the quirks of the people (albeit unsuccessfully) the question of the inevitable breakdown isn’t “if”, as Prince sets the clock for a “when?”, which homophonically “Coat Check Story” is through and through.

Score : 4.5/5

(W) W. Maxwell Prince (A) Martin Morazzo, Chris O’Halloran (CA) Patrick Horvath