Ice Cream Man Vol. 8: Subjects & Objects
W. Maxwell Prince, writer; Martín Morazzo, artist; Chris O’Halloran, colors
Image Comics, 2022

This compilation continues the pattern of presenting four stand-alone stories. “Living Will” is set at a funeral service. The Ice Cream Man is the executor, and reads prepared remarks. Will Parsons was an average man, albeit one with a penchant for anxiety. His material assets don’t amount to much, but along with them he passes along valuable things like the ability to fully heal from your trauma; self-sufficiency, self-possession, and clear purpose. And peace and love for everyone. “Experimental Storytelling” is a wild tale about a drug trial with multiple levels of deception, full of surprises right till the end. “A Scale (Sort of a Poem)” takes a rare voyage into sentiment. It follows a young family through divorce and the aging process. Both parents try dating again without success, and at age forty their daughter does the same. Finally, she is called to the hospital to say goodbye to her father. Beautiful and emotional, with none of the ironic tones so characteristic of the series. The final story “Recovery” comes with a Prelude, which establishes how troubled protagonist Doug is. The main story opens with him as a resident of the Cassandra Rehabilitation & Detox Center. He is not making much process: ironically, part of the treatment is the drug Neuramaze that featured in the drug trial story; he also reads the novel that featured in the previous family story. But he somehow completes the therapy and heads home, full of the hope he has found. Yet another dark story with a welcome burst of light.

Blood Stained Teeth, Volume 1: Bite Me
Christian Ward, writer/art/colors; Patric Reynolds, art; Heather Moore, colors; Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, letters
Image Comics, 2022

This series offers a slightly off-kilter version of the vampire story. The protagonist is Atticus Sloane: a misanthropic criminal, avid vinyl collector, and member of the aristocratic Vampire cabal the First Borns. The First Borns are the only vampires who can create new vampires. For many years Sloane has offered to turn mortals into vampires, for a (very high) price. These vampires do not have the ability to turn others into vampires by biting them, and are known by the unfortunate name “Sips” (it’s too bad that someone did not talk Ward out of that much too on the nose name). Aside from that, the writing is fine; Ward is mainly known as an artist, but proves to have a good ear for dialog. The First Borns’ First Council considers the Sips to be a problem, because they are prone to doing flamboyant things like blogging about being a vampire, which threatens them all. The last thing they want is for humans to believe in the existence of vampires: they prefer to be regarded as a superstitious legend. They give Sloane a deadline to permanently kill all of the Sips he has created over the years. He is accompanied on the task by the ghost of his recently departed familiar. His wild adventure is accented with a garish, almost psychedelic color scheme. The story is complicated at the end by the revelation that a Sip doctor is using First Born blood to develop a cure for cancer. The next instalment should be very interesting.

The Second Fake Death of Eddie Campbell
Eddie Campbell
IDW Publishing, 2023

In this sequel to The Fate of The Artist (which is reprinted in this collection), creator Eddie Campbell is again absent from his own autobiography, but with a new twist. The earlier book had the subtitle “An Autobiographical Novel, With Typographical Anomalies, In Which the Author Does Not Appear as Himself.” This one says “A Pandemic Graphic Novel by Eddie Campbell.” The main setting is the endless Covid lockdown, in which everyone wears a mask and needs a haircut. Campbell is having trouble getting a new comic going, and laments the grayness of lockdown life. He is acting so unlike himself that his wife Audrey hires a stereotypical hard-boiled private detective named Royler Boom to investigate: she has become convinced that her husband is an imposter. In fact she thinks the imposter is actor Richard Siegrist, who had played the part of Eddie in the earlier novel. This may sound incredibly meta, but hijinks ensue, including Campbell’s usual tributes to classic comic strips, including the recurring “Life’s Too Complicated” (in which he always inexplicably loses his trousers) and “Life In Lockdown” (which repurposes classic one-panel cartoons, complete with the look of aged newsprint). For all the goofy humor and sight gags the story actually climaxes with a downhill chase and the discovery of the real Eddie Campbell. He winds up in hospital with memory loss: completely at peace, and doesn’t even remember what Covid is. It’s the perfect ending for a character (who may or may not resemble the artist) who has spent the entire story being overwhelmed by life.