3 out of 5

I think the overall “it’s okay” factor of this issue could’ve been predicted, but I appreciate the attempt. I would say I appreciate the format change, but Ice Cream Man regular writer W. Maxwell Prince has been experimenting with format on this book for a while now, and it’s unfortunately in an odd spot story-wise to not really support that; this one-shot kinda highlights that yet again.

Issue #43 is the speed-dating version of the book, compressing its one-shot tales of life-is-a-horror-story down to single pages; this is then a good time to take a swing at something Prince and artist Martin Morazzo and colorist Chris O’Halloran did back in 2020 and open the ICM doors up to other creators, making for an anthology of horror shorts. Great!

…But if you’ve read one-page comps before, you know that’s often more about the challenge to the creators than it is about the quality of the content; rarely is this stuff all that engaging, because how can it be? That said, given the book’s ability to flex into the surreal and yet consistent tonal hallmarks, maybe it’s actually a good framework for this kind of challenge – people can just jump right to the meat of whichever story, go Boo!, and on to the next one.

Eh, yes. But the flex is where Prince stumbles as well, because it encourages aiming for Twilight Zone zingers, or something especially profound, and that’s even more pressure for a single page. Bring in the inevitable guest contributors who don’t really get the assignment (or just took it in their own direction), and it provides for a fairly unsteady read, though an impressive feat nonetheless. At the very least, everyone does give us “full” stories on each page, and the majority include winks of ICMness, but I think this could’ve read better with some tighter editorial mandates balancing out the pacing – it’s pretty word-heavy, as everyone is maximizing space – and maybe some kind of framing that tells us why this issue needed to be one-pagers.