W. Maxwell Prince and Martín Morazzo’s long-running Ice Cream Man series is getting a special Halloween treat: Image Comics will bring the series’ debut issue back to shelves this October as Ice Cream Man #1: Chocolate/Vanilla Twist, a black-and-white edition with an interactive, decoder-based cover.
The twist is that the cover art is hidden behind a “focal decoder” treatment that makes the Ice Cream Man himself disappear. Readers can view it, along with some newly added secret messages and images, using an included “Lookety Split” Decoder Lens.
“Ice Cream Man: Chocolate/Vanilla Twist is where two of my favorite things converge: Martín’s first pages of this strange little book that would, for reasons still unclear to me, go on to become a geriatric ongoing comic… and this insanely cool focal decoder technology, which I experienced for the first (and last) time in college, when Bright Eyes’ 2007 LP Cassadaga came into my dorm’s mailroom bearing my name,” Prince said. “Both of those things left me with my jaw on the floor, as both of those things are, to me, examples of the way in which visual art and musical logic can create an experience greater than the sum of its parts. (And that’s before Chris O. and Good Old Neon made Ice Cream Man #1 even lovelier…) To marry those two things—as Part One of a special-project-kickoff to Ice Cream Man’s December return to regular publication, and its march toward issue 50—is a blessing that means more to me than I can articulate in a press release. There must be a monkey’s paw somewhere running out of fingers.”
The new edition also comes with remastered lettering by the crew at Good Old Neon and a brand-new Ice Cream Man short story from the original creative team, which also includes colorist Chris O’Halloran. Here’s an explainer on how the cover works:
The comic comes in a polybag, and the front cover looks like this to the naked eye:
Inside you’ll find your “Lookety Split” Decoder Lens:
Which allows you to see the altered original cover:
If it’s still not making sense, there’s even a video:
“It’s crazy to look back and see what we’ve built through the years, Ice Cream Man has been a life changing experience for us—and I hope it’s been the same to our readers—and it all started here, with this first issue! It’s fantastic to release it again, starting a celebration road to issue #50!” Morazzo said.
Ice Cream Man #1: Chocolate/Vanilla Twist arrives in comic shops Oct. 14. The regular Ice Cream Man series will return to a regular publication schedule in December, and Ice Cream Man #50 will arrive in 2027.