Originally published at: https://geektherapy.org/ice-cream-man-the-mortal-coil-shuffle-one-shot-to-revolutionize-storytelling-this-october-with-narrative-told-across-a-deck-of-cards/
Author: Newsroom
PORTLAND, Ore. 07/18/2025 — Continuing their exploration into just what a comic can BE, the award-nominated team responsible for Ice Cream Man—W. Maxwell Prince, Martín Morazzo, and Chris O’Halloran—will push the storytelling envelope with a new Ice Cream Man one-shot tale told across a deck of 55 cards, rather than within the periodical pages of a traditional floppy comic book. Ice Cream Man: The Mortal Coil Shuffle promises an unprecedented sequential storytelling experience told in a manner unlike any other this October from Image Comics.
Ice Cream Man: The Mortal Coil Shuffle is a beautiful, custom-designed deck of cards (featuring custom backs and a custom box, too!). All art is, as ever, by Ice Cream Man stalwarts Morazzo, Chris O’Halloran, and Good Old Neon. Some cards will tell part of the story; while other cards cast inscrutable spells on unwitting characters; and some must be joined with other cards to form a complete piece of art (the card deck’s version of a “spread.”). It’s a first-of-its-kind comic experiment, and also, perhaps, the last…
“I love storytelling challenges so you can say I’ve always been very pleased with Ice Cream Man,” said Morazzo. “Now, more than 44 issues in, it’s awesome we’re still trying crazy, never-done-before, stuff!”
Prince added: “When I was nine, I contracted chicken pox. And the only person available to watch me while sick was my German next door neighbor—a lovely woman named Inge, who, over time, would become a sort of surrogate grandmother to me. She taught me how to play Gin rummy that be-pocked week, and if I close my eyes now I can still hear her shuffling the deck, tapping her gigantic press-on nails onto the table between drags of her extra long Kool cigarettes.”
The cards were alive for me back then, and so this little Ice Cream Man experiment is dedicated to Inge: let’s see if we can’t bring some cards to life one more time!”
The Mortal Coil Shuffle will be printed once and once only—no second printings, no new runs, and never collected in a trade of any kind. It will exist—and then, like magic—it won’t.
So get ready to Go Fish, Draw Four, Declare War, and (probably) Fold Your Hand in this exciting comic book delivery style—told, of course, in the creepy, strange voice readers have come to expect from Ice Cream Man yarns.
Good luck, and watch out for those Wild Cards!
Ice Cream Man: Mortal Coil Shuffle (Lunar Code 0825IM0299) will be available at comic book shops on Wednesday, October 1.
