Ice Cream Man, Vol. 2: Strange Neapolitan

I think this would work better if I were reading the individual issues as they were released. In collected form, it's simultaneously a bit too much and not enough. It's too much misery, which is only engaged with on a shallow level. The sorrow of the characters in most of the stories serves more as window dressing, meant to shock and little else. The only message seems to be along the lines of “it's impossible to truly communicate, so people are lonely and do messed up things to fill that void,” repeated over and over again. However, the comic isn't subtle about this; it provides all the answers directly in the text.

That said, it does deliver effective King-like horror sometimes. The meta-narrative that is hinted at is probably the most interesting part, if only because it's neither completely obvious nor entirely random, unlike the rest. Overall, it's intriguing enough and a quick read, so I will continue, but I'm still unsure where all the hype is coming from.