Ah, the good old days of photocopied, folded and stapled small press comics... I remember them with enormous fondness. One man keeping the tradition alive is Rob Jackson, whose latest title (the rather long one above, henceforth abbreviated as '...Ice Cream...') proved a wonderful surprise as I tucked into it the other night. I had no idea selling ice cream could be so interesting.
Rob's autobiographical comic tells how he, his brother and his dad set up their own business selling homemade ice cream at local farmers' markets, fayres and fêtes. The ups and downs of running your own ice cream business proved fascinating to me - from the sunny days where everything sells out in an hour to the windy days when your tent keeps blowing away to the markets where local competition means you don't sell a thing. There's intrigue as Rob and family attempt to diversify into cheese and black peas, there's drama as Rob eats leftover cheese on toast for a week rather than let it go to waste and there's recipes aplenty - including some of their more interesting flavours such as Sweet Potato & Pecan, the curiously unpopular Beer Ice Cream and the ever-popular Whinberry (I think they call 'em bilberries in my neck of the woods).
There's a genuine charm to Rob's storytelling - you really feel for him and his family on the tough days and you cheer when they sell out. Rob's art is also deceptively simple. At first glance it seems childlike and unrefined, and yet the more you look at it the more you realise Rob has all the art and storytelling basics sorted (composition, perspective etc.) and the style is complementing the story rather than holding it back. I can't help but feel that more polished artwork would take away some of the warmth from Rob's comics. I can't imagine them drawn any other way.
'...Ice Cream...' is available to buy from Rob's website shop for the eminently reasonable price of just £1.50. Like delicious ice cream on a hot summer's day, I can't recommend it enough.
