The creative team from Ice Cream Man — Image Comics’ anthology horror series — is selling all new weekly mini comics online during the coronavirus crisis.

The mini comics will be two to four pages, and new issues will come out once a week. They will be available through QuarantineComix.com for $1.99, with half of the proceeds going to help brick-and-mortar comic book shops through the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (BINC), which helps struggling booksellers, including local comic book shops.

The stories will be set in the world of Ice Cream Man, which seems likely to make them thoughtful, poignant, and deeply sinister (if they’re anything like the larger series).

You can buy the first issue here, and it’s four pages long and described on the site as “an English sonnet, sequentially told (in iambic pentameter, natch), about getting less done than one would like during times of isolation.”

Ice Cream Man is a horror anthology series that debuted in 2018 from writer W. Maxwell Prince, artist Martin Morazzo, colorist Chris O’Halloran, and letterer Good Old Neon. It was also one of my personal picks for The Beat’s Best Comics of 2019.

A full mission statement for the new charitable project can be found below:

In an effort to help brick-and-mortar comic shops during the COVID-19 crisis, the creative team behind Ice Cream Man will be posting all-new ICM mini comics (2-4 pages) right here once or twice a week. They’ll be sold as PDFs, for $1.99 a pop.

Half of profits go to the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (BINC), which supports struggling booksellers. This includes local Comic Book Shops, who are facing unprecedented financial hardship after the closure of many of their stores, the temporary shuttering of their distribution system, and the non-operation of pretty much every paper printer in the country. (To wit: there’s no way to release new comics into stores right now—the entire industry is essentially on pause.)

Comic Book Shops are essential to the future of this kooky little medium— creators of all stripes rely on them to get their art into the hands of interested readers.

So here we are, trying our best to help in a small way.

And if you’re still jonesin’ for the Real McCoy (e.g., if you’re looking to finally read that beloved graphic novel you’ve always been interested in, or in dire need of volume 4 of Ice Cream Man) visit comicshoplocator.com to find a local comics purveyor; give them a call—they very well might provide easy home delivery, or even curbside pickup.

Cheers, and stay healthy.