Flake

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Forgotten the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuth AO: Despite all its more eccentric trappings there’s a very human story at the heart of Flake. Do you think that in its own strange way that juxtaposition of the absurd and the pedestrian in your work can draw out the inherent humanity of your stories all the more for its contrast? AO: One of the things I loved about Flake were a couple of throwaway moments that nevertheless implied a kind of wider Dooleyverse. Do you see your stories all fitting together in the same shared universe? FLAKE is the first graphic novel to win the prize in its 20 year history. Judge Sindhu Vee describes it as ‘a rare joy: a laugh out loud story with characters you want to meet again and again,’ Dooley’s debut Flake tells the comic tale of ice cream wars and sibling rivalry. Described by The Observer as a meld of Alan Bennett and graphic novelist Chris Ware, Flake combines clever detail, warm characters and a good handful of puns.

This is not to say the narrative is without sadness: it’s there both in the physical fabric of the rundown town (graffiti, stained walls, broken signs), and the touches of personal unhappiness: Howard’s memories of his father’s brutishness, and a melancholy visit to his mother in her retirement home. But the emotion remains very understated, very British. And just as the greys of the unlovely town are leavened and uplifted by the dreamy pastels of the ice cream vans, so too is the emotion leavened with humour. The trip to the retirement home, for example, is also gently hilarious – as Howard hands out his lollies to the old folks, one elderly lady asks querulously, ‘Do you have one that’s a little warmer?’Wuster, Tracy, “Scribbling to excite the laughter of God’s creatures”: Some Thoughts on “Mere” Humor, Entertainment, and Pleasure, Studies in American Humor, 4.2, 2018, pp. 160-170. Much of the humor is found in how people are clearly trying to find a way to break the boredom in this small town: Howard’s sole friend, Jasper, has loads of obscure interests, and as head of the Dobbiston Mountain Rescue Service, is doing his utmost to undo the local peak getting recategorized as a hill. There’s elaborate digressions on the accidental founding of Dobbiston, and a man who fooled the townsfolk into believing he’d been to the South Pole: Dooley seems to be having his ice cream cake and eating it too, simultaneously sending up the region, while crafting this elaborate love letter to it.

When a book opens with a man standing on top of an ice cream van slowly being submerged into the sea, the man seemingly accepting his fate, you're probably not expecting a book that is so absolutely brimming with the warmth and humour that this book absolutely was. But it’s in the quieter moments of Flake where Dooley reminds us of how nuanced a storyteller he is. Here it is what is left unsaid that ironically speaks the most eloquently about Howard and his struggles; in these gaps in between exposition and dialogue the core emotional truths of his situation hit home. Dooley communicates so much in these interludes about Howard’s existence and his relationship with his immediate environment through a sublime sense of pacing, character expression and body language. Starlit Lovers – Lor Phoenix and KitsuneArt’s Touching “Sapphic Slice-of-Life Romance” Debuts at Thought Bubble October 30, 2023

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It Was Wonderful to Connect with Others Who Are in My Place”– Rachael Smith Talks New Motherhood and ‘Nap Comix’ October 30, 2023 Everyman’s Library and Champagne Bollinger today, 1 July, announce Flake by Matthew Dooley (Vintage, Jonathan Cape) as the winner of the 2020 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction. A graphic novel about ice-cream turf wars in an English seaside town has won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for comedic fiction. Full of irresistible puns... A meld of Alan Bennett and the American comic-book artist Chris Ware... and also Tom Gauld. -- Tim Lewis * Observer *

AO: Let’s return to warring ice cream men and your Eisner-nominated graphic novel Flake. For those yet to read it how would you pitch the premise to them? Matthew Dooley won the Observer’s short graphic story award in 2016 but had his first graphic novel, Flake, published by Jonathan Cape earlier this year.

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With his debut, Dooley, who also works in the House of Commons in its education department, beat shortlisted novels including Jenny Offill’s Weather and Oisin Fagan’s Nobber. Having won the Observer/Cape/Comica graphic short story prize in 2016 for a comic about a man who longs to win Lancashire’s Tallest Milkman competition, Dooley has been described by the Observer as a meld of Alan Bennett and graphic novelist Chris Ware. Related Posts• Dirty Rotten Comics #6 – Two Generations of Broken Frontier’s ‘Six to Watch’ Creators Converge in the Latest DRC Anthology The Lost Loiners – Anna Readman Lends an Unlikely Humanity to the Monstrous in Her Troll Illustration Zine October 31, 2023 David Campbell, judge and publisher of Everyman’s Library, commented: "This year’s shortlist was especially strong with a number of very credible potential winners. We had none of us, I think, expected a graphic novel to win, but we were all captivated by Flake." Jasper’s overriding priorities, however, are his pet peeves, each as irrelevant to any sane human being as they are uncompromisingly and passionately pursued. For example, he spent six months in a French prison for trying to convert continental road signs from metric to imperial then painting his results on their signposts. So he’s averse neither to direct confrontation nor overt vandalism, which may well come in handy during the imminent North-West English Ice Cream Wars.(It doesn’t.)