Flake

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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. I laughed out loud many a time while also feeling a little bit of lovely melancholy. I devoured this like I would a melting ice-cream lolly on a hot day. 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.

We all know “summer” starts after Memorial Day regardless of the whole solstice thing, right? Or is this one of Drew’s weird season hang-ups?)Matthew Dooley will be awarded a jeroboam of Bollinger Special Cuvée, a case of Bollinger La Grande Année, and a complete set of the Everyman’s Library P G Wodehouse collection. The award is normally presented at the Hay Festival, which was cancelled this year owing to the coronavirus pandemic.

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. The banality of British small town life is captured to perfection in this graphic novel under the guise of 'ice cream van turf wars'. I loved it all. The drawing style and inking really brings home the story even more and I can 100% see why it won an award!! They are the first two parts of the dairy trilogy,” says Dooley, before clarifying that he’s joking and he has no immediate plans to return to milk or its by-products as a subject any time soon. Matthew Dooley has an off-centre, idiosyncratic, and often bleakly humorous view of the world; something that has been a constant on the UK indie scene since his work first started appearing in such influential anthologies as Dirty Rotten Comics and Off Life. His short strips have been seen in collections like Meanderings. The Practical Implications of Immortality and Catastrophising, and in 2016 he won the 2016 Cape/Observer/Comica Short Story Prize for ‘Colin Turnbull: A Tall Story’.

NORD – Martin Simpson’s Norse Epic is a Stunningly Illustrated Tale of Mortality and Lineage October 31, 2023 In Flake, Dooley’s ability to place the abruptly incongruous within the banal and the unremarkable proves once again to be the greatest strength of his comedic approach. He takes a traditional narrative structure as a starting point and then peppers it with anecdotal sidesteps about the residents and history of Howard’s home town Dobbiston that allow him to exercise the more extravagant parts of his imagination. Related Posts• Glass Town – Part Speculative Biography, Part Metafiction, Isabel Greenberg Brings the Brontë Juvenilia to Comics in Her Most Accomplished Work to Date David Campbell, judge and publisher of Everyman’s Library, comments: ‘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.’

Dooley commented: " Flake was published on 2nd April, amidst a huge, bewildering global crisis. It’s been a very strange experience. Winning the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize means it’s just got stranger in the best possible way. I’m surprised, overwhelmed and elated to have won."Victoria Carfantan, director of Champagne Bollinger - UK, says: ‘We are very proud of our long-standing relationship supporting the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction. It is such an important award celebrating some of the most talented names in the genre and I am delighted to extend my congratulations to Matthew Dooley and his novel, Flake, as this year’s winner.’ It's absolutely brilliant. From the dour colour palette to the deceptively simple illustrations to the dry, deadpan and very British humour. Six titles appeared on this year's shortlist including Jenny Offill's Weather (Granta) and House of Trelawney (Bloomsbury) by 2016 winner Hannah Rothschild. Since 2014, the guiding light of So Many Damn Books has been to feature books that were good to read, drinks that are nice to drink, and people who are interesting to talk to. 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?

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 graphic novel is criminally under rated. Imagine A Man Called Ove vibes featuring an ice-cream van battle and beautiful illustrations. We’re doing what we can, which means reading and tending to plants on this strange Friday. How about you?Matthew Dooley won the Observer Graphic Short Story Prize and his debut FLAKE, published by Cape in 2020, went on to win the Wodehouse Bollinger Prize, the first time for a graphic novel. It was also a Guardian Book of the Year.