new episode up today, reading aloud a couple selections from the public domain. which selections? listen and find out! go wherever you get your podcasts! Thematically, it gels together well too: Howard and Tony’s rivalry is fueled in no small part by the fact Tony only exists because Howard’s father was bored by his life. The book seems to be telling us, when you live in a town where there’s barely anything to do, it can feel like you have nothing to lose, and be easy to overlook who you have in your life. The shadow of Howard’s dad, and everything wrong he represented with working class fathers of that era, looms large in the protagonist’s life. The colors are desaturated, veering towards gray tones, and the large amount of panels greatly reduces the pacing, building the sense of stillness (and perhaps loneliness) one may experience up north. The unhurried pacing lends the narration the sense of a documentary speaker, slowly remarking on the quirky stories of the inhabitants of Dobbiston, which gives every unexpected gag time to land. (You can almost imagine Emma Thompson or Stephen Fry doing the audiobook version, since the script has that quietly bemused tone.)

The idea of ice-cream turf wars being led by some sort of Mr Whippy Don is absolutely absurd and yet I was enraptured! Howard meandering his way through life, happy to do his crosswords, run his van on his patch and go home to his wife every day built up this really gentle, relatable character who you couldn't help but root for as his little van struggled to compete as the turf wars heated up. The supporting characters were just lovely, so humourous but with a real bond across them, and I thought this book brought Lancashire to life in such a wonderfully vivid way. AO: I really felt for you last year when the pandemic hit just before Flake was published and you missed all the customary book launches and events. How have you had to adapt to promoting Flake over the 16 months? It's absolutely brilliant. From the dour colour palette to the deceptively simple illustrations to the dry, deadpan and very British humour.DOOLEY: There are definitely some eccentric characters in flake, but I don’t think they are too far removed from reality. I hope people will recognise character traits of their own. Many of us, me included, are a bit strange and I think much of life is lived in that space between the weird and the boring. I’ve lost count of the days, months, years I’ve given over to quietly pottering around doing something or other that will never amount to much. I think the humanity comes from the fact that we are all caught up in our own small world, it seems massive to us but is all rather inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

This was such a human story that I devoured in one sitting. I really enjoyed the premise of an underdog fighting to make ends meet and preserve his dad's legacy, as well as how everyone in the community rallied together to help one other achieve their dreams. A sweet (pun intended) and uplifting read that I would totally recommend! FLAKE is a stunning debut graphic novel by a Cape/Observer graphic short story competition winner – a tale of a skirmish in the ice-cream wars that is worthy of Alan Bennett Unfortunately, Howard’s finances are dwindling and this summer’s seen a downturn which Howard at first dismisses as one of the vagaries of his seasonal trade. It’s not. It heralds the North-West English Ice Cream Wars. Vans had for generations peacefully patrolled their family territories but now sly Tony Augustus has emerged, seemingly from nowhere, and his entente ain’t so cordiale. Tony was born of one of the Families, but not into it, and this has given him quite the chip on his fishy shoulder. His vans have begun encroaching on others’ routes, swallowing them whole like some Great White Shark of the suburban seas. And there’s a reason why he wants Howard’s more than anyone else’s.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.

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!! Dooley, the 21st winner of the Wodehouse prize, said he was “surprised, overwhelmed and elated” to take this year’s award. His winnings include a jeroboam of Bollinger and a set of Wodehouse books. 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.Like this father before him, Howard is an ice-cream van man – a master of his craft, with all the local knowledge and subtle skills:“Identifying the best places to stop. Sensing the optimum moment to switch on his signature tune. His ears were acutely attuned to the sound of children laughing. And, more importantly, the sound of children crying.” In the small seaside town of Dobbiston, Howard sells ice creams from his van, just like his father before him. But when he notices a downturn in trade, he soon realises its cause: Tony Augustus, Howard's half-brother, whose ice-cream empire is expanding all over the North-West... Last year his debut graphic novel Flake, a tale of warring ice cream men, was published by Jonathan Cape and went on to be Eisner Award-nominated this year. I caught up with Matthew to talk about small press community, shared universes, and launching Flake in a pandemic year…