Przede wszystkim czuć inspirację twórczością Chrisa Ware, co najlepiej widać w tych symetrycznych i uporządkowanych kadrach, choć bez aż takiego umiłowania detalu czy eksperymentu. He has a meticulous, beautiful style and I have quite a plain, flat style, so it’s similar in a way.

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. Much better to draw myself in ridiculous and fantastical situations as a way to explore ideas that interest me. Passages of time can be set against each other sequentially, visually intersecting to give us multiple perspectives on scenarios while his muted use of colour is an intrinsic part of the book’s atmosphere, heightening both mood and theme. 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 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.The ending is rather brisk compared to the rest of the book, and consequently feels slightly abrupt, but by that point it has managed to satisfyingly wrap up most of its storylines, and all while bucking what would’ve been the conventional outcome of Howard and Tony’s story. All of which is but the tip of the iceberg which finds our protagonist, at the beginning, standing silently and solitarily on top of his own ice cream van, buffeted by the waves and submerged in the sea. Past winners include Helen Fielding (2017), Terry Pratchett (2012) and Howard Jacobson, who took home the inaugural prize in 2000 for The Mighty Waltzer and another in 2013 with Zoo Time. Noticing a downturn in trade, Howard soon realises its cause: Tony Augustus, his half-brother, whose ice- cream empire is expanding all over the North-West.

I don’t know many famous Mervyns but there were three Mervyn Kings who were, relatively speaking, at the top of their game at the same time,” says Dooley, his eyes wide with wonder.

From the group of friends gathering together to support him after Tony’s machinations turn nasty – prompting scenes of collective endeavour so recognisable from romcoms – to the growing success of his new ice cream (‘It didn’t take long for word to spread. It is set in the 1980s in the fictional town of Dobbiston, though Dooley admits that it shares much in common with Ormskirk, Lancashire, where he grew up. Seeing your work in print for the first time is a massive thrill and DRC were amazing at finding new people on the small press scene and giving them that opportunity. The highlight of his day is doing the crosswords for a couple of hours before work begins or chatting with local museum worker Jasper, a failed TV quiz show contestant and ardent campaigner to have the local downgraded hill reclassified as a mountain.