Flake

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We’re doing what we can, which means reading and tending to plants on this strange Friday. How about you? Off Life #11 – The Emerging Talents of Darren Cullen, Brigid Deacon, Alex Potts, Grace Wilson and More Get a Welcome Anthology Spotlight Previously in the Observer, Dooley was described as a meld of Alan Bennett and the American comic-book artist Chris Ware. He modestly deflects the compliment. “Chris Ware is one of the great visual artists working in any medium,” says Dooley. “He has a meticulous, beautiful style and I have quite a plain, flat style, so it’s similar in a way. But he’s much, much better at drawing than I am. And Alan Bennett, he quite likes the mundane and minutiae. But I wince at comparisons like that.” Full of irresistible puns... A meld of Alan Bennett and the American comic-book artist Chris Ware... and also Tom Gauld. -- Tim Lewis * Observer *

Puppers reading! Christopher got a dog! Everybody is reading Ali Smith’s “The Accidental” for ~some~ reason!

It Was Wonderful to Connect with Others Who Are in My Place”– Rachael Smith Talks New Motherhood and ‘Nap Comix’ October 30, 2023 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…

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? We had none of us, I think, expected a graphic novel to win, but we were all captivated by Flake,” said judge and publisher David Campbell, while judge Sindhu Vee called the book “a rare joy: a laugh out loud story with characters you want to meet again and again”. Dooley’s comments about his aspirations for the novel emphasise that it’s not ‘“some great allegory for big capitalist companies coming in and taking over the little man … or… about being an entrepreneur or anything like that. It’s not. It was an opportunity to make up some ice-creams, which was quite fun”’ (Lewis). It’s worth taking this seemingly self-deprecatory statement at face value and seeing it as a sincere articulation of the importance of frivolity; one that requires a re-examination of the cultural values that celebrate the serious or substantial and denigrate the frivolous. This hierarchy and the ‘divergence between “mere” and “serious”’ which it is predicated upon, ensures that we often try to justify humour by seeking its social or political purpose, which ‘causes us to devalue central elements of the experience of humor, namely, entertainment and pleasure’ (Wuster 162). In Dooley’s attachment to seemingly ‘superficial’ fun – ice-creams, crosswords, pub quizzes, crazy golf, puns – is a determination instead to value such pleasures, which, after all, are often such a crucial part of everyday happiness.

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.) Here’s an example of Matthew Dooley’s sense of humour. A while ago, the 35-year-old graphic novelist realised that Mervyn King, the erstwhile governor of the Bank of England, shared his name not only with the world’s fourth-best darts player but also a high-ranking lawn and indoor bowler, whose day job was as a pest controller. AO: How much of a game-changer for you was winning the 2016 Cape/Observer/Comica Short Story Prize for ‘Colin Turnbull: A Tall Story’ (above)? 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?

MacDowell, James, Happy Endings in Hollywood Cinema, Cliché, Convention and the Final Couple. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press; 2013. Condition: New. Über den AutorrnrnMatthew Dooley won the Cape/Comica/Observer graphic short story prize in 2016. He works in the House of Commons.KlappentextrnrnA graphic novel of skirmish in the ice cream wars, reminiscent of Al. In the midst of some challenging reading ranging from the atrocities of war to abusive relationships and mental disintegration comes this, quite charming, quintessentially English and humorous graphic novel from Matthew Dooley. For longer-term fans of his work there are a couple of in-jokes that will delight with their implication that Flake takes place in a wider shared “Dooleyverse”. Ultimately though, Flake is proof positive that Matthew Dooley’s comics are the perfect blend of absurdism and humanity. A triumphant debut for one of UK comics’ most underappreciated rising stars. Starlit Lovers – Lor Phoenix and KitsuneArt’s Touching “Sapphic Slice-of-Life Romance” Debuts at Thought Bubble October 30, 2023

Wales Millennium Centre Responds to the United Condemnation of the Comics Community – Their Upcoming AI Art Graphic Novel “Creation” Course Will Run Regardless October 20, 2023 A stunning first graphic novel by a Cape/Comica/Observer graphic short story competition winner - a tale of a skirmish in the ice-cream wars that is worthy of Alan Bennett This graphic novel is criminally under rated. Imagine A Man Called Ove vibes featuring an ice-cream van battle and beautiful illustrations. MATTHEW DOOLEY: This came as a huge surprise… particularly as I found out via a WhatsApp group I’m in with some other comic creators! Obviously when making Flake I didn’t set out with the intention of being nominated for any awards but it is enormously gratifying to have your work recognised in that way. DOOLEY: I have a few ideas that are gently percolating. Hopefully one or more of those will end up as another graphic novel. I’m working on something shorter, but hopefully no less interesting, for my first time tabling at Thought Bubble… thank god for a deadline!

It opens to deserted sands of a northern British seaside resort, its former proud glories now lost, and its outdated attempts to hold on to relevance seeming pitiful and futile. Howard “Captain Cone” Grayling in middle age has similarly stagnated, bound by family tradition to a dying business model of an ice cream van with few prospects beyond a slow and steady decline. Dooley first gained recognition when he won the Cape/Comica/Observer graphic short story prize in 2016, with another dairy related tale of a man Colin Turnball and his ambition to win Lancashire’s Tallest Milkman competition. When he’s not busy crafting comic tales, Dooley works at the House of Commons in education. DOOLEY: Alongside the Cape competition, anthologies were the other thing to get me going. I need a deadline otherwise I won’t do anything, so having a date by which to submit something is a useful motivator. I’d been scratching around doing bits and pieces, not really getting anywhere, wondering if there was much point to bothering with comics. I then saw that Dirty Rotten Comics were taking submissions for a new book and took a punt sending them a silly comic about someone with a balloon for a head. They took it and that was the first of a number of comics they published in subsequent DRCs.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! Howard’s life as an ice cream van owner is a quietly unambitious one. 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. This sedentary lifestyle is about to be disrupted however when rogue ice cream vendor Tony Augustus re-enters his life. The mercenary Augustus has swept through the North West of England, dispatching such industry legends as Professor Scrumptious and Dr. Frisbee’s Ice Creams of Distinction in his wake, and subsuming then into his icy empire. 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.) 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.