- 10+ in stock
Affectionate, hilarious and filled with dazzling puns, Flake tells of rival ice-cream men in a small coastal resort in Northern England. While principally comic, Dooley’s very funny debut pays visual homage to Chris Ware’s melancholy, but with a huge burst of sunshine and optimism thrown in. Flake is a delightful, laugh-out-loud graphic novel that puts Dooley into the top ranks of comic fiction.
Winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction 2020
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.
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...
Flake, Matthew Dooley's debut graphic novel, tells of how this epic battle turns out, and how Howard - helped by the Dobbiston Mountain Rescue team - overcomes every obstacle and triumphs in the end.
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
ISBN: 9781787330580
Number of pages: 176
Weight: 719 g
Dimensions: 248 x 176 x 23 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'Matthew Dooley's debut graphic novel Flake is a joy... If it was a film, you could see Bill Forsyth directing it. If it was on TV, you'd file it next to your Detectorists box set. But as it's a graphic novel, think of Joff Winterhart with a cone and a squirt of strawberry sauce.' - Teddy Jamieson, Herald Scotland
'Full of irresistible puns... A meld of Alan Bennett and the American comic-book artist Chris Ware...and also Tom Gauld.' - Tim Lewis, The Observer
'This [is an] incredibly candid and often LOLs memoir about how it feels to raise a baby on your own when you're more into negronis than nappies.' - Cosmopolitan
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“Just Lovely”
Nothing more British. A really charming story of a hapless, crossword puzzle loving ice-ceam van man drawn in to a war for his "patch". Alan Bennet as drawn by Chris Ware.
“Choc-ice full of Northern nostalgia”
Full disclosure...this is the first graphic novel I’ve read and I’m so glad I’ve ventured into this genre. A truly charming, funny and whimsical story about an ice cream war in Northern England. Lovely story and... More
“Charming and Witty”
This really is fantastic. Well worthy of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Comic Fiction Prize. Superbly witty, and wonderfully charming, this story is uplifting and encouraging. I enjoyed every moment of it. From the... More
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