Matthew Dooley wins The 2020 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction with his brilliant graphic novel, Flake.

Flake is the debut novel of author and illustrator Matthew Dooley and is also the first graphic novel to win in the prize’s history. He’ll be joining a long line of witty winners from the past two decades, including Helen Fielding, Ian McEwan, Terry Pratchett and Nina Stibbe.

Set in a small seaside town of Dobbiston, Flake tells the story of ice-cream seller Howard. 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… Thus ensues an epic battle between them, with Howard – helped by the Dobbiston Mountain Rescue team – overcoming every obstacle in the process, and ultimately triumphing in the end.

Matthew Dooley comments: ‘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. Now, how on earth do you chill a bottle of champagne that big..?’

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. With the current situation sadly not allowing for a pig to be awarded at the  Hay Festival this year, Dooley has drawn his own humorous interpretation, with himself sat on the pig, bottle of Bollinger in hand.