The 21st Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize has been awarded to a comic book about ice cream.
Matthew Dooley, who published Flake in April of this year, was recognised for creating a work “in the spirit” of Jeeves and Wooster creator PG Wodehouse. The work is the first graphic novel to win the prize in its history.
Dooley, who is also employed in the House of Commons education department, previously won the Observer/Cape/Comica graphic short story prize in 2016 for a comic following a man who hopes to win Lancashire’s Tallest Milkman competition. The Observer described his work as a combination of Alan Bennett and Chris Ware.
David Campbell, who judged this year’s Wodehouse prize, said: “We had none of us, I think, expected a graphic novel to win, but we were all captivated by Flake”.
Fellow judge, Sindhu Vee said that the book was “a rare joy: a laugh out loud story with characters you want to meet again and again”.
Speaking about his win, Dooley said he was “surprised, overwhelmed and elated”.
He continued: “Flake was published on 2 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.”
Dooley’s prize includes a set of PG Wodehouse books and a jeroboam of Bollinger. “Now, how on earth do you chill a bottle of champagne that big…?” he asked.
In a more conventional year, Dooley would have been awarded the prize at the Hay festival and a pig would have been named after the winning book. As organisers noted that with “the current situation not allowing for a physical pig”, Dooley drew his own instead.
