Dear dairy: one graphic novelist’s fixation with the world of ice-cream vans

Matthew Dooley’s elegiac debut Flake tells of rival ice-cream salesmen. It’s warm, affectionate and full of outrageous puns. Walt Whipman, anyone?

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.

“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. “It was my greatest idea for a comic, which I’ll almost certainly never do. I thought they could live together – all of their correspondence getting mixed up with hilarious consequences. I was going to call it We Three Kings.”