Graphic novel launch: Cannon by Lee Lai

Shortlisted for awards in Australia and overseas, praised in The New York Times and the The New Yorker and declared a ‘best new book’ by The Age, NPR and the Guardian, Cannon is ‘an utterly glorious sophomore graphic novel’ from the author of the Stella-finalist Stone Fruit. 

Growing up in Melbourne and currently based in Canada, Lee Lai will be in conversation with fellow cartoonist Fionn McCabe for her Sydney book launch, an event featuring screen visuals and readings.

The event will be hosted by Better Read Than Dead at Wildflower Brewing & Blending in Marrickville.

Get tickets here.

Praise for Cannon

‘Lee Lai’s masterful graphic novel considers the small, universal and intersecting catastrophes of everyday life. A charming book about a nervous breakdown, it’s also a salve… Intimate questions dance across the page. And what beautiful pages they are; to read Cannon is to take tactile pleasure in its extraordinary design.’ – Judges’ comments, Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards

‘Cannon offers a blend of sharp wit and raw emotion… With black-and-white and colour panels alive with detail, Lai maps the wreckage of growing up, and the fragile glue that holds us together.’ – Sydney Morning Herald (Best Books of 2025)

‘Questions of ethics in art, filial responsibility and the shifting tides of friendship weave their way through this thoughtful, sensitive story, with flashes of red-hot anger piercing through.’ – Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen, The Guardian (Best Australian Books)

‘[An] utterly glorious sophomore graphic novel… audiences won’t ever want to look away.’ – Terry Hong, Booklist

About Lee Lai

Lee Lai is an Australian cartoonist living in Tio’tia:ke (colonially known as Montreal, Canada). In 2021, she was selected as one of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 for her debut graphic novel, Stone Fruit, which went on to win several awards, including the Lambda Literary Award, the Cartoonist Studio Prize, the Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize, and two Ignatz Awards. Her comics have appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, The New York Times, Granta, and the Museum of Modern Art’s Magazine. Her second graphic novel, Cannon, was released by Giramondo in September 2025.

About Fionn McCabe

Fionn McCabe is an educator, print maker and cartoonist living on Gadigal/Wangal land. He is a co-founder and producer of Read To Me and one of the Comic Art Workshop’s outgoing co-directors. He makes comics about parenting, grief, climate change, and other serious topics that are actually surprisingly funny.