In the opening scenes of Cannon, Quebec-based Australian cartoonist Lee Lai’s second graphic novel, a flock of magpies sits in a dark, empty restaurant. Tables and chairs are toppled – condiments, cutlery and smashed plates litter the floor. A solitary figure sits among it all, huffing and puffing, unbelieving of what she’s done.
It’s a striking way to begin a story, and a hell of an introduction to a character who’s usually not much like this at all. The titular Cannon (Lucy to her family) is a queer Chinese woman on the “uncool side of [her] twenties” living in Montreal in 2017. The narrative winds back to a few months earlier, then Cannon’s adolescence, to reveal what led her to this breaking point.
