cannon
Author/Artist: Lee Lai
Publisher: Drawing & Quarter
Publication date: September 9, 2025
In a follow-up to her multi-award winning graphic novel debut, Stone Fruit, cartoonist Lee Lai follows the adult Lucy of Wristless, known as Cannon, whose calm is being challenged in all areas of her life.
Rather than a coming-of-age story in which the main character discovers something about himself and overcomes obstacles, Cannon portrays the dismantling. It is a typical LAI in both its complexity and its image. It also shows the continued maturity of her work.
Cannon’s closest friendship with High School Best Trish is rapidly getting worse. Trish is so focused on her writing career and her new situation that she doesn’t realize how often she stomps Canon’s writing, how much space she takes up, how narrows her space to what Canon is left behind, and is simply forced to do.
Meanwhile, Cannon’s job hires a new bartender who will soon return, where she is fetished by her boss but deeply respected by her colleagues. But they are not dating. It’s simply not that serious.
All of this feels like a staple of early experiences in college and adulthood, but Cannon is also trying to look after his grandfather. Attempts to communicate with his mother about his care have been largely unanswered. Cannon balances her life and will bear the brunt of her family’s responsibilities, not just her.
Shown in the black and white one-to-four panel layout, Cannon is a work focused on even-paced characters that introduce heavy, hard emotions with perfect nuance. Nominal characters don’t like conflict and seem to prefer to move away from the spotlight. But once she begins to experience emotional, mental and even physical pain, she has no choice but to stand up for herself. The outcomes for both ourselves and others are multifaceted, intense, and often unpredictable.
The interest here is rooted in how easy it is for people to hurt each other, and how easy it is to dig deep into the ripped relationship, eliminating the possibility of forgiveness and healing.
Renders LAI character representations, body language, and flash valve moments to show the passage of time. Rai’s stunning dialogue, often drawn with overlapping text bubbles, overturns the reader how much he has deteriorated, especially between cannons and Trish.
At the heart of everything is Canon and Trish’s strange platonic partnership. The first panel of the book depicts scenes of complete destruction around it, then jumps three months later. This is occasionally flashback to their high school days to explain how they got to that point and reveal how their friendship was.
This framing quickly establishes the dismantling of the cannon and Trish (which we find to be seen to a slightly lesser extent, followed by cannons). The tension is there from the jump and it never fades while shifting into the entire story.
Like his predecessor, Cannon is a unique, authentic masterpiece of Lee Rai.
Final Verdict: Purchase
Cannon is now available from Publisher Drawn & Quarterly
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