RMIT x Stella Prize: Lee Lai on Comics, Community and Cannon
Schedule
Mon May 18 2026 at 06:00 pm to 07:30 pm
UTC+10:00Location
RMIT University - Melbourne City Campus | Melbourne, VI
About this Event
Join Lee Lai, one of the world’s top graphic storytellers, for a free event about how she became a comics-maker, how she sustains her practice, and how she wrote and drew the wise, furious, intimate world of her hit graphic novel .
Lai’s elegant artistry evokes horror and poignancy, shock and delight, and Cannon is an incontestable reminder that – in the hands of a masterful artist and storyteller – the very best graphic novels can do what prose alone cannot. And Cannon is absolutely one of the best. – , The Stella Prize
Lee Lai will be in conversation with writer and comics scholar Ronnie Scott. In this special event, Lee and Scott will explore the possibilities of graphic storytelling and the broader practice of contemporary comics. Whether you’re a certified bookworm or a beginner to the visual world of graphic novels, all are welcome to this event. Join Stella at RMIT to learn more about The Stella Prize, and this exceptional book from the 2026 Shortlist.
This event will feature a Q&A session with the audience, plus book signings. Please note that books will not be available for sale at the event. If interested in prepurchasing a copy of Cannon, please email [email protected].
Location: RMIT University, Cinema Theatre (Building 80, 435-457 Swanston St), Melbourne VIC 3000
Tickets: free but bookings essential.
Access: for access information please email [email protected].
About the Book
We arrive to wreckage – a restaurant smashed to rubble, with tables and chairs upended riotously. Under the swampy nighttime cover of a Montreal heatwave, we meet our protagonist, Cannon, dripping in beads of regret sweat. She was supposed to be closing the restaurant for the night, but instead, she destroyed it. The horror-scape left in her wake is not unlike the films Cannon and her best friend, Trish, watch together. Cooking dinner and digging into deep cuts of Australian horror movies on their scheduled weekly hangs has become the glue in their relationship. In high school, they were each other’s lifeline – two queer second-generation Chinese nerds trapped in the suburbs. Now, on the uncool side of their twenties, the essentialness of one another feels harder to pin down. Yet when our stoic and unbendingly well-behaved Cannon finds herself very uncharacteristically surrounded by smashed plates, it is Trish who shows up to pull her out.
In Cannon, Lee Lai’s follow-up to the critically acclaimed and award-winning Stone Fruit, the full palette of a nervous breakdown is just a part of what is on offer. Lai’s sharp sense of humour and sensitive eye produce a story that explores the intimacy of queer friendship and the weight of family responsibility, and breaks open the question of what we owe both to each other and to ourselves.
Find out more on Stella’s website.
This event is proudly supported by the School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, and the non/fictionLab.
Where is it happening?
RMIT University - Melbourne City Campus, 124 La Trobe Street, Melbourne, AustraliaEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
AUD 0.00
