Riot Review: Cannon by Lee Lai 🌈

This week, we're discussing the 2026 Drawn and Quarterly, Eisner-nominated, and LAMBDA award-winning graphic novel Cannon by Lee Lai. This was a comic we remember seeing at San Diego Comic Con in 2025, and we deeply regret not reading it then. This slice of life comic about a queer, overworked, and underrecognized woman is so relatable and brilliantly told! As always, come and hang out with us as we discuss our recent pulls, what we’re reading, what we’re watching, and anything else that comes up in the chats!! Cannon by Lee Lai (2025)- We arrive to wreckage—a restaurant smashed to rubble, with tables and chairs upended riotously. Under the swampy nighttime cover of a Montreal heat-wave, this is where we meet our protagonist, Cannon, dripping in little beads of regret sweat. She was supposed to be closing the restaurant for the night, but instead, well, she destroyed it. The mess feels a bit like a horror-scape—not unlike the horror films Cannon and her best friend, Trish, watch together. Cooking dinner and digging into deep cuts of Australian horror films on their scheduled weekly hangs has become the glue in their rote 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 the hell outta there. In Cannon, the full palette of a nervous breakdown is just a slice of what Lai (Stone Fruit) has on offer. As Cannon’s shoulders bend under the weight of an aging Gung-gung and an avoidant mother, Lai’s sharp sense of humor and sensitive eye produce a story that will hit readers with a smash. —--------------------- The Pink Riot Comic Show is a live talk show podcast that discusses all things nerd with a Black feminist perspective in comic books, novels, TV, and film. Hang out with us in the live chat to witness our shenanigans and thought-provoking takes. We go live on Thursday nights at 5pm PT/ 8pm ET on YouTube, Instagram, and Twitch! Welcome to the Riot Family!!🥰 If you want to find us in these internet streets, click our linktree🤟🏾: https://linktr.ee/pinkriotcomicshow If you want to buy our Pink Riot, Blerdy Baddie, or Bust That Omnibussy Wide Open Merch, click here: https://pinkriotcomicshow.printify.me/ 🩷 If you want to support us and get exclusive behind-the-scenes content and input, subscribe to our Patreon🩷: https://patreon.com/pinkriotcomicshow... Be sure to like, share, and subscribe!!!!🥰 #comicbooks #comicbook #livestream #show #blerds #womenofcolorincomics #podcasts