A little chat with Lee Lai

Talking comics with someone this lovely is... lovely.

Update! Cannon won the Stella Prize!

The Stella Prize is a super big deal Australian Literary Award. Cannon is the first comic ever to win it, and Lee is the first non-binary author to win. So happy about this!

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Last month I met up with Lee Lai to launch her latest book, Cannon, here in Sydney. She had asked if we could both do readings and then just… chat comics together in front of an audience, and that’s just what we did.

And it was lovely.

Lee is super cool, very tuned into her own process, and happy to talk story and visual craft. The launch took place at Wildflower Brewing & Blending and the place was full of wooden barrels and funny, kind comics people.

Also, just look how god damn dreamy Lee looks in this photo (sorry Lee, but it’s true!)

On the other hand, I looked insane most of the time.

And I obviously need to start paying attention to those Instagram ads constantly trying to sell me weird gadgets that will fix my posture.

Anyway!

My friend Zacha Rosen recorded the audio and made an edit of our chat that I thought I’d share here. We talked about process, humour, how to sustain interest, the importance of pauses and the poetry of juxtaposed imagery. I asked a lot of questions, poorly disguised a few comments as questions, and made two fart jokes (I’m pretty classy).

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Toward the end of our conversation I refer to a few pages in particular which we had projected so the audience could see them. I’ve added time stamps to those images below so you can see what we were talking about.

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Roughly 19 minutes into the audio.

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Roughly 23 minutes into the audio.

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Roughly 24 minutes into the audio.

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This is a bit different for me, so let me know if there was anything in here that felt interesting or valuable to you, and if you enjoyed it.

I’ve been toying with the idea of recording some conversations with other comic artists and posting them here. The conversations would be focused on craft - I want to know how someone identifies a story worth telling, or invents one, and then how they make that story effective, engaging and meaningful. And I want to unpack those things so that I understand them and, more importantly, I understand how to apply them in my own work, you now?

I also want to thank Bee Elton for the photos of the event! Bee you’re the best!

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My teaching semester is wrapping up over the next few weeks and I’m keen to start posting more regularly on here.

I have nearly finished two new comics and exercises, so expect to see those in the next week or two.

Thanks, as always, for your support!

xo

fionn

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