Seeing Things: Lee Lai and Arizona O’Neill in Conversation
Located in the Salle des Célébrations, Main Stage, Casa d’Italia
From spectral magpies to Frankenstein’s Monster (actually he much prefers “Frankie”), unsettling visions haunt the protagonists of Cannon and Opioids & Organs, two of the most talked-about graphic narratives of the last year. Join Montreal authors Lee Lai and Arizona O’Neill for a freewheeling conversation about blurring the boundaries between the real and the imaginary, tackling “intergenerational trauma shit” both obliquely and head-on, and why the comic book medium is the ideal form for true stories, invented tales, and everything in between. Featuring short readings from both authors. Moderated by François Vigneault.
Arizona O’Neill is a Montreal author and illustrator. She is the illustrator of Nelly Arcan’s L’enfant dans le miroir and Heather O’Neill’s Valentine in Montreal. Her comics have appeared in Hazlitt, Exclaim!, Canadian Geographic, and the Montreal Gazette. She has created animated videos for many outlets, including CBC. Opioids and Organs is her debut graphic novel out with Drawn & Quarterly.
Lee Lai is an Australian cartoonist living in Tio’tia:ke (colonially Montreal). Her latest graphic novel Cannon is with Drawn & Quarterly, Giramondo, Sarbacane and other publishers. She lives with her two roommates and a cat called Pumpkin.
François Vigneault is an American-born cartoonist living in Québec. He is the creator of the sci-fi graphic novel TITAN (Oni Press, 2020 / Éditions Pow Pow, 2017), the illustrator of books including Le gâteau empoisonée (Éditions de la Pastèque, 2025), Extraordinary Eyeglasses (Helvetiq, 2024), and Orcs in Space (Oni Press 2021-22), and also works as a translator and designer.