This month Paradise Systems is launching our most ambitious project to date: we're raising funds to publish the legendary Chinese comics anthology Naked Body (裸体).
Naked Body is a 100-page, full color anthology edited by Yan Cong. It began life a few years ago when Yan Cong was told by Beijing printers that he could not print books with nudity in them. He responded by putting out an open call for a new comics anthology with the requirement that all the main characters had to be nude. As submissions rolled in on his Weibo account, he would publicly respond, either giving the go ahead or rejecting their submission. The end result is this beautiful collection filled with playful, intimate, and loopy comics.
It's already been one and half years since I first spoke to Yan Cong about doing an English edition. In the time since, we've been working to make sure this project is as successful as it can be — working with authors to hand letter translated text, confirming shipping and printing budgets, and positioning the anthology for a larger, international audience.
We decided to launch this book as a Kickstarter in order to ask our broader community for support as we embark on this new project. Please take a look at our Kickstarter page and pass the word along to anyone you know who may be interested.