***This event has been rescheduled for Monday, April 10th, 6-8PM.

Join us in welcoming Brooklyn-based publisher Paradise Systems and Taiwanese cartoonist A ee mi for the launch of A ee mi’s debut graphic novel, Platonic Love. Platonic Love takes place in a repressive heteronormative regime where the only escape for queer individuals is the ability to travel between dimensions. Taking different bodies and wandering through different worlds, they search for a lover who will care for them.

A ee mi completed Platonic Love in the run-up to Taiwan’s 2018 referendum on gay marriage. Her perspective as an ally to the queer community inspired her to create this visually dazzling exploration of love and sexuality.

A ee mi is an illustrator and cartoonist who completed an MFA in Illustration Practice from MICA and is now based in Taipei. The psychedelic retro style, bright colors, and comics that empathize with life are A ee mi’s way to soothe the souls on social media. She has self-published, and held an exhibition of her work at Taipei’s wildflower bookstore in 2021.

Paradise Systems publishes exemplary comics from the United States, China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Inspired by, but unfaithful to comic conventions, we seek to create a community of writers and readers that relish in weird, sincere, experimental storytelling. Since 2017, Paradise Systems has released 26 comics, including Naked Body, the first major anthology of Chinese comics to be published in English. Their work has been featured in the Guardian, Hyperallergic, and The Comics Journal.