#haze cave

[paradisesystems]

Available now for pre-order: Haze Cave by Pigao! We are so excited to be publishing this stunning book, which beautifully captures the dislocation of modern China.

Image description: Pages of the comic showing a couple driving along one of Beijing's massive highways. Gazing out the window at the office buildings, one character wonders at how little of the city she is able to understand.

[paradisesystems]

Available now: Haze Cave by Pigao! We are so thrilled to add this important work by accomplished cartoonist Pigao to our line up. The artist designed the book with some unique binding and design features, and the printing came out beautifully.

Offset printing / color / 80 pages / 6 x 8.25" ISBN: 978-1-951078-10-2

Haze Cave is a semi-autobiographical story by Hangzhou-based cartoonist Pigao. Broken into two related stories, the first half finds the artist struggling with rent and displacement on the outskirts of Beijing. In the second half, Pigao attempts to return to a place from her past, only to find her memories lead her deeper into mysteries she cannot resolve. Throughout the book, Pigao’s fine pencil work and restrained palette beautifully capture a moment of transition and upheaval.

Image description: Photos of the cover and interior pages of the book, which is black and white with flashes of orange and cyan. In one spread, a couple drives through town while the sun sets. In another, a woman approaches a temple. Pigao's illustration often plays up contrasts between the sharp angular forms of buildings and the softer shapes of foliage and figures.

[paradisesystems]

New Book Announcement! This fall we will be launching Haze Cave, by Pigao. Haze Cave is a semi-autobiographical story of displacement, change, and memory in modern China. We are honored to be publishing this comic by Pigao, who in addition to working as an illustrator and cartoonist, has worked to bring many amazing comics into print through the limited-edition artbook studio Yanshu.

Image description: Cover of the comic in smudged contrasting colors. Through an arch of dark, weathered rock, orange and blue light pours through a fence. Two figures are silhouetted in the light. 

[paradisesystems]

Helen Chazan has written a beautiful review of Haze Cave by Pigao for The Comics Journal. "Pigao deftly explores an emotional landscape of absence and exclusion so deeply part of modernity. Urban centers expel their residents - it is impossible to truly belong to a place that constantly pushes people aside for building projects. No matter how long you stay, a city is never truly your city. And yet the homes we've left are not unchanging; even if they remain the same, we change, we become new people, and we forget... Pigao charts a contemplative terrain of personal diaspora, a fog of place and time, the haze of memory."