Editor/translator/curator/publisher R. Orion Martin is doing some seriously extraordinary things with his Paradise Systems imprint, bringing the best in contemporary “alternative” cartooning from China to these shores is sumptuously-formatted and impeccably-designed packages. These are some of the most utterly unique comics on the planet (no exaggeration), and well worth your time and money. Four of my favorite recent releases follow —

Friendship Forever by Inkee Wang occupies some bizarre middle ground between Simon Hanselmann and Austin English, with pliable, gelatinous, bulbous characters toiling away at a dark approximation of what, I guess, passes for “friendship.” But mostly they’re just assholes to each other because, hey, it relieves the tedium of droll, everyday existence. Laugh-out-loud funny in a “guilty pleasure” sort of way, this collection of strips and sketches has a real and unforced fluidity to it, even if it ultimately, in dry parlance, “goes nowhere.” A triumph of color, design…