Inio Asano

First published in the defunct Weekly Young Sunday magazine, the introspective and shoegazey Solanin by Inio Asano is a slice-of-life seinen (teen/adult male) manga about the role that music can play in a young person's life, and the promises and heartbreak that music can represent.

From its days as unfamiliar black-and-white single comics discovered as if by chance in Western comics shops, manga has become the biggest-selling sector of the comics industry, and an influence on dozens of creators in the North American industry. Much like Western comics, manga is for everyone, so if you know someone who loves comics but has never got into manga, we've put together a gift guide with great ideas for books and movies that you can buy them this holiday season.

The comics world is full of questions — like “Who would win in a fight?”; “Which one of the Powerpuff Girls is best?”; and “Who is the handsomest hero and why is it Gambit?” Here at ComicsAlliance, we spend a lot of time thinking about everything from the big questions that matter a whole lot to the small ones that are still kinda fascinating. With The Question, we’re going to give our writers the opportunity to give their answers, because if we’re always thinking about this stuff anyway, we might as well write it down. For our latest question, we wanted to keep things simple. We’re now more than halfway through the year, and 2016 has brought so many exciting new comics. With all that in mind: What's your favorite comic of the year so far?

Inio Asano's Goodnight Punpun is unlike any other manga you've ever read. It's the sort of convention-defying, senses-shattering experience you get when reading Will Eisner or Chris Ware for the first time. It takes notions of what manga can be --- of what comics can be --- and throws them right out the window. It's at once achingly familiar and deeply alienating.

With his first two English language releases, What A Wonderful World and Solanin (both published by Viz), Inio Asano had gained a reputation for creating thoughtful slice-of-life stories that earned him the reputation as being the voice of a generation. March saw the debut of the Fantagraphics' edition of Nijigahara Holograph, a book that's as difficult to read as it is stunning to look at. Ostensibly about the repeated sacrifices of a young woman to save the world from apocalypse, the introduction of alternating timelines (with no clear delineation) and mature elements elevates it beyond exploitation, even as it forces the reader into uncomfortable territory that's reminiscent of the work of David Lynch.

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2014 promises to bring a flood of amazing work from a raft of talented cover artists, writers, web cartoonists, interior artists and mangaka. ComicsAlliance has looked at the new projects on the horizon and made a pick of 14 comic creators who we think will make an impact in 2014. Our hope is that this is just the tip of the iceberg, that there are 140 amazing creators on the cusp of creating something great in 2014 -- but these are our picks of the creators to keep an eye on.

I'm a simple man with simple tastes. I'm also a critic, and that means that I obsess over my simple tastes in an attempt to both quantify them and convince myself that they aren't simple. But at the same time... they are simple, and that's a wonderful thing...