Favorite Graphic Literature of the Year, p.3

This is one of the best experiences I’ve had in comics in a long time. Contemplative, exquisitely drawn, and rendered in such peaceful art and prose, it’s impossible not to feel at ease with this work. Taniguchi’s nameless character enjoys the little things in life: taking a walk with a stranger, catching a rare view of the town from a tree, taking a nap in freshly fallen leaves. But it isn’t just the central character’s attitude toward such ordinary experiences, but the way Taniguchi presents it—allowing the reader's eyes to wander over the page, to appreciate the scenes drawn in such detail and with such attention, that he finds himself moving from one panel to the next with as much deliberation and care as the walking man himself. Beautiful and breathtaking!

In A DISTANT NEIGHBORHOOD, Vol. 1 (Fanfare/Ponent Mon, $23), Hiroshi Nakahara is transported back in time to when he was fourteen. Nakahara spends his days as he once did - at school, studying, spending time with his friend Takashi Hamada; but not everything is the same as he remembers. He now enjoys schoolwork; he excels at track; and he now has the courage to ask the prettiest girl in his class on a date! Taniguchi renders Nakahara’s time as his former self with compassion, slowly revealing the problems that he’d long ago forgotten. Volume Two of this great story will be out soon!

It may take a bit to get in sync with TRAVEL (PictureBox, 19.95), but take a moment and you’ll find yourself immersed in a world so both similar and alien to our own. Very simply: four travelers board a train, find their seats, ride the train to their destination, and get off. But along the way, Yuichi Yokoyama creates boundless landscapes that speed by at the pace of the train. Perspectives shift as the viewer watches others returning the gaze, objects zipping by, then shifting to an exterior and aerial point of view, watching the speeding train passing platforms lined with passengers. Mesmerizing in its sequencing, this work blew me away from the time I picked it up. Adam Waterreus