Image comics and Jim Zub have announced a Wayward Deluxe Book #1: set to arrive in October and is available for pre-order now! It will include a poster of the 5 part connectable covers from issues 6-10, cover illustrations, sketches and a piece on Japanese Culture and Mythology written by Zack Davisson; All of this wrapped up in an oversized hardcover deluxe edition. This is one of my favorite comic series and I highly recommend picking this up.
For those who are unfamiliar, Wayward is a gorgeous and thrilling ongoing comic created by accomplished writers Jim Zub and Steve Cummings and is published by the always fascinating, Image Comics. It focuses around a girl named Rori Lane who has just moved from Ireland where she lived with her father, to Japan to be with her mother in Tokyo. Arriving in Japan, Rori must learn to cope with living in such a vastly different place just as she begins to develop strange powers that she doesn’t quite understand. Eventually Rori finds herself in a group of fantastical, supernatural powered teenagers and together they get mixed up with mythical beings who can sense the powers she posses.
When I had the opportunity to meet Jim Zub I had never heard of Wayward, which was at that point, only a few issues in. While I was getting him to sign a copy of my Legend of Baldur’s Gate he mentioned that he had a new book and described it as being “like Buffy The Vampire Slayer In Japan”. That sentence was all it took for me to pick it up and I couldn’t be more glad that I did.
Alongside Jim and Steve’s phenomenal story comes amazing art by Steve Cummings with John Rauch coloring issues 1-4 along with with Jim himself. Tamara Bonvillain has taken over coloring since issue 5. The art in this book is truly incredible and does an amazing job of bringing Japan to life and feel big, new, busy and foreign as it should. All of the panels are filled with an amazing amount of detail and combined with a fabulous story, it gives the characters vibrant and interesting personalities that really help you connect with and grow interested in their adventures. The action is colorful and exciting and always leaves you wanting more from the story and just gives you something nice to look at while you read.
