Yesterday, on the week’s Yuri Network News report, I mentioned a new comic by Jim Zub, Steve Cummings and John Rauch called Wayward. Today, thanks to Jim Zub’s generosity, I am able to tell you all about Issue 1.

Without preamble, we meet Rori Lane, the half-Irish, half-Japanese protagonist on her way to Japan to move in with her mother, after trying to live with her father in Ireland; something that wasn’t working out, she assures us. Upon arrival, Rori immediately has a strange thing happen – when she wishes to know where a thing is, the roads mark themselves for her. It is obvious to us that Rori’s feelings of Japan being “home” to her is not entirely just wishful thinking.

Rori reunites with her mother and again, the next morning, strange things happen to her. I won’t spoil anything, but it’s worth noting that this series includes creatures from both ancient Japanese mythology and modern Japanese comic mythology.

Let me get the few negatives out of the way first. For us, an audience steeped in Japanese manga culture, there is ever so slightly a “zOMG, Japan is so alien!” a feel to the first issue. The author’s note contains a comment about how Japan embraces it’s strangeness…guess they’ve never been to London. Even lines about how many people there are ring strangely off to me. If you’ve ever been in any city, anywhere in the world, I can’t see Tokyo seeming that much more crowded. (OTOH, Rori has been living in Ireland, and I will give the creators the benefit of the doubt and imagine she’s a suburban girl.) So, maybe, if you’re not all wide-eyed and misty about exotic Japan, this might rub you the wrong way. I found it merely something to note, nothing that ruined the experience for me. IF, however, you know a person who loves the idea of Japan, but hasn’t read 14 million stories about school festivals and confessions on the school roof, this could be a great title to suggest.

That minor thing out of the way, let me talk about the positives. The first, major and most positive thing about Wayward is Rori. She’s a teen girl, written and drawn by a bunch of guys and there is nothing “trying too hard” about her at all. She’s written the way we always say we want – like a character, not “like a girl.” So, despite the fact that there are a lot of stylistic shorthands in the storytelling, Rori doesn’t come off as a girl written by a guy who is thinking, “Gee, what do girls like?” And jet lag. Yes. It is just like that.

The characters and action is well-drawn and appealing. Who doesn’t want to fight Japanese mythological creatures and have mysterious powers and a magical sidekick? We all do, you know we all do. ^_^

As soon as I wrap up here, I’m calling my LCS and pre-ordering Wayward, because I want to know what happens. And that, above all things, is the sign of a good comic.

Wayward #1 is a good comic.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Character – 8
Service – 0
Yuri – 0 as of yet

Overall – 8

I was almost immediately super in love with Wayward, because –  plane to the train to the subway and Rori steps out of the station into Ikebukuro, my own home away from home. ^_^ (psst, writers, Friendly Limousine bus service or the Narita Express go direct.)

It’ll make a nice change of pace from romance manga. As a creator-owned work, is a good way to support comics creators directly. (And, that’s two terrific female-lead comics from Image, along with Rocket Girl. Go Image!) It’s interesting to note that between My Little Pony, Lumberjanes, Rocket Girl and Wayward, I am now reading more American comics again than I have since the 1980s. And none of them are DC or Marvel.

Summers seem to me to be the perfect time for breaking out all the cool-female-character comics I’m reading, and fun lesbian novels, along with other things of interest. So, along with Katherine’s Guest Review Wednesday, I want to take a moment to tell you about the last of the comics I picked up at TCAF this year.

 Namesake, by Isabelle Melançon and Megan Lavey-Heaton is about a young woman named Emma, who finds herself literally dragged into a story where she’ll need all her wits to survive. Emma is a Namesake, one of a groups of people with the ability to jump in an out of narratives. Without training, or seemingly, reason, Emma is dragged away from her world after a terrible event at the local library, where she was picking up her little sister, and dumped in a place no one in their right mind would ever expect to land. Emma finds herself in Oz.

Because the main portion of this volume of Namesake takes place in Oz, there is a great deal of exposition in which we are quickly caught up on the Oz cannon and filled in on current events in Oz. Almost immediately we meet old friends and new enemies, while Emma tries to figure out what the hell is going on.

For completely sensible reasons,  the second half of the first volume necessarily becomes an Oz fanfic, which might become tiresome if you are not a fan of Baum’s world. Nonetheless, there are some extremely interesting elements in this volume that kept me reading. Emma’s not a super strong protagonist out of the gate, but the librarian we meet in the beginning is. For various reasons I’m hanging on to see if she’ll be back. Also far stronger than Emma is her younger sister Elaine and in the final extra chapter of the volume, something occurs which dragged me right back into the story and has motivated me to get Volume 2.

And, aside from the individual characters, the world of the Namesakes is fascinating. We get the barest glimpse of the larger story in Volume 1. I hope that Volume 2 will gives us more of an idea of what is going on outside Oz. The opening of the first volume leads me to believe we will..and that there’s a lot to learn.

The art is very strong with a mostly black & white feel, with strategic use of color. At times, the color leaves one wondering what the significance is, which I quite like, as I do not believe anything we’re seeing is arbitrary.

Namesake is a webcomic that has been collected into several ebook and printt volumes, so you can read it from the beginning and decide if you too want to know the secret of the Namesakes.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 7

Overall – 7 with tons of potential