zack davisson

Jim Zub and Steve Cummings' Image series Wayward offers readers a fantastical tour of the imagined supernatural underworld of Tokyo, with a cast of young heroes all touched in different ways by mystical forces. It's a fantastically entertaining series that's rooted in the real mythology of Japan, thanks in part to the research of expert monster scholar Zack Davisson, who also provides back-up essays in every issue of Wayward that shed light on Japanese culture and superstitions. Davisson has been kind enough to share with ComicsAlliance a series of slides detailing the mythological roots of Wayward's many monsters, describing where the monsters come from and showing how they've appeared in both traditional art and in the pages of Wayward. We'll let Davisson explain further, in his own words: