Bayou, the first title published at Zuda Comics, is a fairytale like fantasy story set across the backdrop of racism in the old south. It begins with a young black girl named Lee Wagstaff – who lives with her father, Calvin, in Charon, Mississippi, on the land of the Westermorelands, a wealthy white family – is sent to fetch the body of Billy Glass, a young black boy who had been beaten and hung for looking at a white woman, out of the bottom the local bayou. She finds the body, but also catches a glimpse of what she assumes to be Billy Glass’s spirit moving on, with butterfly wings attached to his body. Its an image that sticks in Lee’s mind and turns out to be her first glimpse into the world that exists just beyond the bayou’s physical borders.

Lee tries to forget about what she saw in the bayou, at her father’s encouragement, until a turn of events forces her to face it head on. Young Lily Westermoreland goes missing and Calvin is being saddled with the blame. Lee knows her father is innocent, because she saw Lily eaten by a massive, inbred-looking man named Cotton-Eyed Joe, who proceded to disappear into the bayou’s depths. With no alternatives left to her but to watch her father hang, Lee takes it upon herself to follow Joe into the bayou, find Lily, and clear her father’s name.

The world the Lee finds herself in is a dreamscape not unlike the Dreaming in Sandman. Creator Jermy Love puts together a seamless and imaginative world, building an entire mythology inspired by African-American culture, America’s legacy of slavery and segregation, and bits of southern folklore. The world is rule by a malevolent, tyranical god figure know as “the boss man” who lives in a plantation, watching all others in his domain, seeing that they do as he wills. He deploys appropriately characterized minions, included a hound dog dressed in a confederate uniform who himself employs the aid of lackeys in white hoods. Lee only survives their intervention through the aid of Bayou, a character who seems to represent all the frustration, strength, and lack of confidence that embodied the black community during the post-slavery segregation years. The world is ripe, but not bogged down, with symbols and icons.

Love combines the meandering depth of the world with moments of pure adventure more akin to Bone. One of the most purely entertaining scenes in the story so far comes when Bayou and Lee visit a juke joint full of anthropomorphic characters, including a singing blackbird and the lecherous Reverend Bear. Lee catches the good reverend’s eye and things get uncomfortable for poor Lee until the reverend’s rather angry and violent wife shows up. Hilarity ensues as blame and misdirected anger is cast from person to person, but the squabble is cut short when a creature called a Golliwog tries to sink the joint and get his hands on Lee and the reward the boss man is offering for her.

All of this is drawn in a manner that aptly conveys the fairytale atmosphere. Many of the characters are animals, and the characters who are human are given enough detail to make them come to life and feel three dimensional without the world feeling gritty, and Patrick Morgan’s colors give the world a large dose of vibrancy. Though the world feels like a fairytale, Love doesn’t shy away from a few more gruesome moments, such as a recalling of Billy Glass’s last moments or a dream where Lee encounters her dead mother. These scenes only pack more punch when juxtaposed against such a seemingly innocent fantasy world.

Bayou has both depth and adventure. Its story has one foot in the real, and the other deep in fantasy and folklore, and it treads that line well by having the later consistently mirror the former. The characters are well written and you get the feeling that their adventure is only just beginning. Bayou is a fine contender for the Eisner award and well worth a readers time. Worlds like this don’t pop up every day.

The preview featured excerpts from the Dark Sun Creature Catalog: descriptions and stat blocks for the Anakore – a breed of desert monster that stalks its prey underground during the day, only going for the kill once the suns sets – as well as the Sorcerer-King Nibanay and his shadow wives.

The stat blocks look solid, in particular the new monster block design that is set to be debuted officially in Monster Manual 3, but what was even more impressive were the description of how Nibanay and the shadow wives behave in combat. Too often, the current “tactics” sections for monsters only detailed which order to use their powers in, and often times those powers were vaguely named, failing to describe what the monster was actually supposed to be doing when it used the power. The combat descriptions in this preview provide a lot more personality for these antagonists. Its easy to imagine Nibanay as haughty and condescending, trying to goad his opponents into making a mistake, or the shadow wives as frustrated and spiteful, leading to recklessness and targeting enemies that represent what they resent rather than what is tactically sound.

While this is the first official preview posted to the web, Wizards of the Coast did run a preview adventure at this year’s Dungeons & Dragons Experience convention. Gaming blog Critical-Hits.com posted some of the materials from the adventure to the web, and explained some of the setting specific rules for magic and equipment.

Dark Sun will also be the campaign setting for the second season of the D&D Encounters program.

As a fan of the original Dark Sun setting from D&D’s past, I’m glad to see the preview material looking so strong and look forward to the campaign setting’s August release.

Source: Just Like the White Rabbit…