Bacchante # 1 (illustrated by Ron Chan)

The Bacchante are fascinating and frightening characters in the Sandman universe. I've been saving these characters for awhile, hoping to post them once I had one portrait of these vicious women from each artist working on this project, but I am impatient and I love these portraits so decided to post them now. For the next five days, we will be focusing on the Bacchante.

The Bacchante are some of the most horrifying characters in the entire Sandman series and Ron has really captured the character perfectly.

In Roman mythology, The Bacchante are the female followers of Bacchus, the god of wine and intoxication. In Greek mythology they are often seen as crazy or wild and living in the forests. They are capable of tearing animals and sometimes people into pieces with their bare hands.

In Greek mythology they are called Maenads and worship Dionysus.

In The Sandman universe Orpheus is torn apart by a group of Bacchante after returning from Hades after failing to rescuing his wife from the land of the dead.

This particular Bacchante seems to be the leader of this group. She is wild and destructive. She can be seen in The Sandman Special # 1 (The Song Of Orpheus), page 43. She is sitting in a tree when she first encounters Orpheus.

Ron did a fantastic job with this portrait. He was able to capture the frenzied attitude of the character. I really like her eyes. They are incredibly expressive.