A graphic novel by Ben Towle. Oyster War follows the adventure of the crew of Layla, led by former Confederate Navy Commander Davidson Bulloch, out to hunt down a vicious band of "oyster pirates" led by Treacher Fink, who are strip mining the Chesapeake Bay's oyster beds and killing legitimate oyster fishing in the Bay. What seems like an ordinary mission rapidly takes a turn for the strange, as the Layla's crew encounter a selkie, a monstrous spirit, and Bay's own legendary monster Chessie herself.
Oyster War provides examples of the following tropes:
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Of course in a story about magic and the Cheasapeake Bay, Chessie would show up!
- Body Horror: John Clark Monk was so intent on rowing across the Chesapeake Bay during a winter storm, that his hands froze to the oars and snapped off.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Treacher Fink's entire goal is to raise a undersea abomination in order to... corner the oyster farming trade.
- Malaproper: Bulloch has an endless series of aphorisms to misquote from.
- Bulloch: "Superstition, magic... these are, as the great writer Emerson once said, the hemoglobins of tiny minds!"
- No Communities Were Harmed: Blood Haven is based (loosely) on the real life town of Crisfield.
- Selkies and Wereseals: Iseabal, Treacher's Dragon and Dark Action Girl turns out to be one. At one point the Layla's crew steals her skin in order to question her.
- Steampunk: A mild example. The Layla is a fictional ironclad warship, and the Alligator was a real Union submarine, albeit much larger and more capable in the comic than real life.
