Really good idea for a comic, need information!

Hey guys...I had a really cool idea for a comic book after I saw This map...Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.
Basically the story is about a Roman Centurion who is taken fresh from the war against Dacia to serve as the head of security forces on a roman trade ship being sent to india. The security forces will be drawn from the best soldiers Rome has to offer. (including a few who are of obvious Gallic and Thracian descent, for some variety) They are supposed to catch the monsoon winds and arrive in India in order to trade. The ship leaves too early and they choose to sail down the red sea and trade with the people of Azania. They would also make a stop at Adulis in order to travel to Axum and Meroe in order to trade with Nubians and Ethiopians. There will be some interesting interactions between the Romans and Africans, as well as some fighting between the romans and certain tribal groups (just to add in some action). I also had the idea of using different color text to indicate people speaking different languages i.e. Red for Latin, Blue for Greek, Yellow for Arabic, Green and Brown for african languages (maybe a third color for another african language), etc.

The main problem i am having is that there is VERY VERY little information about more southerly african civilizations during ancient times. It is known that sub saharan Africa had iron forging technology very very early on, so i would definitely have the africans using Iron weaponry that would be adequate enough to do damage to roman troops. The romans are going to be vastly outnumbered by the africans and will have to survive by their wits and high level of tactics and training. Lorica Segmentata will NOT be used due to the extreme heat. Hamata will be the heavy armor of choice for the roman troops but even this might not be used a lot because of the climate.

I need more info on African styles of weaponry, Languages, Tribal structures, etc. One of my secondary reasons for writing this comic is to dispel the myth of Africans being nothing more than savages living in mud huts. The ancient historians never wrote anything to support this. As a matter of fact they always spoke of Africans as being sophisticated people.

I also posted this in the "strong in historical mind" discussion group.

Something a little like this was done at great length in a series of novels http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belisarius_series

Unfortunately, I don't remember which novel dealt with the Africans and none of them really focussed on Africa. (The focus was an alternate history sci-fi conflict between Rome and India.) Still, I mention it in case you are interested. Some of the books can be viewed free at:

http://baen.com/library/books.asp

AFAIK, the ancient Greeks and Romans knew pratically nothing about sub-Saharan Africa, except Nubia and Axum. Even those they sometimes got confused, which suggests that they knew little about them. I would be nice though if someone could prove me wrong.

I had an awesome idea for a historical comic book a while ago: Petain is about to surrender France to the Nazis in WW2. Just then Napoleon and all his veterans rise from the dead as undead zombies and slaughter the Nazis.