Southern Bastards

Volume 3 Homecoming
Volume 4 Gut Check

Written by Jason Aaron
Artwork by Jason Latour
Lettering by Jared K. Fletcher
Buy them HERE.

Here's the twisted inner world of the Deep South unapologetically laid before our eyes:

  • State High School football programs.
  • Fried food.
  • Southern Baptists.
  • Snake handling.
  • Deep woods survivalists living off the grid.
  • Stray dogs... hunting in packs.

Jason Aaron in the last part of this story arc doesn't hesitate to delve deeper and deeper...

... so deep, in fact that we lose track of whether Coach Euless Boss is still the villain of the story. Yes, he did beat a man to death. Right in front for everyone to see in broad daylight. In front of his Barbecue joint. Yet the man (Earl Tubb) did come out to challenge him and got whupped fair and square.

 

Coach Boss owns the sheriff.

The local sheriff didn't investigate. Why? Coach Boss owns the sheriff. He's also on the verge of The Running Rebs staking its 6th consecutive state wide championship. As long as they can beat Wetumpka county.

Without the defensive coaching skills of 'Big', Euless' right hand man it will prove difficult:

  • They need to beat Wetumpka county.
  • Then after Wetumpka there's the Locust Fork Super Bolts.
  • Then there's the Edgewater Eagles.
  • Then The Tonganoxie Bulldogs.

Interspersed in between these contests are back road thuggery, beatings, extortion and general bloody mayhem.

Everybody's ugly.

Most writers build out their stories with one or two antagonists, people with less than savory motives or desires. Then they make sure to round out the background with a chorus of characters like you and me to keep it grounded. Not so with the team of Jason Aaron writing and Jason Latour doing the art. They take pains to draw everyone you meet somehow distorted and twisted by their environment. The kid next door gets to use Earl Tubb's TV to watch cartoons. It's not because his is busted, it's because his Grand Mammy says The Devil lives inside the box and so doesn't own one. The lone survivalist who hunts with his crossbow deer and squirrel does so not out of necessity, but out of contempt for the town folk who stray from the essential teachings of The Holy Bible.

Nobody's a hero.

Except perhaps a young female soldier coming back from Afghanistan with an agenda on those who stand between her and naming the men responsible for murdering her daddy (you guessed it, Earl Tubb).

The soul of the Deep South is on the verge of collapse and utter ruin unless Craw county and Coach Boss can right his ship and win State. Everyone's turned a blind eye in the name of claiming that prize. With each page, each bloody conflict scarring a black burn mark Coach Boss' quest becomes more and more out of reach.

Can't do this in a movie.

Southern Bastards is a comic series that won an Eisner award and a Harvey award. It is well deserved. Here's comic book story telling in its true raw form, much coarser than you would see in a movie. I highly recommend it!

Next Tuesday:

Blood, Skulls and Chrome. Issues 1 to 5
Right up my alley, a great Biker Gang -ahem- Motorcycle Club story along the lines of Sons of Anarchy!
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