Hot on the heels of a history-making World Series win last night, it’s time to return to Craw County and check in on how much more murder and football “Southern Bastards” has in store for us. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot. Jason Aaron, Jason Latour and Jared K. Fletcher kick off their fourth story arc in this issue so let’s see where they’re taking the direction of the story after the Runnin’ Rebs humped it at homecoming.
Read on below for our full review of “Southern Bastards” #15. Be warned, though, for this review may contain spoiler for the issue itself and the series as a whole.
Written by Jason Aaron
Illustrated by Jason Latour
NEW STORY ARC: “GUT CHECK,” Part OneNew story arc! Coach Boss holds sway over Craw County for one reason: he wins football games. But after the biggest, ugliest loss of his career, the coach must become more of a criminal than ever before, if he’s gonna keep ahead of his enemies. Enemies like Roberta Tubb, who’s come to town with a machine gun and some serious questions about how her daddy died. The 2015 Harvey Award-winning (Best New Series) and 2016 Eisner Award-winning (Best Continuing Series) southern-fried crime comic by JASON AARON & JASON LATOUR is back for another round of football, BBQ, and bloodshed!
Way back when, in the simpler times of 2014, I was pretty much blown away by how hard hitting “Southern Bastards” was, even in its first issue. Drawing favourable comparisons to the works of the Coen Brothers and films like Walking Tall, it was a revelation of a comic that didn’t try to dress up the grittiness of the violence inherent in a crime noir with a slick style or a hardboiled protagonist. No, it was a comic that fucking killed the main character at the end of its first story arc only to focus on the trouble childhood of the man who killed him. At every turn, Jason Aaron and Jason Latour, along with Jared K. Fletcher, had defied expectations to keep “Southern Bastards” fresh and true to its original hard hitting nature.
This issue begins a new story arc in the wake of the Runnin’ Rebs humiliating defeat at Homecoming and despite seeing Roberta Tubbs finally set foot in Craw County last issue, this is still very much about Coach Boss. Jason Aaron’s writing remains focused on the slowly unravelling grip that Coach Boss has over Craw County and the creeping revelation that maybe Coach Big was the only thing that made him worth a damn in the first place. It’s fascinating because the use of ‘Homecoming’ arc to focus on a wide range of characters gives even this first issue of ‘Gut Check’ a lot of built in depth. Craw County now feels like a community larger than that of just the rivalry of Earl Tubbs and Coach Boss or the few people directly linked to the football team.
Bringing in characters like the shreriff, the mayor and his wife and the ever-stalking Roberta Tubbs gives this innate feeling like the net is finally closing around Coach Boss. Aaron and Latour make that perfectly clear by showing a Boss with an even wilder temper than previously shown. “Southern Bastards” is an innately charged book with Latour employing heavy reds and oranges as an accent colour to pull out that Southern temper from any reader, but this issue shows Boss at the end of his rope. This leads to a last page that brings together story ties that have been lying around since the very first arc and promises a confrontation in the arc to come that will likely change the landscape of the comic.
“Southern Bastards” is a comic that I find somewhat hard to talk about because it’s difficult to really get across how in sync this creative team is. For fifteen issues, “Southern Bastards” has not skipped a beat. The direction of the story, the character writing, the artwork and colour and lettering all create this cohesive whole that’s so engrossing and captivating that, eventually, it’s hard to convey just how impressive that is. It’s something I worry is hampering great long running comic because their greatness because assumed. It’s hard to get people to keep talking about a great comic after two years because it has nowhere else to go, really.
Continued belowAfter fifteen issues, Jason Latour has proven himself to be a modern legend in a lot of ways. As the artist of “Southern Bastards”, he handles the linework and colour and essentially crafts the entire visual world of Craw County. His scratchy linework that sculpts characters out of their rough geometries brings life to such a harsh world. The expressiveness of the characters is usually brought out in the form of snarls and shouts, but this issue allows Latour to stretch beyond that.
Near the middle of this issue, there’s a genuinely emotional scene between former lovers, the sheriff and Ms. Compson. There’s a subtleness to the scene, dressed in dark greys and muted browns. That accent of warm reds only comes in the form of Compson’s hair, which is muted and desaturated. It feels unlike the boisterousness of “Southern Bastards” and the snarling, yelling characters that Latour usually crafts. It stands out thanks to the tall, six panel layout that Latour employs which forces the two characters together in an almost claustrophobic way yet still isolates them from one another. Latour brings out that sense of subtle, morose longing that’s a very unique place for this series to go.
At this point, reviewing “Southern Bastards” is almost a formality. A checking in on just how good this series still is. If this comic is one for you, chances are you’re already loyal to it. If not, the beginning of this story arc is a lot more of the same, just with a larger cast of increasingly more nuanced characters. It’s still about the troubled communities of the South, it’s still about BBQ and murder, and it’s still very much about football. But why shouldn’t it be?
Jason Aaron and Jason Latour are playing a long game with “Southern Bastards” and they’re winning. If I knew more about football, that would be a much more elaborate metaphor, but the point is that “Southern Bastards” doesn’t need to change what it’s doing or shake things up. It’s doing just fine remaining true to what it always has: being a damn good comic.
Final Verdict: 9.1 – The beginning of a story arc in which things are surely going to come to a head.
