August 12, 2023

I picked up a trade paperback of the first four issues of Southern Bastards by Jason Aaron and Jason Latour. I had heard plenty about this series and, with my recent entry into the independents, I wanted to check it out. I loved that trade paperback a lot. That sent me to eBay to look for the whole series. They arrived in the mail and I worked through issues #5-20 that remained.

However, when I finished issue #20, it was strange. There was no mention of it being the final issue and there was even a mention of #21. It did not feel like a finale issue as the story was not wrapped up in a truly satisfactory manner. Was this series not done? What was going on? I searched for #21 on eBay and found that it was not there. So I went to Google to search about the series and I discovered the ugly tale.

Apparently, co-creator and artist Jason Latour got himself in trouble with the way he handled himself, specifically with several women accusing him of sexual misconduct and harassment. He seemingly dropped off the map around 2020 and has only recently come back to do some conventions.

There have been hints that maybe the series would come back and I found a comment from Jason Aaron that implied that the fans should not forget about Southern Bastards.

Switching gears from the negativity surrounding the series, the actual story was sensational.

You have some of the most interesting and yet most horrendous characters populating this small county that apparently is run by the local high school football coach, Euless Boss. Coach Boss was a deep character with a horrendous back story which made the readers understand the violent choices that the coach made.

There were shocks throughout. The series introduced a character named Earl Tubb who absolutely felt like the protagonist of the series, only to kill him off in the fourth issue, by being beaten to death by Coach Boss in the street. We see a younger Euless Boss shoot his own father in the head for a local criminal in order to wind up as the coach. There was a black, blind man named Big, who was a sort of savant in football. He helped Euless when he was trying to originally make the football team and stuck beside him as his defensive coordinator until he blew his brains out.

I do not think that you need to be a football fan to enjoy this series. Football is at the center but it is also a deep character piece as well as a serious crime drama.

I do hope that they are able to return some day and put a finishing touch on the series so it does not end up with #20. Issue #20 was a good issue, but it did not serve as a sufficient finale for such a fantastic series.