southern bastards

This week, we're casting an imaginary TV series based on the Image Comics series Southern Bastards by Jason Aaron and Jason Latour. Southern Bastards would make a fantastic prestige drama for HBO, Netflix, or wherever. It has discrete storylines, but the underlying mysteries are unspooled at a very gradual pace. Film it down in Alabama, and fill the cast with as many craggy old character actors as you can find.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from our years on the Internet, it’s that there’s no aspect of comics that can’t be broken down and quantified in a single definitive list, preferably in amounts of five or ten. And since there’s no more definitive authority than ComicsAlliance, we’re taking it upon ourselves to compile Top Five lists of everything you could ever want to know about comics. Image Comics is celebrating its 25th anniversary this week, and as a publisher it has such a breadth of stories and genres, that their roster of awesome and evil villains is as strong and varied as the comics themselves. With dozens to choose from and only five making the list, competition was hot but we narrowed it down to the five best and baddest Image Comics villains from over two and a half decades of comics.

The end of the year is a time of reflection in many ways, and that often means thinking about and assessing what the very best releases in any particular medium were. As we prepare to cross the threshold into 2017, we've been collecting some of the best covers of the year by publisher for your perusal, and today we're looking at fifty of the best comic book covers released from Image Comics in 2016.

Online harassment has been a growing problem for quite a while now. Just last night, acclaimed comics colorist Jordie Bellaire announced that she's leaving Twitter because of it, and only a couple of months ago, writer Chelsea Cain was similarly forced off Twitter after the cover by Joelle Jones on their final issue of Mockingbird featured the character in a T-shirt that read "Ask me about my feminist agenda," inspiring a tidal wave of sexist harassment. The creators behind Southern Bastards, Jason Latour and Jason Aaron, are responding with a variant cover, proceeds of which will be split between the Southern Poverty Law Center and the ACLU.

The latest issue of Southern Bastards was released last week, and we’re finally able to get back into the world of Craw County. Reading Southern Bastards always brings one thing to mind; it’s something you tend to find on every cover, and the whole interior of the book is drenched in it: red. Artist Jason Latour links so much of this story with red, and turn any page and you can see how heavy an influence it has on the palette.

The 28th annual Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards took place this Friday at San Diego Comic-Con, where the creators, editors and publishers of your favorite comics were honored for their accomplishments. While many will be nominated, only a select few will take home the top honors in one of comic's most respected awards. It was a particularly good night for publishers Drawn and Quaterly and Fantagraphics, with fan and critical favorites like Over the Garden Wall, Cliff Chiang and Bandette being recognized as well. Check out the complete list of winners and nominees below.

Southern Bastards focuses on the men and women living in a small Southern town where high school football is religion, and the Coach is a capricious and cruel God. The violent and uncompromising Image Comics series is written by Jason Aaron and illustrated by Jason Latour.

The Walking Dead has proven to be possibly the biggest crossover hit from indie comics to the mainstream, and is one of those special television shows that feels like an event that you have to talk to someone about as soon as it’s over. Now in its sixth season, with the comic just passing the 150 issue mark, The Walking Dead as a franchise is a runaway success that shows no signs of stopping, even producing its own TV spin-off in Fear the Walking Dead. If you’re a fan of the shows, the comic, or both, we’ve got some recommendations for other comics you might want to pick up next.

Last weekend at Baltimore Comic-Con, the 27th annual Harvey Awards were held, and in one of the least surprising developments in the history of the Harveys, Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples' Saga took home a few more awards to add to a shelf that I'm sure is already collapsing under the weight of its many honors. Named for MAD Magazine editor and cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman (who, interestingly enough, did not win the award he was nominated for this year), the Harveys are voted on by industry professionals, and this year's winners represent a pretty interesting crop of current comics, including CA favorites like Lumberjanes, Hellboy In Hell, and even Dick Tracy. Check out a full roster of winners and nominees below!

Apple has rejected issue #10 of Jason Aaron and Jason Latour's Image Comics series Southern Bastards from its store, and odds are it isn't because of Latour's widely shared essay about the Confederate flag in its back matter. The likely reason is an explicit sex scene that opens the issue. In virtually every previous case of Apple rejecting specific issues of comics, it's been over sexual content, not language or violence. (The one possible exception is the Johnny Ryan library of comics. It's hard to know where the offense was there.)