Southern Bastards #10

A gaunt, wild-eyed man stares out from this blood-red cover, a "REBEL" bandana knotted at his throat and hard living etched into every line of his face — this is the kind of portrait that makes you feel the heat and rot of Craw County before you've read a single word. Jason Aaron and Jason Latour's Southern Bastards has always excelled at centering its stories on deeply human — and deeply flawed — figures, and issue #10's subtitle, "The Gospel According to Esaw Goings," promises exactly that kind of intimate, unsettling character study. Latour's cover work here is raw and visceral, bathing everything in hellish crimson to signal that whatever Esaw's gospel contains, it isn't pretty.