The South is a vast region of storytelling, and Southern Bastards is one of my favorite looks into it. The vast world of comic books extends far beyond superheroes, and Image Comics has been a bastion of unique stories that surpass those of the Big Two hero publishers. Hulu and Image Comics have announced that the streamer has ordered a pilot for a new drama based on the Eisner and Harvey Award-winning graphic novel series Southern Bastards.
The comic series was created by Jason Aaron (Bug Wars, Thor) and Jason Latour (Spider-Gwen), and published by Image Comics. The creatives attached to the project have quite the pedigree, including writers and executive producers Bill Dubuque (Ozark, The Accountant) and Nia DaCosta (Candyman), with Matt Olmstead (Chicago P.D., Law & Order: Organized Crime) serving as the new series’s showrunner and executive producer. The production credit goes to the Onyx Collective, POV Entertainment, and Proximity Media, in association with Fifth Season.
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One of the things I have loved about Image Comics has been the number of series that focus on the South. With Bitter Root and Southern Bastards, we have two of the most interesting takes on Southern culture in comics and stories that match it.
However, where Bitter Root bridges media like South of Midnight and Sinners in its approach to mythology and action, Southern Bastards is more akin to a small-town football drama, such as the iconic Friday Night Lights, while also embracing the crime and grit of series like Boardwalk Empire or The Sopranos.
What is Southern Bastards about?
Southern Bastards welcomes readers to Craw County, Alabama, home of Boss BBQ, the state champion Runnin’ Rebs football team, and more bastards than you’ve ever seen; Bastards like Earl Tubb, an angry old man with a very big stick, and Euless Boss, a high school football coach with no more room in his office for trophies and no more room underneath the bleachers for burying bodies.
When Earl comes home after 40 years, he finds some family business that still needs settlin’ and Coach Boss is at the center of it all. But that’s okay. That’s what the big stick is for, after all.
As for the show, well, Deadline shared this synopsis as to what to expect from the adaptation: “Southern Bastards follows a tenacious military vet into Craw County, Alabama, in search of her estranged father. What she finds is a murderous hornet’s nest of organized crime run by the winningest high school football coach in the South.”
Where to read the comic?
Physical editions of the Southern Bastards graphic novel series can be found at local comic book shops, independent bookstores, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Indigo, and Waterstones in the following collected editions:
- Vol. 1 trade paperback – ISBN: 9781632150165, Lunar Code 0714IM800
- Vol. 2 trade paperback – ISBN: 9781632152695, Lunar Code 0215IM158
- Vol. 3 trade paperback – ISBN: 9781632156105, Lunar Code 0216IM158
- Vol. 4 trade paperback – ISBN: 9781534301948, Lunar Code 0618IM180
- Book One hardcover – ISBN: 9781632154446, Lunar Code 0715IM168
For those seeking the digital editions of the series, it is also available on various digital platforms, including Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and Google Play.
Southern Bastards does not currently have a release date, but will release exclusively on Hulu.
