3 out of 5

Ah, the “gathering our resources” arc.  These are the issues that seem like stalling at the time, but make sense in retrospect.  I think you can earn these types of arcs, but I don’t think it works when you use them too early – like issue #9.  While SBs has already established itself as a book with a shifting narrative POV, dropping down to the micro level (one perspective per issue) risks losing your reader, if they’re not conditioned to it.  Certainly this is all opinion, but I feel like these arcs are remnants of scheduling, and that I’d prefer to wait longer to have a more seamless storyline.  I almost want to call arcs like this lazy, except I know effort is going into our story’s construction.  But I do think that it stems from needing to get from A to C and lacking a proper B, so you hop around the outskirts of it for a few issues.  For Southern Bastards, that means that, leading up to the Rebels homecoming game – and yes, the title of the arc is certainly a double entendre, and one that makes us goddamned eager for the next issues… – Aaron bops around the locals, dealing with the fallout from Big’s death, which is fallout from Tubb’s death.  Coach, Esaw, the Sheriff, all get their moments.  Latour even steps up to script an issue (with Chris Brunner taking the artist role) focusing on Tubb’s temporary buddy, Tad.  And it’s all pretty good, but none of it really hits the gut like the first couple arcs, and primarily – as always, to me – because it all feels besides the point.  Gathering resources.  Circling the plot.  Which doesn’t begin to lurch forward until issue 14.

Mini-focuses can be done, of course, but I think they’re better pushed to way later in a series, or done as single issues between arcs.  Otherwise, I feel like the sentiments subplots of Homecoming could have been told just as effectively from one point of view.

I’d also like to briefly mention Latour’s artwork.  Something‘s going on in this arc, and it didn’t quite work for me.  SB’s has a rather primal look to it, but – could be my imagination, though I did compare earlier panels – it seems like Latour has gone even more basic and exaggerated, presumably for effect.  Backgrounds are dropped, his linework seems thicker, and expressions are cartoonishly over-the-top.  It sucked out that breath of reality I felt was working for the book.  Brunner’s addition brings some of this back in, which provided for another interesting comparison.

Anyhoo, an ongoing series is fair game for experimentation for the creators, but the art was another beat that made this arc hard to get into.