The ending of volume one of Southern Bastards came as something of a shock - not quite as much of a shock in a post-Game Of Thrones world, but still. The story built to it, foreshadowed it, earned it, and still it was a punch to the gut. Almost as shocking, in a quieter way, is what comes next - a volume devoted to the life and character of the villain, the guy who may epitomise the book's title, though in fact there's no shortage of the type in these pages.

So, four issues humanising the biggest bastard of the book, who starts out as a lonely, bullied, abused boy with only one way out and no-one to get it but himself. We end up knowing way more than we want to abut him, feeling way too much for his suffering, empathise too much with his need to make something of himself - too much because he's still a murdering bastard, even more of a murdering bastard than we already knew, though we may have suspected. As a piece of work it's a brilliant achievement by Aaron and Latour - relentless, unflinching, but also as funny as is it is savage. Southern Bastards is probably the best crime comic being currently produced.

By the way, read the introduction if you can. I had no idea who Ryan Kalil is, but about a third of the way in it takes off into a whole strange and indecipherable language that becomes a kind of poetry. He's a football player, and football is central to Southern Bastards, but if someone like me, who has a knowledge of sport that's in negative figures, can enjoy the hell out of it anyway, so can anyone.