Hey did you know there are non-Superhero comics, yeah even more surprising their are comics made by publishers other than Marvel and DC. Sorry I had to point this out, but its a weird assumption people have. So What is Sex Criminals about? And Why Did I chose to write about this instead of any other Comic. Well I thought this book needed highlighting more than it does, partially because it’s title is so hard to Google, seriously from the title it could be about any pervert.
Sex Criminals is about Jon and Suzie a couple who meet and find out they have the same superpower, in a strange world where Superpowers are activated by Orgasming, (so I’d think twice before shaking Superman’s hand). Written by Matt Fraction who is probably best known for his controversial runs on X-men and Iron Man where he was criticised for having too much of “A Hipster sense of Humour”, because he’d credit Cyclops as “owner of a Jetpack” (I don’t understand why thats a problem if I owned a Jetpack I’d tell everyone, everyday). Fraction was also around the time of the books initial release disliked enough that he was given the Fantastic 4 to write after editorial mandates forced Jonathan Hickman off the book and Fraction was expected to make the sales tank far enough that Marvel could cancel the book (he failed in this objective and it took James Robinson to accomplish Marvels goal). Art duties on Sex Criminals are held up by Chip Z’Darsky (and possibly some of the writing), Z’Darsky’s art in this book has a very matter of fact attitude to it, which is probably what distinguishes the book from pornography to being about a world with Pornography in it. Or it could be that it exists in the Sitcom idea of pornography where every movie has a funny title and pornstars have crafted their names to immaculately fit the movie they’re making. Also unlike Z’Darsky’s other work these jokes are throwaways where as in say his run on Howard the Duck any one of these jokes like “the Bondage James Bondage Handcuffs” would be the punchline not the opener or would go on far too long for anyone to care about it.
The way the story is told is unusual for a comic, in fact the language of the comic is more like a film. Seriously pretentious comic fans will talk about “Cinematic storytelling” to either try and explain that it uses both words and pictures to tell a story (despite comic strips in some form have existed long before celluloid) or to justify Bryan Hitch’s slow pace and black panel gutters. Sex Criminals is not an action movie with a slow pace that you wish would hurry up to the shooty-bits, it’s more like a Woody Allan movie or John Hughes, it heavily uses “Direct mode of address” (the characters talk directly to the audience or 4th wall breaks) for Suzie to tell her life story. It could easily be converted straight to film but unlike Watchmen which Zack Snyder tried to do this it wouldn’t lose it’s meaning moving from a melodramatic medium to one where people actually move.
The book also humanises all of it’s characters even a minor one (who they don’t actually meet in this volume) Jasmine St. Cocaine, a pornstar that Jon has a certain attachment and Suzie looks a bit like. She gets to defend herself against Suzies accusations about all pornstars.
I should probably actually mention something about the plot, umm… Girl meets boy, boy quotes Lolita, they decide to rob a bank to save a library.
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