Title: Sex Criminals: Volume 1: One Weird Trick
Author: Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky
Publisher: Image Comics
ISBN: 9781607069461
Genre: Graphic Novel, Comic
Pages: 128
Source: Personal Copy
Rating: 5/5
I heard of “Sex Criminals” while browsing through Flavorwire and I knew I had to read it. I then realized that I had been living under a rock. The first volume came out in 2014 and I still had not heard of it, forget reading it. “Sex Criminals” is a very unusual kind of graphic novel. I call it unusual because it may not be suited to everyone’s reading taste. It is as the title suggests, all about sex and crime (the crime bit not so much as a directive of all the sex) and I don’t know if too many people in our country will take to both of these very inherent human behavioral tendencies.
“Sex Criminals” is your classic boy-meets-girl story and at the same time it is way beyond that. Suzie and Jon meet at a party and hit off instantly with both being able to rattle lines from Lolita. They hook up as regular 20-somethings would and then they discover something about each other, which each thought was only special to them – they can literally stop time when they orgasm. To me that is the ultimate way to come (literally of course). The world is deadened. It is as quiet as you want it to be and it is just you and other person and your moment.
Suzie calls it “the Quiet”. Jon calls it the “Cumworld” (the man versus woman names given are hilarious). This oddity brings them closer than they have ever been to anyone else and rightly so. That is when they think of the idea of robbing banks to save a library from being shut, the library that Suzie works at. This is when they realize that there is more to them and so do the readers.
This book is all about sex. So if you cannot stomach something as natural as this, I recommend that you do not even come close to this book. It is not for you. There are no roles laid out here. There is no agenda. There is only pure and not-forbidden sex which doesn’t need time or place to be enjoyed. It is the kind of sex that gets you in a trance and makes you see the entire world differently. Maybe in all honesty, we need more of this. All of it and more to be candid.
I could not stop thinking of how much of a sensation would this graphic novel have caused had it released in bookshops in India. What would the reaction be like? Would parents forbid and avert their children’s (teenagers I mean) eyes? Would hypocrisy take over or not? I would be most curious to see how that works out. Anything related to sex in our country and we clamp up everything behind the veil of tradition and culture. This book is the anti-thesis of everything we have ever objected to.
“Sex Criminals” has deep character stories as well which I am sure will be explored in the second volume (which has just released by the way). Who are the Sex Police? What is their role in the book? Why can’t they be a part of the zone? You have to read this graphic novel. It is funny, intelligent, feminist and unapologetic all at the same time. Suzie and Jon are just regular people with regular issues, only a bit more aware of their drive and what it can do to them and the people around them. The comic is beautiful and fantastic. It is obviously one of its kind and I cannot wait to read the second volume.
Affiliate Link:
Of Books and Reading 