A Beloved (and Horny) Comic Is Finally Getting Adapted By the Perfect Team
Cue up “Fat-Bottomed Girls” by Queen, because Sex Criminals is finally headed to the screen.
On Thursday, it was officially announced that an eight-episode television adaptation of the Image Comics series has gotten a series order at Prime Video. The comic, which was created by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky and ran from 2013 through 2020, centers on Suze, a normal girl with an extraordinary ability: when she has sex, she stops time. One night, she meets Jon, who has the same gift. And so they do what any other sex-having, time-stopping couple would do: They rob banks.”
The Sex Criminals TV series is co-created by Kumail Nanjiani, Emily V. Gordon (The Big Sick) and Tze Chun (Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai), with executive producers also including Dani Melia, Fraction, Zdarsky, and Dani Gorin of LuckyChap. Nanjiani is also set to act in the series, although his role has not been disclosed at this time. (My guess, personally, is either Dr. Glass or a member of the Sex Police.)
“Sex Criminals is the exact kind of thing Winter Coat aims to bring to life: love stories in weird places,” Gordon and Nanjiani said in a statement. “From the moment LuckyChap brought us Matt and Chip’s comic book, we knew we wanted to bring these characters to screen and are so excited to do that alongside Tze Chun and Prime Video.”
Sex Criminals Is Headed to TV!
“I’ve been a fan of Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky’s Sex Criminals since the first issue hit the stands,” Chun added. “This has been my dream project for over a decade, and co-creating this show with Emily and Kumail has been one of the creative highlights of my career. We are so excited to bring this series to life with our incredible partners at Lucky Chap and Prime Video.”
“Sex Criminals is bold, hilarious, and wildly original, with a love story at its core that feels both deeply human and completely unexpected,” said Peter Friedlander, global head of television at Amazon MGM Studios. “Emily, Kumail, and Tze have brought a fresh, and emotionally grounded take to this incredible property. With our collaborators at LuckyChap, Winter Coat Films, and comic book creators Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky, we’re thrilled to bring this unforgettable world and its characters to our global Prime Video audience.”
This is not the first attempt at bringing Sex Criminals to the screen, with Fraction and his wife, Kelly Sue Deconnick, working on a television adaptation at Universal Television nearly a decade ago. But with this creative team, and in this current moment of weird cultural backlash towards sexuality onscreen, it could be something wild.
As someone who has loved Sex Criminals since it first debuted, I have so many questions. When and how will we get to see Sexual Gary? Will there be any sort of televised equivalent to the book’s unhinged letters column? How will Zdarsky’s brilliant background gags translate onscreen? As Zdarsky joked on his Substack newsletter about the news, when preemptively answering if he’s working on the show: “Doing what? Drawing dicks in the background? I’m fucking useless!!”
(featured image: Image Comics)
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