Summary
- Chip Zdarsky celebrates the tenth anniversary of the comic series Sex Criminals, which launched his mainstream comics career and won an Eisner award.
- The origins of Sex Criminals were surprisingly ordinary, with Zdarsky reaching out to collaborate with Matt Fraction after feeling creatively stuck in his newspaper job.
- Despite skepticism, Sex Criminals became a success, being named the #1 Comic Series of 2013 by Time Magazine. It also led to Zdarsky’s subsequent work on major Marvel and DC titles.
Comics superstar — and acclaimed Batman and Daredevil writer — Chip Zdarsky recently posted to his personal Substack celebrating the tenth anniversary of the first issue of Sex Criminals. The R-rated Image Comics series co-created by Matt Fraction won an Eisner award and launched Zdarsky’s mainstream comics career.
According to his Substack post, the origins of Sex Criminals are surprisingly mundane. Zdarsky’s job as a writer/illustrator for the Canadian newspaper The National Post was feeling a little repetitive. He reached out to then-online-acquaintance Fraction see if he was interested in a collaboration. The result would change both of their lives. As Zdarsky writes, “Matt gave it some thought and then sent me the weird email that changed my life.” Fraction pitched a concept about a man who can stop time when he reaches orgasm. Zdarsky began designing the characters as the two further developed the idea.
The Substack post reveals his original designs of the main couple, Jon and Suzie, showing that the final designs weren’t too far off from the originals. Zdarsky confesses that his second-ever image of them was for the promotional image announcing the first issue’s release.
Sex Criminals: A Not-Safe-For-Work Idea
Skepticism was high as they developed Sex Criminals, as while Fraction had done a lot of Marvel work (and had just started his beloved Hawkeye run with David Aja), Zdarsky was an unknown artist. The title and concept seemed unmarketable, but the two creators kept moving forward. Off-color jokes turned into compelling characters with a story that was always funny but found room for contemplation about sex and relationships. Image Comics announced the sex comedy at the 2013 Emerald City Comic-Con, confirming that it was for mature readers only. The publisher couldn’t have known what this book would do for Fraction and Zdarsky. As Zdarsky writes in his Substack:
Sex Criminals turned Matt and I from pals into best friends, it brought us across the world, it introduced us to the greatest readers possible and it also started my second career. It’s impossible to overstate how life changing that book was for me.
This R-rated bet paid off. Time Magazine named Sex Criminals the #1 Comic Series of 2013. It was nominated for two Eisners, winning Best New Series in 2014. Many issues were reprinted and featured variant covers from acclaimed artists like Kevin Wada, Kate Leth, and Brian Lee O’Malley. The series also helped launch Fraction and Kelly Sue DeConnick’s production company, Milkfed Criminal Masterminds, as they signed a deal with Universal TV to adapt Sex Criminals for television. Zdarsky followed this indie success up with a run on Jughead for the New Riverdale relaunch before writing Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man for Marvel.
Chip Zdarksy’s Career-Launching Work
While he has continued to work on creator-owned independent series, including the critically-acclaimed 2022 Image title Public Domain, Zdarsky has since written for major characters and titles at Marvel and DC Comics, including Daredevil: Devil’s Reign and DC’s flagship Batman title, which is currently in the midst of an explosive “Gotham War.” Zdarsky teases a few small celebrations for the tenth anniversary of Sex Criminals, the book that launched the career of a creator who has already redefined both Batman and Daredevil for the current decade.
Sex Criminals is available now from Image Comics, and the first issue is available in its entirety on the publisher’s website.