$#x Criminals - The Madding Crowd, Part "G" - R.A. Wonsowski

I dunno...parental advisory at the top? Anyway...this script is Travis's fault, like, 20 times...

Panel 1- Running down the nighttime city streets, among the panicking crowds, JON is running towards us, just about to pass a Starbucks. He's on his cell phone, a look of fear upon his face. In the crimson sky we see the Madness Gate opened in front of the full moon, the Spider-God breaching, surrounded by tiny black dots (the other hellspiders swarming beside).

JON: C'mon Suze pick up....

(Off-Panel): Oy! Jon Johnson!

Panel 2- JON pulls up short at the sound of his name, lowering his phone. Leaning against the Starbucks window (covering the "tarb" of the logo), holding a branded to-go cup with a tea-bag tag hanging out from under the lid and smoking a cigarette, is WILLIAM GRAVEL.

JON: Do I know you?

GRAVEL: No, but I know you, son. And I know what you've been up to.

GRAVEL: More to the point, I know how you do what you been up to.

Panel 3- Same POV as Panel 2. JON looks like he's about to cut and run. GRAVEL sidearms the tea nonchalantly into the face of a passing panicker as he sucks a drag off his smoke.

JON: Oh, jeez, I...

GRAVEL: For Chrissakes, I'm not gonna clap irons on. In fact, I need you to step up your game.

Panel 4- JON tries to get away, looking a little skeeved out, expression of "eww" on his face, but GRAVEL has a firm grip on his arm, preventing him from escaping into the crowd.

JOB: Look, mister...

GRAVEL: Shut it, mate! Listen and learn!

GRAVEL: I know how you stop time. I need you to pull a Chris Reeve and make it go backwards.

Panel 5- GRAVEL has his hand in that Spider-Man "thwip" position, but he's holding it waist high, index and pinky pointing down, and wrist bent back, palm toward JON. GRAVEL is pointing at it with his cig. His expression should be slightly smarmy, a dirty-ol-man grin, while JON should be skeptical, one eyebrow arched.

JON: And how...

GRAVEL: Got the idea from this whole spider-verse-incursion thing. And Sarah Jane. It'll curl your girlie's toes. First you make like this with your fingers, right, then you...

Panel 6- Very squirty, wet, liquid looking panel, suggestion of Suze in an "o" without showing (abstract and fluid). Whole panel translucent transparence except for text.

CAPTION: Later...

SUZE: YES!!

...to be continunitnoc eb ot...

Sex Criminals - Out to Brunch - Grant McLaughlin

In Sex Criminals' trademark 4x4 panel layout:

1223

4456

7789

0012 (i.e. two spots for panel 10 and one for 11 and 12)

1 - Jon and Suzie swept up and lost in the sheets in the midst of having sex (with said sheets tastefully placed to maintain everyone's dignity).

CAPTION (SUZIE): In those early days, Jon and I were having sex pretty much constantly.

2 - Suzie and Jon sit at a table in a restaurant.  They're eating brunch (let's say Jon's having some variety of French toast, while Suzie has a classic bacon, toast, and eggs).  Jon is digging into his food, while Suzie sits partially turned on her chair, addressing the reader directly.

SUZIE: But if we ever managed to pull ourselves apart from our advanced face sucking for more than five minutes, we'd get brunch.

3 - Suzie's attention is distracted by a server walking by with a big tray of plates.

SUZIE: I've always loved brunch.

4 - The panel focus follows said tray, displaying a wealth of brunch plates and options.  There's eggs, pancakes, fruit, breakfast burritos, steak frites - really whatever floats your brunch boat.

CAPTION (SUZIE): There's just so many options to choose from.  So many ways to enjoy it and to share it with others.

5 - Back to Suzie and Jon.  Jon has some French toast on his fork and feeds it to Suzie (kind of suddenly).  It's very subtle, but the background starts to look a bit like things do when time stops (colours, faded, etc).

CAPTION (SUZIE): Maybe this sounds weird, but it can be kind of intimate, in its own way.

6 - Jon gives Suzie a winning smile.  Suzie smiles back bashfully.  The time stoppage effects are becoming a bit more obvious.

CAPTION (SUZIE): Well, it can be with the right person.

7 - Suzie reciprocates Jon's action, feeding him some bacon and eggs.  Things are getting close to looking like the time stoppage - the background is fading out almost completely.

CAPTION (SUZIE): And before I met Jon, it was the closest thing to The Quiet that I could share with anyone else.

8 - Get rid of the time stoppage effect completely.  Jon and Suzie are back in the restaurant with nothing amiss.  Their actions are a spiritual repetition of panel 6, with Suzie and Jon once again switching roles.  If they weren't clearly so into each other, it would be sickeningly sweet.

CAPTION (SUZIE): Time would never stop.

9 - Suzie moves to hold Jon's hand.  They smile at each other.

CAPTION (SUZIE): But a good brunch could slow it down a bit.

10 - Repeat panel 9.

NO COPY

11 - Still hand holding, Suzie looks surprised / like she's just thought of something.  She looks back at the reader.

SUZIE (1): Now where was I?

SUZIE (2): Oh, right...

12 - The traditional all caps white text on black background that Sex Criminals uses to switch scenes.

WHITE TEXT: THE TIME JON AND SUZIE TRIED TO DO IT IN THE SHOWER

Why Sex Criminals?

Because sometimes we bite off more than we can chew.

I shouldn't be telling you anything when I say that Sex Criminals was one of the best new comics of 2013, and to be honest, has easily remained one of the best books of 2014.

At its most basic, it’s a book about dicks, vaginas, jokes, and jokes about dicks and vaginas.

That and robbing banks.

Oh, and I guess there’s also that whole stopping time thing? That certainly seems to be a crowd pleaser.

But it’s also so much more than all of that. Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky have seemingly done the impossible

Sex is a big, weird, and confusing topic, but they've created a book that looks at sex, sexuality, and relationships with an earnestness that simply doesn't exist anywhere else in the comic book world at the moment. Frankly, there aren't too many stories in any medium right now that look at these subjects with such nuance and consideration. I am by no means exaggerating when I say that Suzie Dickson and Jon Johnson’s relationship is one of the best realized interactions between two fictional persons that I've seen in ages.

And that’s not even taking into account Sex Criminals’ various meditations on subjects ranging from birth control, depression, mental health – and always with an emphasis on finding solutions that are right for the individual and never the group – to name just a few. This is a book that treats most everything with the proper level of thoughtfulness.

But that’s not to say that there isn't passion behind these words and pictures. While these types of sincere, serious conversations are important to have in our fiction, it wouldn't really matter if that was all they were accomplishing. Thankfully, Fraction and Zdarsky show a keen understanding of this fact, and Sex Criminals oozes passion from every orifice (I'd rework that phrasing, but it seems grossly appropriate). Every character, scene, joke, and plot point is lovingly crafted with a clear goal ahead of it (hell, Robert Rainbow, who only appeared in issue #8 was foreshadowed all the way back in issue #2 ferchrissakes). That is what makes the comic worth reading.

And that is what makes writing our own Sex Criminal pages such a challenge. While we're looking for something sexy, funny, and a little bit dirty, it also has to fit in with all the good stuff that Fraction and Zdarsky have been throwing out there.

A tall order, to be certain.

So, good luck and stuff, brimpers.

And, you know, don’t forget the dick and vagina jokes.