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Review: “Sex Criminals” # 3

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At its very core Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky’s “Sex Criminals” seems to be a deconstruction of mutual attraction. Centering on the overwhelming feeling of finding someone in which you can truly be yourself completely and the sexual lust that goes along with it. Each page is dripping with realism and a hint of superficiality. Suzie and John think they’re in love, but this issue makes the effort to show a relationship built around lust.


WRITTEN BY: Matt Fraction
ART BY: Chip Zdarsky
PUBLISHER: Image
PRICE: $3.50
RELEASE: November 20, 2013

Once again “Sex Criminals” takes a step forward by taking a step back. This month we’re treated to John’s sexual history and the first couple days of his relationship with Suzie. It’s fantastically telling, and the core dynamic of revisiting past lovers is brought to life with ease by Zdarsky’s insanely good paneling.

Fraction plants the reader as a fly on the wall to his heroes. We learn intimate details about them with almost every page. We’re there as they learn about one another, and it feels like we experienced a weekend of fucking and sharing as well. By the end of John and Suzie’s first date they don’t want to split. They’re inexplicably drawn to one another for better or worse.

The aftermath of the first date can always be awkward. The feelings of lust can be overpowering and the thought of the other person usually rules your mind. Fraction uses these moments to further cement the relationship in real world dynamics. A fantastic page of texting shows Zdarsky’s inventive use of paneling. Showing each character in a variety of situations as their textual intercourse continues throughout the day.

These are characters that have been fundamentally lost and alone their whole lives. It’s reassuring when they find one another, as all of their troubles seem to be propelled into the distance. With each other nothing else seems to matter. That being said, their wounds propel them into making a choice that will irreparably change their lives forever, and one we’ve been dealing with since the beginning of the series: the bank robbery.

Things hit fever pitch this month. Fraction ensures that the final beat is still sexually related but doesn’t bode well for the future of our characters. It’s steeped in mystery but is slowly revealing itself. I cannot wait to see who these mysterious antagonists are and why they can move through the quiet.

Zdarsky’s work is something to marvel at. He manages to top himself with every page. His paneling is never overwhelming despite having more panels per page than any artist I’ve recently experienced. This actually helps the pacing propel itself to almost breakneck speed. It’s incredible because the addition of panels usually slows things down, but somehow Fraction and Zdarsky have found a golden mean to flex their muscles.

“Sex Criminals” is easily the most inventive and compelling comic on the shelves today. It’s hilarious, emotionally compelling, and undeniably irresistible. It’s the culmination of two masters of the craft weaving a story no one else was brave enough to tell. This is a book that will be remembered for a long time to cum.

Easily my most anticipated book every month. Don’t wait any longer and pick it up ASAP. You wont regret it.

Rating: 4.5/5 Skulls

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[Review] Graphic Novel ‘Tender’ Is Brilliant Feminist Body Horror That Will Make You Squirm & Scream

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Tender Beth Hetland Graphic Novel

Beth Hetland’s debut graphic novel, ‘Tender,’ is a modern tale of love, validation, and self-destruction by way of brutal body horror with a feminist edge.

“I’ve wanted this more than anything.”

Men so often dominate the body horror subgenre, which makes it so rare and insightful whenever women tackle this space. This makes Beth Hetland’s Tender such a refreshing change of pace. It’s earnest, honest, and impossibly exposed. Tender takes the body horror subgenre and brilliantly and subversively mixes it together with a narrative that’s steeped in the societal expectations that women face on a daily basis, whether it comes to empowerment, family, or sexuality. It single-handedly beats other 2023 and ‘24 feminine horror texts like American Horror Story: Delicate, Sick, Lisa Frankenstein, and Immaculate at their own game.

Hetland’s Tender is American Psycho meets Rosemary’s Baby meets Swallow. It’s also absolutely not for the faint of heart.

Right from the jump, Tender grabs hold of its audience and doesn’t let go. Carolanne’s quest for romantic fulfillment, validation, and a grander purpose is easy to empathize with and an effective framework for this woeful saga. Carolanne’s wounds cut so deep simply because they’re so incredibly commonplace. Everybody wants to feel wanted.

Tender is full of beautiful, gross, expressive artwork that makes the reader squirm in their seat and itch. Hetland’s drawings are simultaneously minimalist and comprehensively layered. They’re  reminiscent of Charles Burns’ Black Hole, in the best way possible. There’s consistently inspired and striking use of spot coloring that elevates Hetland’s story whenever it’s incorporated, invading Tender’s muted world.

Hetland employs effective, economical storytelling that makes clever use of panels and scene construction so that Tender can breeze through exposition and get to the story’s gooey, aching heart. There’s an excellent page that depicts Carolanne’s menial domestic tasks where the repetitive panels grow increasingly smaller to illustrate the formulaic rut that her life has become. It’s magical. Tender is full of creative devices like this that further let the reader into Carolanne’s mind without ever getting clunky or explicit on the matter. The graphic novel is bookended with a simple moment that shifts from sweet to suffocating.

Tender gives the audience a proper sense of who Carolanne is right away. Hetland adeptly defines her protagonist so that readers are immediately on her side, praying that she gets her “happily ever after,” and makes it out of this sick story alive…And then they’re rapidly wishing for the opposite and utterly aghast over this chameleon. There’s also some creative experimentation with non-linear storytelling that gets to the root of Carolanne and continually recontextualizes who she is and what she wants out of life so that the audience is kept on guard.

Tender casually transforms from a picture-perfect rom-com, right down to the visual style, into a haunting horror story. There’s such a natural quality to how Tender presents the melancholy manner in which a relationship — and life — can decay. Once the horror elements hit, they hit hard, like a jackhammer, and don’t relent. It’s hard not to wince and grimace through Tender’s terrifying images. They’re reminiscent of the nightmarish dadaist visuals from The Ring’s cursed videotape, distilled to blunt comic panels that the reader is forced to confront and digest, rather than something that simply flickers through their mind and is gone a moment later. Tender makes its audience marinate in its mania and incubates its horror as if it’s a gestating fetus in their womb.

Tender tells a powerful, emotional, disturbing story, but its secret weapon may be its sublime pacing. Hetland paces Tender in such an exceptional manner, so that it takes its time, sneaks up on the reader, and gets under their skin until they’re dreading where the story will go next. Tender pushes the audience right up to the edge so that they’re practically begging that Carolanne won’t do the things that she does, yet the other shoe always drops in the most devastating manner. Audiences will read Tender with clenched fists that make it a struggle to turn each page, although they won’t be able to stop. Tender isn’t a short story, at more than 160 pages, but readers will want to take their time and relish each page so that this macabre story lasts for as long as possible before it cascades to its tragic conclusion. 

Tender is an accomplished and uncomfortable debut graphic novel from Hetland that reveals a strong, unflinching voice that’s the perfect fit for horror. Tender indulges in heightened flights of fancy and toes the line with the supernatural. However, Tender is so successful at what it does because it’s so grounded in reality and presents a horror story that’s all too common in society. It’s a heartbreaking meditation on loneliness and codependency that’s one of 2024’s must-read horror graphic novels.

‘Tender,’ by Beth Hetland and published by Fantagraphics, is now available.

4 out of 5 skulls

Tender graphic novel review

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