Prime Video has ordered an eight-episode adaptation of Sex Criminals, the Eisner Award-winning Image Comics series about people who freeze time when they orgasm. The question now: will the show preserve what made the comic distinctive, or sand down its edges for streaming palatability?
Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon are co-creating the limited series with Tze Chun, according to The Wrap. LuckyChap is producing alongside original comic creators Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky. Nanjiani will appear in a small role.
The comic, which ran from 2013 to 2020, follows Suze and Jon, two people who discover they share the ability to stop time during sex—and decide to use it to rob banks. That premise got the series plenty of attention, but what earned it critical acclaim was Fraction and Zdarsky’s willingness to go further: frank depictions of female sexuality, queer characters integrated throughout the ensemble, and storylines about sexual shame, trauma, and liberation that treated readers like adults.
The creative team’s statements lean heavily on “love story” framing. “A romantic comedy like no other,” LuckyChap called it. Amazon’s Peter Friedlander praised it as “bold, hilarious and wildly original” with “a love story at its core that feels both deeply human.”
That’s not wrong, but it’s incomplete. The comic’s queerness wasn’t window dressing—it was structural. Secondary characters’ sexualities mattered to the plot. The series interrogated how shame operates differently across gender and orientation. Whether that specificity survives the adaptation process will determine if this is actually Sex Criminals or just a quirky heist show with a provocative title.
No premiere date has been announced.
