One of my favorite books to come out last year was Richard Stark’s: Parker- the Hunter by Darwyn Cooke. It’s a beautifully rendered adaptation of Richard Stark’s (aka Donald Westlake) novel of the same name from 1962. This is crime noir/ pulp at it’s absolute finest, and Darwyn Cookes take on the book is nothing short of masterful. His style by nature is very retro early-sixties, so it’s little surprise that you feel like you could have lived through Parker’s hard-knock life right beside him and understand the lingo and culture of the day.

Following up on Parker- the Hunter is The Man With The Getaway Face, another of Westlakes novels from 1963. Getaway is a classic heist-gone-wrong story that is a staple in crime fiction, but when done by Westlake, it becomes a hard-boiled masterpiece. Unlike the Hunter, Getaway is being released as a single issue comic from IDW and will be a prelude to the Parker story called the Outfit. Hunter was originally released as a stand alone graphic novel in what is roughly the size of a regular hardcover novel. It looks very good on your bookshelf, and will be one of the finest pieces of art in your house, should you choose to read it. For those of you not familiar with Darwyn Cooke, first of all, shame on you. Cooke is probably best known for his epic re-telling of the Silver Age DCU; the New Frontier, as well as Batman stories like Ego, and Catwoman: Selina’s big score, not to mention his work as an animator on Batman- the Animated Series. He also revived Will Eisner’s the Spirit in a way that only Eisner himself could do better. As for Donald Westlake, I suggest you track down some of his novels, especially the re-issued material from the Hard Case Crime imprint which re-releases new and old mystery novels in affordable paperbacks that look just like old-school pulp novels.

I’m super excited for the rest of Cooke’s Parker collection as it combines one of my favorite comic artists with one of the greatest hard-boiled crime writers of the genre. This is a melding of two of my favorite things, gritty noir fiction and comic books. I really couldn’t ask for anything more.

-Jim

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