Parker graphic novel adaptations re-released in collection
Word Balloons #1185: Darwyn Cooke crafted four adaptations and two shorts based on the Donald Westlake stories
Four award-winning crime graphic novels have been collected under one cover.
Darwyn Cooke’s “Complete Parker” is a 520-page collection retailing for $69.99. “Complete” collects four graphic novels and two shorts: “The Hunter”, “The Man with the Getaway Face,” “The Outfit,” “The Seventh,” “The Score,” and “Slayground.”
"Parker: The Hunter” was released in July 2009 from IDW as Darwyn Cooke ("The New Frontier”) adapted the first of Donald Westlake’s "Parker” novels. Westlake wrote the “Parker” novels under the pen name Richard Stark. The double-crossed small-time hood Parker is out to get revenge on those who did him wrong, and he does so with explosive consequences.
Cooke, who died in 2016, was the perfect artist to adapt the 1960s-era hard-boiled tales of Parker.
Cooke worked with Westlake early on in the development of the “Parker” graphic novels prior to Westlake’s death in 2008.
“This is the benefit of having a few exchanges with Donald,” Cooke said in a 2010 interview with Comics Alliance. “One of his concerns was that I understood that Parker doesn’t operate out of anger. He never commits a violent act out of anger. He does it because it’s the expedient thing to do. It’s the practical thing, a survival mechanism.”
The second graphic novel, “The Outfit,” was released in October 2010. “The Score” followed in in July 2012. The last graphic novel, “Slayground,” was released in December 2013.
The four Parker graphic novels (“The Hunter,” “The Outfit,” “The Score,” and “Slayground”) and the two shorts (“The Man with the Getaway Face” and “The Seventh”) encompass all Darwyn Cooke’s sequential stories of Parker.
Cooke also provided color illustrations for a prose reprint of “The Hunter.”
The Parker crime fiction series began in 1962 and eventually included more than 20 novels. Cooke had plans to adapt additional novels to graphic novel form, but those plans ended with his death in 2016 at age 53.
Cooke left a legacy of great comic books, including “Selina’s Big Score,” “The Spirit” and “DC The New Frontier” for DC Comics.
Matthew Price, matthew@matthewLprice.com, has written about the comics industry for more than two decades. He is the co-owner of Speeding Bullet Comics in Norman.