Wednesday is Comic Day!

Writer: Darwyn Cooke Artist: Darwyn Cooke Publisher: Idea & Design Works, LLC Price: $24.99

Follow up:

To my eye, Darwyn Cooke creates magic with an ink brush - especially when he tells stories set in the 1950s to early 1960s. Here he jumps feet first into noir, with beautiful results. The Hunter was the first novel featuring a character named Parker, written by Donald E. Westlake under the pseudonym Richard Stark. Westlake went on to write 24 novels featuring Parker. Most people will be familiar with the 1967 movie Point Blank starring Lee Marvin. That film was an adaptation of The Hunter. The story is pretty straightforward. Parker was betrayed by his partner in crime and ended up left for dead and then imprisoned. He's out of prison and wants his money.

The art is truly gorgeous and printed on a slightly yellowed and thick coarse paper, it really feels like a 50 year old book. Darwyn Cooke's style is cartoony, yet with a few strokes of ink, he can create a woman that is drop dead sexy and a man that is boiling over with rage. He is so good that simultaneously the brain can admire the simplicity and elegance of his art and create a three-dimensional, living, breathing mental image of his characters. When I read this book, every character had a unique voice and accent. I could smell Parker's sweat, the women's perfume, and a glass of scotch.

Westlake knew of and approved of Darwyn's adaptation of his work, but he died last year. I hope he got to see a lot of completed pages.