Richard Stark's Parker: The Score - Softcover

Stark, Richard; Cooke, Darwyn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1631409964 ISBN 13: 9781631409967

Publisher: IDW Publishing, 2017

Synopsis

A high-octane trip across America, The Score finds Parker assembling the best caper men he can find to knock over his most audacious target yet: an entire town. They scheme, they prepare, and they execute with military precision, unaware that the whole thing is about to blow up in their faces. Long considered a high water mark in the Parker series, this new graphic adaptation brings the original to violent, double-crossing life.

Darwyn Cooke, Eisner-Award winning creator of DC: The New Frontier, continues adapting Richard Stark's genre-defining Parker novels with his signature pulp flair in this third installment. A hard-nosed thief, Parker is Richard Stark's most famous creation, and Stark, in turn, is the most famous pen name of Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Donald E. Westlake.

About this title

About the Author:

Richard Stark is the most famous pseudonym of world-renowned author Donald Westlake (1933-2008). In 1962 hecreated the master thief Parker and began a series of novels that have been recognized as seminal works of crime fiction. Several of Westlake’s books have been adapted by Hollywood and Westlake’s adaptation of The Grifters earned him an Academy Award nomination for best motion picture screenplay. Westlake has won numerous awards for his fiction and in 1993 the Mystery Writers of America named him a Grand Master, the highest honor bestowed by that prestigious society.

Darwyn Cooke (1962-2015) was a graphic designer and animator who turned his attention toward cartooning in the late nineties. Known primarily for his work on the DC line of superheroes, Cooke always had an affinity for crime fiction and has often cited the Parker books as a great source of creative inspiration. Cooke has won multiple Eisner, Harvey, and Shuster awards, as well as the National Cartoonist Society’s Best Series award. In 2008 Cooke was Emmy-nominated for the animated adaptation of his magnum opus, DC: The New Frontier.

From Booklist:

Cooke rolls out another savvy effort in this third adaptation of the classic Parker thrillers by Richard Stark (aka Donald E. Westlake). As adept an adapter as he is an artist, Cooke knows just when to let his retro-sophisticated drawings do the talking and when to let Stark’s words take over. Because, in any case, they both hammer home the same point: you do not mess with Parker. This story brings the professional thief in on an elaborate scheme to rob an entire town blind in one fell swoop. That means a lot of people need to be involved, which isn’t Parker’s style, but the sheer audacity of it all proves an irresistible temptress. With a dozen microlocations and at least as many important players, the machinery of the heist could easily have compromised the tension of the story. But Cooke stages it all like a pro, nimbly guiding readers through the intricate plot, and it’s a blast. Another notch in the belt for one of comics’ hardest-boiled crime series, and more evidence for the court as to Cooke’s skill and the strength of the source material. --Ian Chipman

About this edition

• Publisher: IDW Publishing
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1631409964
• ISBN 13: 9781631409967
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160
• Illustrator: Cooke Darwyn