RICHARD STARKS PARKER THE HUNTER HC

Review by: jmstump

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Price: 24.99

Darwyn Cooke is back and it’s been a long wait.  I believe the last thing I read of his, possibly the last thing he worked on, was The Spirit.  If you didn’t read that book you missed out on one of the best books in the last few years.  I had heard on the streets, because you know that’s where all information comes from, that Cooke was a little fed up with the mainstream and wanted out for a little while.  It wasn’t soon after I heard this that the information had landed that Cooke would be working on adapting the Parker series starting with The Hunter.

All I could think was, “The what series?”  I had never heard of Parker, but the title of The Hunter stuck out in my mind.  It eroded at my very soul for weeks.  Then I think my subconscious kicked in as I decided to watch a movie I hadn’t watched in years.  That movie was Payback, you know the one that starts that no name Mel Gibson. just kidding.  Honestly I let the movie roll and then the title sat there punching me in the face, The HunterPayback had been a movie based off of the book The Hunter from the Parker series.  A face palm to the forehead later I realized I was now stupid excited for this book to come out.

Now before I really dig into my review, please know that I have not read The Hunter, I have only seen the movie Payback and cannot compare the book to Cooke’s adaptation.  Therefore in my review I will be making comparisons to the movie.

While reading the book I noticed that there were things that ended up being verbatim to the movie.  The opening was almost exactly the same along with many lines of dialogue.  Overall it was still different enough to catch me off guard and also realize how Hollywood has to change things for our fragile minds.

Mel Gibson is usually a good guy in movies.  Porter, for some reason the name is different in the movie but everyone else’s is the same, was about the baddest of the bad guys that I have seen him play.  He was still a “good guy” in a way.  I must say after reading The Hunter, I feel like they changed the name not to piss off a fictional character that may come to life and make everyone pay for portraying him like a pansy.

Quickly we learn that Parker is a man’s man.  He tears off filters from cigarettes, kills if he needs to, can hold one hell of a vendetta, and can intimidate the hell out of almost anyone.  In The Hunter he even kills one person by accident when he doesn’t mean too.  Parker is also the guy that would rather do things with his hands and not a gun.  His movie version is watered down, why? Simple Hollywood needs a “hero” for the movie.  If Payback hit the theaters with Parker instead of his softer kinder gentler brother, Porter, it surely would have destroyed the simple feeble mind of a movie goer.

My guess is that The Hunter is more in tune with the book.  Darwyn Cooke has adapted other’s work in the past, Will Eisner’s, and expounded upon others, Paul Levitz.  He really felt like someone that respects his peers with both of these works and I don’t feel that he would be any different with respects to Richard Stark.  The story is phenomenal and if you liked Payback you’ll definitely like The Hunter.

Cooke as always delivers on the pencils.  He’s probably my favorite comic artist of all time as he makes everything look classy and simple, in the good way, at the same time.  Every page of this book was amazing and it appears that he did his own “colors” in this book.  I say “colors” because he used a blue hue to all of the pictures, which looks amazing and timely with his art.  I can’t say much other than when you open this book, you’ll be blown away.

The other thing I wanted to mention that I loved about this book is that the entire thing felt more like a novel experience than a comic book.  The size is like a harcover novel, not a hardcover trade.  There are pages that are filled with prose and no word balloons.  They work and work well.  The book even looks and feels like a hardcover that would be purchased 40 years ago.

Final word: I may buy extra copies of this to give out to people that may like it.  This book is amazing nothing less.

Now for the bad… the next book is next year.  I may explode with anticipation before that happens.

Story: 5 - Excellent
Art: 5 - Excellent

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