Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Richard Stark's Parker Book Two: The Outfit
IDW Comics
Cooke
Darwyn Cooke's second full adaptation of Donald Westlake's Parker series is as good as the first as it brings to life a much wider array of characters and uses a much broader artistic style to tell the story. The adaptation has some notable variations from the first novel, The Hunter, as it has a much less violent feel to and Cooke's artistic style changes manage to almost make light of some of the crime heists. All of this just makes The Outfit that much more unique and surprising to those that read The Hunter. The Outfit is a fantastic adaptation of one of the most interesting criminal characters over the last fifty years. The beauty is that you don't have to have had any previous exposure to pick this up and enjoy it.
This adaptation starts off with a bang as someone makes an attempt on Parker's life while he's hooking up with a woman. In these first few pages Cooke shows his dominating command of introducing characters in a story, regardless of if they are new or not, and how he is able to assign unique voices and traits to those characters. This sets a high bar and terrific tempo to the book.
Parker begins to exact his revenge. However, he doesn't just go on a killing spree. Instead he relies on his underbelly associates to chip away at the big criminal organization's resources. As the various crews pull off heists we are treated to Cooke's artistic mastery.
There are several crimes that are outlined in the book pulled off by different criminal teams. For each, Cooke completely changes his style to give each one its own look and feel.
The first one sets up like a novella. It's mostly text as you would see in a novel with a few illustrations to support the story. It also is reminiscent of a newspaper or magazine story. In another Cooke takes a comedic path. The crime involves two men that switch sports coats to launder money via the airport. Cooke uses Antonio Prohias' Spy vs Spy cartoon style in what can only be describes as hilarious. There are a few other styles Cooke infuses throughout this sequence making this among the highlights of the book.
In addition to the art changes this book seems to take careful steps in not being violent. While many of the crimes aren't being pulled off by Parker himself, the book seems to contain a lot of dialogue that goes something like, "No one gets hurt if X happens" which is not what I expected coming out of the previous Cooke adaptations. This doesn't detract from the work at all, but it was simply less violent.
As the book builds towards its conclusion we get more and more Parker as he continues to show how he is simply one step ahead of the game. He's a villain, but he truly is one that you cheer for despite his ruthless and cold nature. Cooke portrays the essence of the character perfectly by the end of the book.
The Outfit is a fantastic read regardless of whether you like crime novels. I'm sure some fans of the original work will not like the adaptation and while it certainly doesn't cover it to the letter it does show a new twist on the original novel. With Cooke you get a very unique perspective just as you would have a completely different graphic novel if, say, Ed Brubaker penned it. Cooke brings a fresh view on this classic work and with it, hopefully, he bring a new wave of fans to the twisted world of Parker. This is one of the best things I've read in 2010 and I can't recommend it any higher.
5 out of 5 Geek Goggles
