Miscellaneous Reviews 07: Batman: Ego and Other Tails and Lucky Luke: La Diligence

Batman: Ego and Other Tails:

Batman: Ego and Other Tails is nearly all written and illustrated by Canadian comics creator Darwyn Cooke. It’s a collection of shorter works by Cooke, all of which feature Batman except for story that focuses on Catwoman. Paul Grist wrote one of the stories and Bill Wray and Tim Sale drew one story apiece. My enjoyment of the collection was lukewarm as far as the Batman stories are concerned. Nothing really engaging or truly original happens. I enjoyed the art by Cooke, Bill Wray and Tim Sale but the writing that accompanied those stories was flat. I remember very little from the stories and I read them less than a day ago. It’s pleasant to read but it left no impression on me.

The Catwoman story, titled “Selina’s Big Score” was a different thing all together. In essence, it’s about Selina Kyle, better known as Catwoman, pulling a heist. At the beginning of the story she does a job that ends without pay and she quickly finds another job to pull, one with a big payout if everything goes right. The rest is played out like a novel written by Richard Stark. People who are familiar with Cooke’s body of work will know that he’s no stranger to Richard Stark, particularly his Parker series. “Selina’s Big Score” follows the formula of the Parker novels and the effect makes for a stellar comic. It’s also a little strange as it also works as a crossover story between Catwoman and Parker. Parker is named Stark and visually he is based on Lee Marvin except he’s uglier which suits the character just fine. The structure is just like that of a Parker novel. It’s in four part and the third part is presented from a different point of view, namely that of Slam Bradley a private detective who resides in Gotham City. The idea to make a crime story starring Selina Kyle is a stroke of genius. Her thieving background makes it a natural fit. It’s not surprising that this 80-odd-pages graphic novel led to an ongoing Catwoman series by Ed Brubaker and Darwyn Cooke. It’s solid work in an otherwise unimpressive collection.

Alfred Hitchcock cameo in La Diligence.

Lucky Luke: La Diligence (The Stagecoach):

I’ve mentioned before that my childhood was filled with hours spent reading. I devoured my dad’s collection of bandes dessinées for years. The only reason I stopped is because I eventually moved out of my parents’ house when I finished high school. Since then I’ve occasionally read a BD but nothing has quite captured me like the titles I read in my youth. Last weekend took a few Lucky Luke albums from my dad’s collection and La Diligence is the first of those that I’ve reread. Lucky Luke is still one of my favourite all ages BD.

Originally created by Maurice De Bevere, better known by his pen name Morris, Lucky Luke has been in publication since 1946. It’s a giant in the BD industry and new stories continue to be released even after Morris’s death in 2001. La Diligence is written by René Goscinny, Morris’s most famous collaborator on Lucky Luke. The story is pretty straight forward. Lucky Luke is hired to protect a Wells Fargo & Co. stagecoach as it travels a vast distance to transport gold and passengers from Denver to San Fransisco. The whole thing is a publicity stunt to show the world that Wells Fargo stagecoaches are a safe means of travel. The gold cargo is heavily advertised and as such the stagecoach becomes a target for desperados and thieves throughout the entire journey.

Morris and Goscinny use this simple story to provide the reader with numerous funny scenes in which Lucky Luke gets to show off his skill as a cowboy and the passengers each get their little moment in the spotlight. It’s a fun story that never forgets what it’s all about; that is to say a fun western adventure story with some jokes, some less subtle than others. What makes this is many other Lucky Luke stories is how it takes a few aspects of American history from the 19^th Century and spins it into an entertaining BD. This album obviously dealt with the realities of traveling by stagecoach and it’s notably for its inclusion of Black Bart, a notorious thief who specialized in robbing stagecoaches. The historical aspects are often caricaturized but there is still considerable attention given to historical accuracy. At the very least, Lucky Luke: La Diligence tells the kind of story that will not only entertain readers of all ages, it will likely inspire you to do a bit of research on the more historically interesting elements of the story. 

My review is based on the French edition of La Diligence published by Dargaud published in 1984.

Richard Stark’s Parker: Slayground review

I discovered Darwyn Cooke’s comic book adaptation of Richard Stark’s Parker novels back in 2012. In early 2013, I wrote reviews of all three comics that were out at the time. It wasn’t enough. I got hooked. Parker was such an interesting character. He’s as close to existential as possible while still maintaining and incredible amount of depth. I also fell in love with Stark’s writing still. It’s terse and it cuts you like tiny shards of broken glass but I enjoy it tremendously because the world Parker and the other characters live isn’t a place for a soft approach. You have to be hard as nails to survive and even harder to come out of the game with a little spending cash. I took a bit of a break from the novels, not because I didn’t enjoy them any longer but great novels, like candy or too much popcorn, can give you a sore stomach. I wanted to be able to walk away knowing I would return rather than be forced to quit because I had spoiled my appetite.

The only way 2013, my personal Year of Parker, could get any better was with new Parker material. Lucky me, there was a new movie but more importantly a new Cooke comic was published! The excited was short lived because I wasn’t very impressed. Needless to say, my initial reaction after reading Parker: Slayground is one of disappointment.

I was looking forward to Parker: Slayground in great part because of the reasons stated above. In addition to this, it would have been the first time I read the novel before the comic. I read the comic versions of The Hunter, The Outfit and The Score before reading the novels. It’s the other way around for Slayground. The interesting with the novel of the first three comics is that they were still excellent even though I was very familiar with the story. I was curious to know if it would work well the other way around. It turns out it wasn’t. Reading Parker: Slayground (the comic) made Slayground (the novel) that much more impressive to me.

Reading a story I’m already familiar with in a different medium made me realize that the story of Slayground seems to be much better suited to a novel than to a comic. There isn’t a whole lot of plot. The story is very good but it’s also very simple and Stark had to make it engaging by using a variety of techniques. In order to talk about why I think the story suits one medium more than the other I have to rely, once again, on the structure of a Parker story. I appreciate that Slayground follows the Parker formula while simultaneously trying to test the boundaries of the formula. Raymond Chandler once said:  “To exceed the limits of a formula without destroying it is the dream of every magazine writer who is not a hopeless hack.” Chandler said that in reference to his career writing in pulp magazines but Stark had a clearly defined structure for his Parker novels and Slayground is but one of his many attempts to exceed the limits of the structure without breaking it.  In my review of The Hunter I establish the five main elements of the formula:

1) Parker alone or with a crew prepares to pull a heist,

2) They do the job,

3) There is a double cross or a serious complication, 

4) Parker fixes the problem (for himself at least), and

5) Parker does everything he can to get his portion of the take. 

Slayground sticks to the formula but it shows then slightly out of order and some parts are only dealt with in the sequel (presumable, as I haven’t read it). The novel begins with part 2) and it immediately leads to part 3). The novel then takes a brief moment to present part 1) in a flashback. More of the novel then concerns itself with what happens between part 3) and part 4). The ending of the novel, and I’m not spoiling anything here, ends with part 4) which Parker getting clear of the mess. The comic does the same thing because the plot is closely related to the formula but it does so without adding much story. The comic gives us parts 2) and 3) in just a few pages and it ends with part 4), just like the novel. What doesn’t work is everything in between the complication and Parker fixing the problem isn’t interesting in the comic. It’s extremely well done, especially considering it’s mostly absent of caption boxes and speech bubbles. That’s also the problem. What made Slayground a good novel for me was spending so much time in Parker’s head and the growing tension that Stark was building before the confrontation with Parker and the crooks. The novel is tense because of all the waiting and the preparation Parker has to do.

Parker: Slayground isn’t Cooke’s best comic adaptation but it serves well as another example of Cooke’s mastery of comic book storytelling. In the same volume, Cooke includes what I can only surmise is condensed adaptation of another Parker novel: The Seventh. The Seventh is one of the novels I haven’t read and I’m pretty convinced that it’s an eleven page comic book adaptation included to make Parker: Slayground seem a little less thin. I for one am glad it was included because I enjoyed those 11 pages immensely. It’s different than his other Parker adaptation, primarily because of its length but Cooke effectively proves that not every adaptation needs to be of equal or similar length as the original story.

I’m far more critical of this Parker comic than I was the first three and that’s ok. Not every comic can be great but even so, I did enjoy Parker: Slayground quite a bit. Certain differences between the novel and the comic were a bit jarring. The physical confrontations are good examples of those differences. In the novel they are quick burst intercut by slow and suspenseful preparation but in the comic, they’re also quick but it all feels very impersonal. It’s too easy for Parker. In the novel he struggles to survive and every man he beats down or kills was the result of extensive preparation, utmost stubbornness and physical prowess on Parker’s part.

There will be another Parker comic in 2015. I have more than a year to wait and that’s ok because I hope this will give Cooke enough time to create something as gripping and intelligent as the first three comic adaptations. However, if I find the wait to be too long I can always continue reading the novels by Stark. That’s something I planned on doing anyway and you should too.

Richard Stark's Parker: the Score review

Parker: the Score is the third book in a series of comic adaptations of Richard’s Stark’s crime novels by Canadian born Darwyn Cooke. I’m very impressed. Nearly 500 pages of comics and Cooke’s barely had a slip up. As always, when talking about plot elements and the overall execution of the book I refer to Cooke. Having not read any of the Parker novels I have no idea how much is taken from the series of novels. I imagine it’s a lot but I mean no disrespect when omitting Stark’s name from my comments and reviews. It’s something I’ll have to address by reading a few of the novels.

We meet up with Parker while he’s on a beach. He hasn’t done a job in six months. He’s not low on cash but boredom has settled in. There is a man who wants to organize a heist but he’s new to the game and needs help. This man, Edgars, presents his job to Parker and some of his friends (we’ve met two of them in The Outfit). Edgars plans to rob a town called Copper Canyon. While describing the job to the other thieves it becomes clear to them and clear to the reader that Edgars plans quite literally to rob the whole town. Parker’s friend, Grofield, is immediately intrigued. It takes Parker a bit longer but boredom and an exciting job leads him to decide to take the risk on this job.

The straightforward plot, Parker and 11 other men plan and execute a job, becomes much more intriguing because Parker breaks his own rules: 1) do not work a job that requires more than four or five people because it becomes too complicated and therefore too risky, 2) if a job is too risky, cut your losses and walk away. We know he should walk away and we know there will be a negative outcome for Parker and his crew because he didn’t walk about but just like our anti-hero, we’re hooked. We’re glad he decided to take charge and plan the robbery. It’s refreshing that we’re reading about Parker dealing with a job for an entire book. So far we’ve read about him dealing primarily with the outcome of past jobs that have gone wrong. This time we’re along for the ride and we get to see the planning and the execution.

Cooke experimented with style and storytelling in The Outfit and experiments a bit this time around as well. Grofield’s scenes are intercut with his strange imaginings he has comparing the heist to a group of soldiers undertaking a missing in a World War II setting. It works well, both visually as well as device to quickly show us what kind of person Grofield is. He’s obviously very good at his job, he really likes it but he’s arrogant and takes unnecessary risks. He lacks focus compared to many of the other thieves.

The accent colour this time around is orange. This seems like a strange choice at first but it makes sense. It is strange because it’s not a dark colour. Crime comics and even police procedure comics tend to have a darker colour palette. I’m thinking specifically of Criminal by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips and Gotham Central by Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker. Orange isn’t dark at all. I can’t help but think that Cooke had the gas station explosion in mind while choosing the accent colour for The Score. The impact of that page would have been lessened by the use of. The explosion in question was done using only the off-white colour of the page and the orange. There is no black at all and it looks the explosion is happening right in front of our eyes.

Unlike the previous two adaptations, there are no flashbacks in The Score. The book concentrates on showing us the thieves at work and Cooke wisely gives things room to breathe. The book is not as dense as the previous two but it doesn’t feel slight because of it because Cooke tells it so clearly, so efficiently. Cooke keeps in mind that this is a very big undertaken and treats it as such. Also, because this is crime fiction we can expect something to go wrong. I knew something was going to happen but I couldn’t figure it out. I shouldn’t feel too bad though, Parker didn’t see it either. My only complaint for The Score is that the problems that arise are resolved rather quickly.

Not only that but it’s a huge undertaking and it’s nice to see Parker working with a large crew. Not only that, but it wouldn’t be good crime fiction unless something goes wrong and part of the fun is trying to figure out what will go wrong. I’m not spoiling anything in saying the Copper Canyon job goes as wrong as it possibly could have gone. It’s a riveting how Cooke made it happen.

One of the many reasons this is a great comic is the portrayal of the crew of thieves. Every single one of them have a way of dealing with the life they’ve chosen, they all have rules. Not everybody agrees with how things are done but everything body at least pretends to go along with it for the sake of the payoff. Parker is still the star of his own series but Grofield gives him a run for his money.

Once again Cooke delivers and excellent crime comic. He doesn’t depend on the two previous books, instead he builds on it. Three books in and the Parker series still feels fresh. The stories are riveting, Cooke’s art is excellent and even when he’s not pulling off flashy storytelling tricks he’s telling a solid and entertaining story. We’re told at the end of the book that there will be a fourth Parker comic in 2013 and I can’t wait. 

Richard Stark’s Parker: the Outfit review

In my review for Parker: the Hunter I wondered whether or not Cooke was going to let loose in his second Parker adaptation The Outfit much like Parker lets loose after a job. Having read The Outfit for the first time, I would say Cooke indeed let loose. Once again the plot is simple. Parker underwent plastic surgery to change the look of his face in order to avoid being hunted down by the Outfit (the Organization or the Syndicate, it’s all the same). Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long, just one job, for his identity to be made known to the Outfit. He decides it’s time to end this nonsense once and for all and declares war on the Organization and acts out his threat to ask all his thief friends to hit the Outfit anyway they can.

According to Trent at The Violent World of Parker, Parker: the Outfit is based on two novels by Richard Stark The Man with the Getaway Face and The Outfit. It also seems Cooke was less faithful with his adaptation this go around. I’ll let experts like Trent tell you exactly how faithful he remained while I concentrate on the comic adaptations.

Taking a free hand with The Outfit was a good call by Cooke as I enjoyed the second comic more than I did the first which was excellent. I essentially only have one complaint which is the way Cooke draws women. Now this was a bigger problem in The Hunter but I forgot to mention it. Essentially, all his women look the same. Same body type, same face, all he seems to do is change the hairdos. He adds more variety in the second comic notably with Alma and the retired-prostitute-turned-motel-owner. We get larger woman in her forties and an elderly lady in her sixties. It was nice of Cooke to avoid giving us nothing but magazine worthy babes which, incidentally he does very well but it gets tiresome after a while.

The colour palette is similar and it keeps it consistent with The Hunter. The main difference is the blue-grey from the first book is now a darker blue. Just a slight difference but it was nice. It also gave it a darker feel which suits The Outfit just fine. Cook uses different art styles during one of the book’s four chapters whichs depicts different heist being pulled by friends of Parker (and one of them being pulled by Parker himself and two associates). It works well because it gives a lot of information to the reader quickly. This book more than The Hunter is dense. A lot of things happen and they happen quickly. Cooke puts half a dozen or more panels on at least half the pages and it’s impressive. Especially once you consider the smaller than average page size. Using different art styles for the various heist allowed Cooke to show us a nice variety of jobs while he gets to stretch his drawings muscles and move the story along. It was a great idea and it very well executed.

There is a really interesting few pages that end the third chapter. They bring up the effects of criminals organizing and beginning to work like a business. It makes them soft. Men like Bronson and Fairfax, used to be hardened criminals like Parker (well, maybe not as hard as Parker). Bronson mentions the arrival of a new breed of men in the Organization. There is a new kind of criminal, white collar criminals, businessmen. Essentially other people are hired to do the dirty work while these people coordinate the whole thing from behind a desk.

Another element I liked is Parker’s new face. He’s uglier. Not hideous but uglier than in book one and it works. He’s not just crook, now he’s an ugly crook. His new face also seems to go well with his overly large hands. He’s not deformed but he doesn’t look like you’re average Joe. There’s a full page spread of Parker in his underwear in the first few pages and he’s a physically imposing man. You do not want to mess with this guy! Cooke nails the body language in that page. Parker could have easily looked silly or weak just standing around in his underwear but it’s clear that he means business. It’s even more imposing in hind sight since Parker follows through on his tough look by springing into action.

What I liked the most about The Outfit, and this is true of the Hunter too, is that Parker has to clean up after nearly every job he does. Part of being a thief is working with other crooks. Double crossing and backstabbing are just another part of the job. I find this aspect of crime fiction much more interesting than showing us the ins and outs of planning for a job.  I really like crime fiction that depicts the bad elements that naturally come with the career choice. Sure the payoff can be big but so are the risks. Parker spends as much time dealing with the outcome of a job as much as he spends time planning his next job. That’s not always the case but based on the first two Parker comic adaptations, it sure happens often enough to be a dangerous way of making a living.

What's attractive about crime fiction is that the reader gets to live out fantasies of a criminal life and lifestyle. We've all though about how easy it would be to rob a place but, for obvious reasons, only a small percentage of the population actually try to do it. Crime fiction gives us a chance to play out the fantasy. Good crime fiction shows us why it's not a good idea. We'd probably end up in jail or worse, dead or even worse than that, with Parker hot on our trail.

I'm happy to say I paid for my copy of Parker: the Outfit. The last thing I need is Cooke and IDW sending out goons to roughen me up. 

Richard Stark’s Parker: the Hunter review

This little book is a comic adaptation of a novel from Richard Stark’s Parker series adapted by Darwyn Cooke and published by IDW Publishing. The Hunter was the first Parker book that was published and it makes sense that Cooke starts with this novel. The story is pretty simple, Parker a professional burglar has been double-crossed and he’s out for revenge. It’s a story we’ve all read before but this story has some neat little twists, a great ‘60s look, excellent pacing and art by Cooke. In short, it’s superbly executed. It’s important that I mention I’ve never read any of the novels in the Parker series and this might reflect in my review.

Since I’ve mentioned the plot is something we’ve seen before, it's now time to point out that it’s Cooke's storytelling that makes this a story worth reading. For starters, the comic is not really in colour but it’s far from black and white. There is black ink, white space and a blue-grey hues or shading all printed on a soft yellow coloured paper. The use of the blue-grey hues and the yellow paper really add to the tone and age of the story. The use of the hues and yellow paper fit very well with Cooke’s economical art style. It’s refreshing to see an artist limit himself in the techniques that he can use on a given project, especially when the end product is so nice to look at.

The use of the blue-grey hues as the main colour source is rather flat. Again, it works in establishing the look and tone of the book. Digital colouring with the use of gradients would not have been a good choice for this comic. Cooke only starts to use a different colouring style from the end of the third chapter until the end of the book. There is still flat blue-grey hues being used but in combination with some interesting brush strokes. Most, if not all, of the single and double page spreads also use the brush stroke look. It adds some nice texture and it also works with the story. From the beginning of the fourth and final chapter Parker mentions how he’s caught up in the momentum of his own revenge and it’s starting to show in the art. As if Cooke is also caught up in the momentum of the storytelling and he’s shading is looser. I like it a lot.

Cooke lettered the book by hand. It’s noticeably hand lettered if you take the time to pay attention to the few discrepancies in the lettering. It’s a good look for the book. It feels like an older font and the fact that the comic is hand lettered as opposed to digitally lettered adds to that effect that this is a period piece. I don’t like the way Cooke designed his letter “Y”. Not because it’s unpleasing to the eye but it’s not always functional following other letters. For example, the word “guy” was difficult to read in his chosen font. It’s distracting when I actually have to think what letter I’m seeing. It didn’t often jump out at me while reading but it caught my eye enough times for me to consider it a hindrance.

Cooke uses benday dots (or is it called screens now? I’m not sure) in flashback sequences in an interesting way. They are used for the blue-grey tone and they often trace the silhouette of the characters. It works because it distances the reader from the events just slightly. Because the flashbacks have a different look from other parts of the book while still sharing the same self-imposed limitations in the art (primarily the colours) we can easily tell the events in those sequences happen at a different time than the rest. It’s a neat trick that works well on its own and with the rest of the book.

Cooke is also very good at telling and showing us what kind of man Parker is. Parker is a bully. He uses his overall size and strength (specifically that of his hands) to get what he wants. He's not particularly big other than his hands but he's strong. He's not particularly tall either. There is a panel of him and Rose when he first walks into her apartment and he's half a foot taller than her at the most. Now unless she's a really tall woman, I don't think Parker can be considered a very tall man. He also has quite a bit of brains and some good luck but it’s nice to read about a character who has certain advantages but also has to struggle to do what he's trying to do. The beginning of the books, has him using his brain more than his muscles and the way Cooke tells the story, with many silent pages, it’s nothing short of brilliant.

There are many interesting elements about Parker that make him an interesting character. He doesn’t necessarily like violence but he’ll do what he has to do to reach his goal. There is also a sexual element to what he does. Parker seems to reward himself for completing job by allowing himself to have sex once he’s done. I chose to say allowing himself because he's clearly attracted to the woman in the beauty salon but tells himself to ignore that physical attraction and that there will be time for such things later. He forces himself to stay focus and rewards that focus by letting loose at a later time. Parker also has no problem hitting or doing other violent things to women. This demonstrates once again that he is very goal oriented. I can’t help but think that Cooke is also very focused with his work adapting The Hunter. It makes me wonder if he’ll let loose somehow with the next volume (edit: he did!).

One a final note, the size and subject of the book makes me think this is what the Vertigo Crimes line of hardcovers could and probably should have been. There were some good books in that line but none come as close to what Darwyn Cooke has given us with the first Parker adaptation. I hear the second comic, Parker: the Outfit, is even better.