Star Trek: The Next Generation Omnibus review (Unread 013)

IDW Publishing, the current comic book publisher which holds the rights to Star Trek comics has put together a few archive collections of Star Trek comics previously published by other companies. They’ve also put together omnibus editions that collect multiple mini-series that were first published by IDW. It’s a good publishing strategy as mini-series are often overlooked by regular comic book readers and considering that most of IDW’s Star Trek output has been in this format it makes sense to give those minis a wider audience. Since the omnibus collections contain multiple mini-series at a more affordable price, it’s most likely the favoured choice of potential buyers. That’s why I bought this volume. The page per dollar ratio makes it worthwhile purchase. This volume focuses on stories set in The Next Generation series. Four miniseries are collected together. The first of which is The Space Between.

The Space Between

Written by David Tischman

Art by Casey Maloney

Additional Inks by Stacie Ponder and Aaron Leach

Colors by Leonard O’Grady

Letters by Robbie Robbins, Chris Mowry, and Neil Uyetake

Edited by Dan Taylor

Star Trek: The Newspaper Comics vol. 1, 1971-1981 review

Did you know there once was a Star Trek newspaper comic? It’s true. Around the time of the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture Paramount launched a daily newspaper comic chronicling the further adventures of the Enterprise and her crew. The daily strip was set during the timeline of the movie, rather than being set during the time of the original television show’s run. It’s very likely that this was done in order to make the daily strips more marketable and relatable to late 70s and early 80s Star Trek audiences. Having launched at the very end of the 70s and just a few days before the release of The Motion Picture it made sense that the comic strip would tell new stories of Captain Kirk, Spock and McCoy.

This volume collects the first half of the US strip produced by Los Angeles Times Mirror Syndicate. There was also a UK strip which remains uncollected to this day but Rich Handley, who wrote the introduction to this volume, has collected the US and UK strips. He’s responsible for initially bringing this project to Dean Mullaney, the editor of IDW's The Library of American Comics imprint, which resulted in the two volume collection of the entire US newspaper comic. Handley is looking to have the UK strip collected as well but it’s unclear if this is a project that Mullaney and IDW are actively working on.

The Star Trek comics strip debuted on December 2, 1979, just a few days before the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. It did not have a long life as it ended on October 25^th, 1981. There are two primary reasons for the short lived existence of the strip. The first is that the young Star Trek newspaper comic had to compete with classic series such as Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon which had both been in print for decades. There was also a newer rival as Star Wars was also being distributed as a comic strip. There was simply not enough of a fan base to allow for all those various titles to survive in the newspaper landscape. The second reason is that Star Trek received rather poor circulation in newspapers in the US.

There are lots of picture in this post and I have to apologize for the quality of the images. I didn't want
to damage the book on the scanner. I'm starting with this picture because it's a simple image that is
well executed. I like it. 

The upside, of course, is that a publisher has finally collected the strip in its entirety and reproduced it for a new generation of fans. Using Handley’s private collection as well as many others that IDW could get access to (purchased and borrowed), the publisher was able to put together yet another stellar collection as part of their The Library of American Comics imprint. They’ve done a very successful job putting together many collections of classic and influential comic strips and while I’m not entirely certain that Star Trek: The Newspaper Comic deserted such a prestigious reproduction it’s nice to know that IDW continues to produce some of the best archival comic book collections. 

Artist Ron Harris adding some dynamic action in a Sunday page.

I recently sat down and read the first volume and I had good time but it was also a very frustrating read, mainly because of the nature of Star Trek stories and the format of daily newspaper strips. In short, I just don’t think that Star Trek lends itself well to the format. While my overall impression is a negative one there were still some rather impressive illustrations by writer/artist Thomas Warkentin. His drawings were, hands down, some of the best things about this book and it’s unfortunate that some strips simply look better than others because of how well they were able to be reproduced. It reminds you that this truly is an archival project and for that element alone I like this book. Yet none of that really matters if you’re looking at the quality of what’s being reproduced and that’s where even Warkentin, who is without a doubt the best writer and artist of the strip as far as this collection goes, fails to deliver a completely satisfying set of stories.

The first sample of many terrible alien designs to come. Those
things like kind of look like scarves? Arms.

This is a closer look at their faces. They're essentially big, cartoony eyes
with what appear to be a series of neck flats for mouthes. Just nasty and boring.

He certainly has a knack for writing dialogue that feels true to the character and harkens back to the actors’ performance on the original television series. Unfortunately, convincing dialogue and to-the-point storytelling, even when well done, it’s enough to carry the book. The main problem is the format of the newspaper strip. The structure of the comic strip is very simple. Monday through Saturday saw the single strip which is often made up of about three panels. Sundays consisted of a full page in colour. The problem is that three panels a day just isn’t enough to make for a satisfying Star Trek story. It has a choppy rhythm that is ultimately disruptive and breaks any momentum that the creative team can possible build in three-panel doses. The longer Sunday strips are good for building momentum but they’re undermined every Monday by a three-panel recap strip to reintroduce readers who don’t read the Sunday paper back into the story.

Another full page but this time it's with art by Warkentin and it's made up of daily strips.
Notice how it's mostly made up of talking heads? Just riveting stuff.

The comic strip brought with it the writing credits of well-known writers and artists. The most famous contributor to the comic was Larry Niven, famed science fiction writer and Gerry Conway, celebrated comic book illustrator. Unfortunately I did not get to read any of the stories by either of them as the first volume mostly collects the stories written and illustrated by Thomas Warkentin, the first person to work on the comic strip. He held the most reliable and sustained tenure on the title. He left after completing eight complete stories from the first daily in 1979 to 1981 after which he was followed by several other writers and artists. Based on the last two stories that are feature in this collection Warkentin was likely representative of the best stories the newspaper comic had to offer as the stories that followed are of a lesser quality. A lot of that has to do with the art though as Warkentin’s style was cleaner and more precise than that of the artists who drew the last two stories in this volume.

This is the first half of one of the earlier Sunday pages. I just love the red suits
with jet packs which Warkentin took from The Motion Picture. Great stuff from early on.

That being said there could very well be nice surprises in the second volume but I will probably not find out anytime soon. The reproduction of the strip was expertly handled by IDW but that also results in a high sticker price. The books, even when purchased at online bookstores, are a little too expensive for my tastes. I enjoyed reading Star Trek: The Newspaper Comics but not enough to cough up the money for the second volume. The biggest deal breaker here is the format of the comic strip. It simply doesn’t work well enough to justify spending money on the second volume. The newspaper comic format has such a bit impact on my reading experience that I wasn’t able to read this book from cover to cover. It took weeks to read in its entirety because I would sit down on weekends or evenings and read one story at a time. The narrative flow was too erratic and choppy that I wasn’t able to immerse myself in the stories being told, no matter what a particular story was about or how much I enjoyed the art.

Here's another terrible alien design. These poor bastards don't
even have eyes!

It’s fitting that IDW gave this newspaper comic the prestige treatment as they’ll most likely attract the attention of lifelong and diehard fans of the franchise. The stories (their format, execution and reproduction, and price) are not for the occasional fan of the movies or some of the television series.  The comic strip will likely only be loved by those who have watched and rewatched all the movies and (at least) all of TOS. A lot of what makes Star Trek enjoyable, including the enhanced visual effects of the movies (in comparison to the television series) and the soundtracks, are obviously not part of the reading experience but it’s also missing the momentum and the Act structure of the episodes.  For the most part this is a “talking heads” comic and while that’s pretty true to the TOS episodes at least on the TV series you could see the characters inhabit the fantastic setting of the Enterprise’s bridge. The TOS movies were able to expand on the visions of the original series and it’s unfortunate that the strip, intended to attract the same audiences as the new movie, doesn’t have any of the gravitas of its theatrical counterpart. Likewise, the format itself presents a clear disadvantage to readers compared to other available Star Trek reading material at the before, during and after the original publication of the newspaper comic. I’m thinking primarily of other comics by Gold Key and Marvel Comics but paperback novels were also widely available at the time. I’ve read Star Trek in all three of those formats and the comic strip is the clear loser in nearly all categories.

Before buying this comic you must ask yourself how big of a Star Trek fan you are. Not in order to brag about it or to compare yourself to other fans (doing that will only prove that you’re an asshole) but in order to determine just how likely you are to enjoy this collection of newspaper comics.

Mushroom head aliens? Yes. Only in Star Trek, unfortunately.

Mudd cameo. It's difficult not to love these panels. 

I'll end it here with a great illustration of the Enterprise by Warkentin. 

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.

Winterworld review

Winterworld collects the three issue mini-series written by Chuck Dixon and drawn by Jorge Zaffino as well as the never before published sequel by the same creative team, Wintersea. Both stories are very similar in plot and in execution. One of them, Wintersea, is much better than the other and it's because of that second story that this book is ultimately a good read.

Comics Should Be Good's Brian Cronin once described Winterworld as Water World in comic form but, you know, in winter. It's a pretty accurate description. Chuck Dixon gives us a vaguely defined post-apocalyptic world where winter is never ending. Polar bears roam the Caribbean and cities are half engulfed in snow and ice. Many types of animals are now extinct, restaurant and retail franchises that are still standing are misunderstood as people no longer remember what they were for. Pizza Hut is either a mythological folk hero or a place where pizza is eaten. The latter of those two options is what our hero, Scully, thinks but he has no idea what kind I animal pizza could be.

Both stories involve a search for or the discovery of a warm safe haven from the harsh world of continuous winter. Scully either escapes or is cast away from those places and returns to rescue Wynn and generally destroying those special places in the process.

Both stories work as adventure stories. There are evil men, explosions, etc but in the first story Dixon's writing is unsure. Oddly enough, it’s also characterized by the confidence of a young creator. His writing improves for the second story and that’s matched by a more interesting narrative as well, even though it closely resembles the three issues of Winterworld.  Zaffino’s art is very good in Winterworld but he doesn't have too many exciting things to draw other than mean looking men snow and explosions. Dixon gives him more interesting things to draw in the sequel. Dixon asks Zaffino to draw us large ships carried atop the backs of tanks rolling around on the frozen sea heading towards a utopian city located on a volcanic island. Zaffino’s art overall seems to be better in the second story and Dixon's writing is confident, too. It's a better marriage of big creator talent which results in a more entertaining comic.

IDW's Winterworld collection is a good comic. At heart it's a post-apocalyptic adventure comic with lots of action, a bit of darkness and wonderful visual spectacles. It's a Hollywood summer movie as a comic and it doesn’t try to be anything else which contributed to my enjoyment of it. It also had a cameo of Chuck and Jorge in the second last page of Wintersea and I always enjoying seeing creator cameos in comics.

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.