Stark and Cooke's The OUTFIT

Darwyn Cooke has a wonderful retro yet modern style to his art and has written some of the great stories of the last few years including the remarkable Justice League: New Frontier. Also he was the artist at the forefront of rebooting Will Eisner's The SPIRIT which has been running for a few years now.

He has now adapted a bit of hard boiled crime to graphic novel format. Usually I don't think comics and pulp go together that well. But from what I've seen of The OUTFIT this might be a good exception. My suggestion is the head to amazon and check out the "Look Inside" preview there.

There's a great, in depth interview at Comic Book Resources with Cooke talking all about the production of this latest effort. This is the intro which will give you some background and there's a link at the end for the interview.

There is no doubt that Darwyn Cooke and IDW Comics took a bit of a gamble when the decision was made to re-imagine Richard Stark's "Parker" hard-boiled crime thrillers into a series of graphic novels. But man, did that gamble pay off.

Last year, Cooke landed an Eisner for "The Hunter," which he adapted and illustrated, and the 140-page hardcover book also found a home on "The New York Times" bestseller list.

IDW released Parker Book 2: "The Outfit" today and CBR News spoke with the critically acclaimed cartoonist about the title character's latest exploits.

Originally conceived by Donald Westlake, under the pseudonym Richard Stark, Parker made his first appearance in "The Hunter" in 1962. The first novel was adapted into three different movies; "Point Blank" starring Lee Marvin, "Full Contact" with Chow Yun-fat and the Mel Gibson vehicle, "Payback." Parker, an anti-heroic criminal, ultimately appeared in 23 novels, including "The Outfit," which was published in 1963.

Cooke told CBR News that while he made some changes to the original story, every one of those types of choices was a difficult one. But he believed if he stayed true to Parker, a now deceased Westlake would certainly approve. Or at the very least, understand. He also revealed details about the remaining books in the series - "The Score" and "Slayground" - and teased a possible major project for DC Comics. And no, it's not a sequel to "DC: New Frontier."

Interview is continued here...