Richard Stark's Parker: The Score

For his third Parker graphic novel, Cooke skips "The Mourner", the fourth book in the Parker series, and attacks the fifth book, "The Score". I understand his impatience to cut right to the good stuff. "The Score" is one of Parker's most memorable capers, the robbery of an entire town in North Dakota, situated in a box canyon. As is the case in most Parker novels, a meticulous heist is planned by the methodical Parker. And as is usually the case, a couple of things go wrong in a big way.

Cooke's style is tailor made for these Parker adaptations. No one else in comics has such a keen eye for fifties/sixties architecture, clothes, and cars. One great feature was the casting of fellow cartoonists as members of Parker's gang. (I recognized show more innovator Jim Steranko -- who himself could have planned some great heists -- as the dapper "Pop Phillips" right away).

If Cooke ever runs out of Parker books, I'd like to see him try his hand at John D. MacDonald's early Travis McGee books.

On a side note, while watching last summer's half-season of Breaking Bad, I couldn't help but think Mike Ehrmantraut (played by the great Jonathan Banks) was modeled after Parker, an earlier taciturn thief with a code. The well-planned crimes in Breaking Bad remind me of the heists in Stark's (Westlake's) fiction. Would it be too much to ask for AMC to make a Parker series starring Jonathan Banks? show less

Every single time I put down one of Darwyn Cooke’s Richard Stark adaptations, I tell myself, “Man, I really need to read those Parker books”. Not only do they come with solid recommendations from many of my trusted friends, they’re right up my alley. Disgruntled con-man with some serious anger issues? Give me all the books.

Parker’s general rule states that if a job needs more than five people, it’s not a job. So imagine his reaction when someone proposed a heist requiring more than twenty-five bodies. Scaling things down to a modest twelve crooks, Parker joins in with a rag-tag group of criminals recruited by a mysterious newbie, Edgars, with a plan to rob an entire town. Edgars is upfront about his displeasure with the show more quarry city and makes it known that the job has a lot to do with personal reasons – another red flag for Parker. Parker admits that he’s in need of a challenge and with a take of this size – roughly a quarter of a million – it’s hard to say no.

I often wonder how objective I would be with the material if I had read the original books. I can't attest to how accurate the adaptations are, all I can say is how much fun they are to read. The artwork is gorgeous and the colors, while subdued, find a way to do so much with varying shades of only one predominate color.

I'm a big fan of Cooke's approach to this project. The series is very much a "show, don't tell" adaptation as there are large sections of storytelling without dialogue. I guess that's the point. If you wanted tons of words encasing the beautiful imagery, you might as well read the books.

Cross Posted @ Every Read Thing show less

Not nearly as good as Darwyn Cooke's adaptations of the Parker novels The Hunter and The Score. It was just as skillfully adapted as a graphic novel, with a sparse monochromatic but propulsive drawing and minimalist writing. I think, without having read it directly, that the problem is the plot of the underlying novel it is adapting. The Hunter and The Outfit both have a higher level of double-crossing, more varied settings, and an almost epic struggle of Parker as a solo criminal against "The Outfit" as a wide-ranging organization with tentacles in everything. In contrast, The Score is more of a standard caper story as Parker is presented with an idea for a score, assembles a crew, procures weapons, cases the site, moves in, it goes show more partly wrong, and then they leave and hideout. Nothing more, nothing less.

I just re-read my review of the second book and find that at least I'm consistent in identifying trends, but unfortunately the trends seem to be accelerating: "The sequel to The Hunter is nearly as good. In this story, Parker continues his revenge on The Outfit (a seemingly more upscale version of the Mafia), organizing caper after caper to hit them where it hurts, in their pocketbooks. It is only nearly as good because it lacks some of the novelty you get with the introduction of a new character and also some of the closeness of the betrayal and revenge depicted in the previous book." show less

This is definitely my favorite Parker graphic novel and has inspired me to check out the original novels. The story here is tighter and more focused than volumes 1 or 3 and has a broader cast of characters. Parker himself is such a silent tough guy that he really needs a few people in his gang to generate some interesting dialogue.

This is the first of the three Parker books that Cooke has done that I feel I can fully recommend. It makes good on, and builds on, the taut pleasure of his first, and does away with the myriad visual/textual approaches of his second.

It tells the story of a heist in a canyon. The heist goes wrong (are there many successful books in which the heist goes right?), and maybe a little more could have been doen with the third act, but my recollection is that was also the case with the novel from which this is adapted. The reason this book worked for me is because Cooke finds the parallel between the way a heist is devised and enacted and the way a comic is drawn, how the panels look like a map, how they resemble a visual plan.

Not nearly as good as Darwyn Cooke's adaptations of the Parker novels The Hunter and The Score. It was just as skillfully adapted as a graphic novel, with a sparse monochromatic but propulsive drawing and minimalist writing. I think, without having read it directly, that the problem is the plot of the underlying novel it is adapting. The Hunter and The Outfit both have a higher level of double-crossing, more varied settings, and an almost epic struggle of Parker as a solo criminal against "The Outfit" as a wide-ranging organization with tentacles in everything. In contrast, The Score is more of a standard caper story as Parker is presented with an idea for a score, assembles a crew, procures weapons, cases the site, moves in, it goes show more partly wrong, and then they leave and hideout. Nothing more, nothing less.

I just re-read my review of the second book and find that at least I'm consistent in identifying trends, but unfortunately the trends seem to be accelerating: "The sequel to The Hunter is nearly as good. In this story, Parker continues his revenge on The Outfit (a seemingly more upscale version of the Mafia), organizing caper after caper to hit them where it hurts, in their pocketbooks. It is only nearly as good because it lacks some of the novelty you get with the introduction of a new character and also some of the closeness of the betrayal and revenge depicted in the previous book." show less

I read this in one sitting because I saw a commercial for the movie adaptation of a Parker novel, and this happened to be sitting on my to-read shelf. I have read Parker novels before, but not since I was a teen. I liked the art in this graphic novel adaptation, but I found both the story and the characterization to be thin and not too exciting. This was probably not the best reintroduction to the Parker character.