I Really Should Read This 6: Parker, The Outfit, by Darwyn Cooke

Parker, The Outfit, by Darwyn Cooke

2010

I've read and enjoyed some of Cooke's work, but I haven't put much effort into getting a hold of it. The number one reason is DC is generally uninteresting to me, and that's where a lot of his work has appeared. Last summer, I decided to try out his Parker series, and after reading the first one, I promptly ordered the second (and third and fourth after that, just because I realized I wanted to have them).

The first Parker book took me off guard. I knew nothing about it other than it was based on a series of novels. The main character is not a good guy. He kills people. He's not a killer, he's just a thief, but when he needs to, he kills people. Once I adjusted to the notion that it was an anti-hero story, I was totally with it.

This is why I'm only buying the hardcover versions.

The story in this, and in the first book, are good. They are classic hard-boiled tough guy tales with manly men, sniveling men, stunning women, bad choices, and lots of money. As a genre, it's not my cup of tea, but when it's done at the top of its game, like in the Soderbergh Oceans 11 film or in Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips' Criminal series, it's great. 

And it's great here. Cooke was known as a storyteller, and he's completely stripped down to the essentials here. None of this computer-gradient skylines or sterile lettering. This is him and his brushes and Rapidographs (I'm guessing), and two tones of ink. It's completely refined, but it feels a little punk at the same time.

The wordless sequences sing. You follow the action intuitively. The pages with lots of dialogue can't be equally intuitive, but he shifts angles and lets the characters "act" enough to never let it become talking heads. This was Cooke at the height of his powers.

I don't even know the style he's referencing here, like a 1950's Esquire?

There's a weird break in the book about halfway through, where he does a massive stylistic change. I was going with it when it happened, but I wasn't really sure why it was there. When I got to the parts after that, and understood why he was doing that, it was great and 100% I understood what he had done. That's a good experience with a comic. Not merely to be surprised by it, but to get to the end and say, "Ah yeah!" with it. 

"I wasn't asking."

I'm not all that interested to become a Cooke completist. I'm sure his Batman issues are solid, but I just don't care that much. I have the New Frontier, that covers me for DC action books. And I'm not crazy about buying the stuff that's been expensively repackaged after his death.

These Parker books though, I need to get them. The storytelling, the aesthetic... I'd love to add a third aspect, but it's mainly those two things. Cooke was so good at what he did, that that is enough.