Richard Stark's Parker: The Outfit [Paperback]

The Eisner-Award winning creator continues adapting Richard Stark's world of criminals, thugs, and grifters with his signature pulp flair in this second installment.

A hard-nosed thief, Parker is Richard Stark's most famous creation, and Stark, in turn, is the most famous pen name of Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Donald E. Westlake. Darwyn Cooke’s beautifully stylized artwork perfectly compliments the hard-hitting action of one of the hardest hard-boiled characters in all of crime fiction.

With his old scores settled, Parker's living the good life... until a snitch rats him out to the Outfit for the bounty on his head. Now, he's no longer living in swank hotels and enjoying the finer things, and someone has to pay for that. The Outfit's about to learn, if you push Parker, it better be all the way into the grave.

Winner of the 2011 Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist. Cooke renders it all in fine style, his minimal blue and black palette shifting from classic, pop-arty pulp through squat, cartoony figures to faux-reportage, the bam and crack of violence sitting alongside intricate plans that show how Parker's scams are enacted. It's fast, smart and amoral: a gleefully guilty pleasure. –The Guardian

The Outfit is an example of graphic and sequential storytelling at its very best and Cooke repeatedly displays his mastery of story development through his layouts and visuals. –The Comics JournalRichard Stark is the most famous pseudonym of world-renowned author Donald Westlake (1933-2008). In 1962 hecreated the master thief Parker and began a series of novels that have been recognized as seminal works of crime fiction. Several of Westlake’s books have been adapted by Hollywood and Westlake’s adaptation of The Grifters earned him an Academy Award nomination for best motion picture screenplay. Westlake has won numerous awards for his fictiló-