(cover to The Activate Primer HC, published IDW)

Hitting the shelves tomorrow, the Activate Primer collection from IDW. Regular readers will know that the Activate webcomics collective is one of my very favourite online reads and its terrific to see a print collection of some of their works. This volume includes contributions from some brilliant comics creators; some you’ll know, some will be new to you (and that’s half the fun, discovering interesting work that’s new to us). The Primer contains work from Molly Crabapple, Roger Langridge, Leland Purvis, Nick Bertozzi, Mike Dawson, Simon Fraser, Dean Haspiel and many more in a neat little landscape-format hardback. Perfect if you’re looking for something that little bit different and seeking out examples of different talents you might want to explore further.

(a page of Billy Dogma by and (c) Dean Haspiel, from the Activate Primer, published IDW)

You may recall I liked Darwyn Cooke’s hard boiled adaptation of Parker. A lot:

“Darwyn Cooke has taken Richard Stark’s hard boiled criminal novel and perfectly distilled it’s elements into possibly the best crime graphic novel you’ll have read for a long time. The art’s exceptional, as you may have expected from Cooke. But this beats anything he’s done up to this point. Gone are the nostalgic renderings of books like New Frontier, he even goes past his previous best of his glorious Spirit tales. This is Cooke’s artistic idea honed to a fine point and executed with incredible, minimalist noir style across the page. It’s a truly beautiful book.”

Well it seems the love for the book has gone far and wide and IDW have been overwhelmed with the demand for the first volume. So much so that, after just two weeks of release, it’s sold out at the distributor level. Not quite as impressive as selling out completely, but it does mean that the copies in stroes are it (for now). Get those first printings of this great book whilst they last. IDW are going back to press and a second printing is due in September.

(via CBR)

Meanwhile ICV2 is reporting more Yoe-related goodness as IDW announces a new imprint launching in the autumn which be overseen by Craig and feature books by or designed by him, with the first two titles being The Complete Milt Gross Life Story and Comics and The Art of Ditko, both of which will interest many of us for their subject matter but knowing Craig I’d also expect the books themselves to be nicely designed pieces of loveliness in their own right too.

by Darwyn Cooke

IDW Publishing.

Bloody hell, this is good.

Darwyn Cooke has taken Richard Stark’s hard boiled criminal novel and perfectly distilled it’s elements into possibly the best crime graphic novel you’ll have read for a long time. The art’s exceptional, as you may have expected from Cooke. But this beats anything he’s done up to this point. Gone are the nostalgic renderings of books like New Frontier, he even goes past his previous best of his glorious Spirit tales. This is Cooke’s artistic idea honed to a fine point and executed with incredible, minimalist noir style across the page. It’s a truly beautiful book.

Richard Stark was the pseudonym for Donald E Westlake. You’ve probably seen one of his Parker tales without even realising it was a Parker tale since Westlake never allowed Parker’s name to be used in the adaptations of his work. Point Blank with lee Marvin – that was Parker. Payback with Mel Gibson – Parker. But tellingly, with Darwyn Cooke’s adaptation Westlake finally gave his permission. Sadly Westlake died in 2008 never knowing what a marvellous job Darwyn Cooke was to make of Parker.

This is real hard boiled noir. Parker is the epitome of the cold hearted bastard. Betrayed on an arms deal by his woman and his partners in crime, he’s left for dead. But he makes his way back, single minded and bent on revenge against those who’ve wronged him and stolen his ill gotten gains. I’m not going to give any of the plot away – it’s one of those books you really need to read and me blowing the story would only spoil it for you. And in truth, it’s hardly revolutionary storytelling. You’ve seen the plot many, many times over. Indeed, if you’ve watched either movie you’ll recognise elements of them here, particularly in Point Blank. But the plot is almost incidental to Parker. It’s an inexorable march towards revenge and retribution, with Parker leaving a trail of dead bodies in his wake, cold, heartless, driven and utterly amoral. Pure hard boiled stuff.

(Parker gets himself together, ready to take back what he considers rightfully his. Darwyn Cooke’s artwork just perfectly encapsulating the sheer will for revenge of the man. From The Hunter.)

Darwyn Cooke’s adaptation must have ditched huge amounts of the source material to have condensed a book into 140 pages, but you won’t notice, such is the perfection of storytelling that Cooke pulls off here. It’s split into four books, each incredibly impressive in it’s own way. There’s a preview of the first few pages at the IDW site and it will give you some idea of just how good Parker is. Those first 20 pages, almost wordless, with Parker making his way back into New York, regaining his life, getting himself ready for the job at hand are quite brilliant examples of how to tell a story on a comics page. After that the tale is told of betrayals and revenge, with Parker single-mindedly working his way through those who have wronged him, stopping at nothing to extract revenge and recover the ill gotten gains he considers rightfully his. If I had to pick a moment though it would be the almost heartstopping scene where Parker finally tracks down the cause of all his ills:

(“That’s when he saw Parker coming through the bedroom window”. Chilling storytelling from Cooke in Parker: The Hunter.)

The one thing that did jar slightly is that cover. Compared with some of the stellar artwork inside the book it’s actually not that good. A minor quibble perhaps. Because once you get inside the art is just sublime; black, white and blue throughout. The purist in me was wondering all the way through what this might have been like in strict noir black and white, but the blue adds something extra, something quite wonderful.

It’s July and this may well be the book of the year. A must for anyone with a penchant for Chandler-esque heroes and hard boiled storytelling. The great news is that this is just the first of four planned Parker graphic novels by Cooke. Book 2 is out in 2010 – I’ve no idea when, but I’ll be eagerly awaiting it. Something this near perfect will no doubt be worth the wait.

Parker: The Hunter is released on July 22nd. A real must buy.

Richard Bruton.