More ComicCon stuff from Darwyn Cooke on Parker

The interviewer is kinda corny, but Darwyn is his usual charming self and you get to see footage of him brush-painting the ComicCon exclusive edition of The Score.

It’s less than five minutes if you’re sneaking this in at the office.

Darwyn Cooke on Before Watchmen and Parker at ComicCon, with bonus violence

Some hiatus, huh? Well, just because I’m somewhat limited at the moment doesn’t mean I can’t throw up a quickie every now and again.

In this interview from ComicCon that Matthew pointed out in the comments, Cooke discusses Before Watchmen and then Parker. If you’re not interested in Before Watchmen (I am, but […]

Like having a scorpion in the room: an interview with Darwyn Cooke on Richard Stark’s Parker: The Score

Introduction

Darwyn Cooke does one in-depth interview for each volume in his series of comic book adaptations of Richard Stark’s [pseudonym of Donald Westlake] Parker novels. (Here are the interviews for The Hunter and The Outfit.) For his new one, The Score, he was kind enough to invite The Violent World of Parker to conduct the interview. “I thought it was time I geared whatever big interview I did more towards Don’s [Donald Westlake’s] fans, rather than my own,” he told us.

For better or worse, he got what he asked for. Nick and I managed two conference calls with Darwyn across three countries, three time zones, and two continents.

There are minor spoilers sprinkled throughout, but nothing, I think, that will affect the enjoyment of the reader of either Darwyn’s great adaptation or its source material. (I did remove one major spoiler, although not for this book.)

Thank you for sitting down with us, Darwyn, and thank you for your immense contributions to the violent world of Parker, and to The Violent World of Parker.

Dear reader: Dig in. I think you’ll find it as fascinating as Nick and I did.

Interview

Nick: [Opening after some green room chatter] Speaking of The Score: How was it this time? How did you find it? How did you adapt to it this time out?

Darwyn: There’s sort of a built-in need to find a way to make each one better than the last. That usually adds to stress and anxiety and all sorts of things you can’t control, but the more I work with Parker, the more comfortable it gets. It’s a pretty easy ride now.

I know how I feel about the character and I know how people have reacted to it, so I feel really free just to go ahead with it? And, in every case with Parker I’m just out to please myself. And that happens to be pleasing other people, so that’s great.

I’m never sitting there worrying about what it is I’m doing. It’s just a very comfortable, really gratifying job now.

We’re like old buddies.

Continue reading Like having a scorpion in the room: an interview with Darwyn Cooke on Richard Stark’s Parker: The Score

The Violent World of Parker’s third anniversary!

Strap yourselves in and get ready to skim. This is going to be a long one.

About the Site

I think of the relaunched Violent World of Parker as having been born on New Year’s Day, 2009, the day after Donald Westlake died. But the half-formed results of the relaunch weren’t made public […]

Cover art for Darwyn Cooke’s The Score

Wow.

Darwyn Cooke’s The Score coming sooner than expected, plus Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter Alpha

I was not expecting this until late in the year. Surprise!

Darwyn Cooke’s third full-length Parker adaptation, The Score, arrives in May. The above promo poster (I don’t know if they’re actually making a printed promo poster or if it’s only an Internet poster) was just released.

And that’s all the news I have […]

Review: Darwyn Cooke’s Parker–The Martini Edition

People are cynical about repackagings, and they should be. How many cuts of Blade Runner are there now? I think there’s a box set to collect them all. And I will fully acknowledge that when I first heard about this project, the song that popped into my head was “Paint a Vulgar Picture” […]

Limited edition Parker print by Darwyn Cooke

The Hero Initiative is the first-ever federally chartered not-for-profit corporation dedicated strictly to helping comic book creators in need. Hero creates a financial safety net for yesterdays’ creators who may need emergency medical aid, financial support for essentials of life, and an avenue back into paying work. It’s a chance for […]

The e-Book Score: Free Richard Stark and Donald Westlake

There’s a novelty song by a local artist that got some airplay in Austin a decade or so ago. I don’t remember the artist and minor Googling based on likely-misremembered lyrics didn’t turn it up, but the closing lines were something like:

I think there’s one thing on which we can […]

Darwyn Cooke talks to MTV Geek, breaks some news

MTV Geek interviews Darwyn Cooke about Parker. Ordinarily, this is the sort of thing I’d just throw out over Twitter, but there’s some news here. The big news is that the “original Parker story” supposedly included in the upcoming deluxe Martini edition won’t in fact be an original. Instead, it’s a short adaptation […]