Donald E. Westlake’s Classic Stories Accompanied By Gorgeous Paintings By Cooke

IDW Publishing has announced its plan to expand their relationship with Darwyn Cooke and the Estate of Donald E. Westlake to include illustrated Parker novels.

Cooke, who will continue producing his award-winning Parker graphic novel series for IDW, will now also illustrate Westlake’s ground-breaking crime novels. For the first time, the Parker novels will be published in a deluxe, hardcover format, and with Cooke designing the series, as well as providing stunning color illustrations to accompany Westlake’s (AKA, Richard Stark’s) crime classics! The first book, The Hunter, will arrive in the first half of 2014. Additional editions will be released in chronological order thereafter.

“The Parker novels written by Donald Westlake had aprofound effect on me as a young man,” said Darwyn Cooke, “to first be able to adapt them in graphic novel form, and now to illustrate his prose as well… for me, it just doesn’t get much better than this.”

Darwyn Cooke and IDW Publishing have released three Parker graphic novels to date, with the trio winning multiple Eisner and Harvey Awards. The fourth graphic novel, Richard Stark’s Parker: Slayground, will be released in December.

Richard Stark was the most famous pseudonym of world-renowned author Donald E. Westlake. In 1962 he created the master thief Parker and began a series of novels that have been recognized as seminal works in crime fiction. Several of Westlake’s books have been adapted by Hollywood, including PARKER earlier this year. He has won numerous awards for his fiction, including being named Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, that prestigious society’s highest honor.