Before his untimely death in 2016, Darwyn Cooke blessed the world with a number of critically acclaimed comics and graphic novels, including four award-winning adaptations of Donald Westlake’s Parker novels. IDW will follow the release of Parker: The Martini Edition in 2011, which collected two of those graphic novels, with Parker: The Martini Edition – Last Call next May.
The second Martini Edition will collect The Score and Slayground in an oversized slipcase edition. It will also include more than 100 pieces of never-before-seen Parker art by Darwyn Cooke; a round table talk with Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, Bruce Timm and Scott Dunbier on Parker and Cooke; and a new 17-page story by Pulp and Criminal creators Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.
Here’s the description from Diamond’s website:
The long-awaited companion to the Eisner Award-winning Martini Edition is finally coming! Collecting the THE SCORE and SLAYGROUND (Both Eisner Award-winning graphic novels themselves). Darwyn Cooke crafted four universally acclaimed Parker graphic novels, adapted from the works of Richard Stark (A pseudonym for Donald Westlake), before his untimely death. This volume will be (along with the Martini Edition) the last word on Cooke’s brilliant Parker stories.
Cooke, who passed away from cancer in 2016, won numerous Eisner, Harvey and Shuster awards over the course of his career, which began in 1985 with a story in DC’s New Talent Showcase. After a career in animation that included working in the Bruce Timm/Paul Dini/DC animated series universe, he returned to comics to work on projects like Batman: Ego, DC: The New Frontier, Catwoman and The Spirit. After leaving DC, he began working on adapting Westlake’s novels, written under the Richard Stark pen name, that featured the hard-hitting detective Parker. The first one, Parker: The Hunter, arrived in 2009, followed by The Outfit, The Score and Slayground. The Hunter and The Outfit were both collected in the first Martini Edition.
Richard Stark’s Parker: The Martini Edition – Last Call will arrive in stores May 4.