10 Best Comic Books That DON'T Have Superheroes
2. Richard Stark's Parker
The late Darwyn Cooke is synonymous with DC Comics and not without reason. Before his untimely passing in 2016, Cooke did so much with that respective publisher; he redesigned Catwoman to give her a signature look, presided over a series of great Batman stories in books like Ego and on Black and White, and then there was of course his magnum opus, DC: The New Frontier, on top of stuff like Solo and Jonah Hex.
Put simply, Cooke was one of the true greats of the industry. And someone who is dearly missed by all.
For all that Cooke's contributions to DC were special though, one gets the feeling that one of his passion projects, an adaptation of Donald Westlake's Parker novels, which he wrote under the pseudonym of Richard Stark, has gone slightly overlooked in recent years. They were critically well received, but Parker still deserves more attention, because it's frankly excellent.
Cooke wrote and drew four volumes of Parker, and they're all superb. His linework and inks capture the atmosphere of the novels perfectly, with the sixties setting not only enabling Cooke to flex his passion for the era's style, but also for film noir.