« “Smoke ’em if you got ’em, kids.”
Anti-Americanism & Manga »
h1

Payback is a…

May 5th, 2009 by | Tags: , ,

Hunter.

I’m a huge fan of Darwyn Cooke, which should come as no surprise to anyone who reads 4l!. I’m also a big fan of Payback’s Straight Up Director’s Cut, one of the few Mel Gibson movies I still watch on purpose. I first saw it when I was a kid and enjoyed it, but the new cut makes it more true, in tone at least, to Richard Stark/Donald Westlake‘s The Hunter. This series is about an unrepentant criminal getting into situations that sometimes involve evil actions to get out of, which basically makes it right up my alley as far as story concepts go.

So, what’s all this got to do with Darwyn Cooke? I’m a fan of a lot of things, but rarely do things that I’m a big fan of intersect like they are going to when Darwyn Cooke draws an adaptation of Richard Stark’s The Hunter. That link contains a link to the preview, which is a downloadable PDF.

What I’m trying to say is that you need to read this, or else you’ll hate yourself forever. The release date can’t come fast enough.

Similar Posts:

Post to Twitter Post to Facebook Post to Reddit Post to StumbleUpon

Posted in Read Good Comics by david brothers |

3 comments to “Payback is a…”

  1. Heh, I read the title of the post and thought to myself “it’s probably a comic reference, maybe I should post a comment like ‘Payback is a… Mel Gibson movie.'” Turns out you were talking about the movie.

    I don’t generally go for adaptions that transport a work from one medium to another. I believe that if something’s worth reading/viewing/hearing, it’s worth reading/viewing/hearing in the way the creator meant it to be read/viewed/heard. I guess Cooke’s illustrations might be worthwhile, but still, not something I would go for.

    If you’re going to make an adaption of a story, the only way I’m really going to like it if it’s like Apocalypse Now or Scarface (where an older story serves as a springboard for a completely new story); X-Men or Batman Begins (where a new story is told using existing characters and ideas), or Sin City or 2001 (where the original creator is so heavily involved that it’s not so much an adaption as an extention of the original work).

    I saw most of a movie adaption of James Joyce’s Ulysses last year, for example, and while it was interesting in itself, it failed to really capture the things that make the novel a work of genius. This, I think, is the case with most adaptions. That’s not to say that an adaption might not also be worthwhile, but it’s usually not worthwhile enough for me to care for it.

    I suppose the exeption for me is James Bond. I’m a huge fan of the Bond movies, which are (certainly post-Goldfinger and pre-Casino Royale) very different animals from Ian Fleming’s original novels, and even then I still believe that the novels are far superior to any of the movies.

    But to get back on topic, I don’t really go for something like Cooke’s adaption of The Hunter, not my kind of thing.

         by Derk van Santvoort May 5th, 2009 at 14:43 --replyReply to this comment

  2. @Derk van Santvoort: It was a sly reference to this, too.

         by david brothers May 5th, 2009 at 15:37 --replyReply to this comment

  3. Hello,
    I thought you might be interested in reading about a BLAB! Comics Anthology Exhibition at Columbia College Chicago’s Leviton A+D Gallery. Check out my blogpost. Thanks. http://artseenchicago.blogspot.com/2009/05/blab-comics-anthology-gets-midwestern.html

         by Artseenchicago May 6th, 2009 at 09:57 --replyReply to this comment