Created by Richard Stark (the pseudonym of writer Donald E. Westlake), the violent and remorseless criminal Parker was the subject of twenty-four Stark novels from 1962-2008. The first PARKER book, The Hunter, was one of four adapted into graphic novels by the late artist Darwyn Cooke. Although Westlake, who died in 2008, never saw the finished graphic novel, he worked with Cooke and even approved the use of the Parker name, something he’d refused the several film adaptations of Parker novels.

This sculpture is based on Cooke’s design for Parker, one authorized by Westlake, as he appeared in THE HUNTER (in subsequent stories, Parker underwent extensive plastic surgery so he wouldn’t be recognized by the criminal underworld; Cooke redesigned Parker’s face accordingly). It was sculpted in Super Sculpey over an aluminum foil and wire armature and stands about 7 3/4″ tall. It’s painted in a high-key color scheme where I tried to match the style of the colored inkwash technique Cooke utilized in his graphic novel adaptation.