To my son

Parker,

Yesterday morning, your great grandmother passed away.  She lived a long, full life and was surrounded by her family.  Four feet away from her hospital bed, were photos of you.

Your great grandmother helped raise the most of the family.  She raised 6 daughters and 2 sons, only to go on and raise a good majority of her children's children.  By the time you were born, she was already in her 90's and all of the children in the family were out of town or grown up.  She was stricken with painful arthritis, and had already gone through both a stroke and a heart attack.

Despite the pain, for the last few months before she passed, your great grandmother always made an effort to see you.  Your grandma (my mom) would watch you every week from Monday to Wednesday, and your great grandmother would come see you.  When she woke up, I was told she couldn't wait to see you.  She would ask to see you all the time, and every time she did she'd have a smile that I hadn't seen in years.

I simply can not put into words how proud I am of you.  You may be looking back at this thinking that this might be silly.  At the time, you weren't even two years old and you may feel like it wasn't really you because you were so young.  No matter what you think or the philosophies you hold, I can assure you that it WAS you.

Two days before she died, your grandpa Tim insisted we bring you to the hospital.  When we brought you into the dim and somber room, you were scared.  You held me tight as you looked around at the strange lights and menacing tubes.  Even still, you called her name, leaned in, and gave her a kiss on the cheek.  This was one of the last smiles that she would have.  She fell into a half consciousness that night, and eventually her age caught up to her spirit.

For those months before she died, seeing you with her always hit me.   You would call her name and kiss her cheek.   You would offer her your half eaten grapes and try climbing on her before being pulled off urgently by your grandma.  You brought her a light at the end of her life that no one else could have.  I am proud of you son, and I am thankful that you were here for my grandma.

Parker: The Hunter

The world of comics and graphic novels has huge impacts on pop culture, but still remains a very small and under-appreciated community.  The flip side to a small niche market, is that within the comics community, there are unique creators that always garner a huge amount of respect.  Darwyn Cooke is one of these people. 

I have said before that I’m a relatively new reader of comics, so there are legendary titles and runs that I have yet to (and may never get a chance to) read through.  ‘Justice League: The New Frontier’ was always one of those books that people seemed to love but I never gave much attention to.  One day, after hearing about Darwyn Cooke peripherally for years, I decided to google image search some of his work.  I  was astounded by what I found.  Cooke’s retro art is nestled deep in a time of non-ironic fedoras and tommy guns that stands out from any other comics that I've seen.  I knew that this was something I couldn't miss out on and picked up the paperback version of ‘Parker: The Hunter’ that was just released.

© IDW Publishing

Cooke created the ‘Parker’ graphic novels as the comic adaptation of Richard Stark’s novels of the same name.  ‘Parker: The Hunter’ is a classic revenge tale that perfectly matches Stark’s dark and gritty world with Cooke’s master storytelling art.  The writing and imagery is thick with subtle touches that act as a time machine.  Cooke manages to throw you head first into the grimy world of crime noir.  What’s interesting is the book doesn't even bother to paint the titular character as an anti-hero, and show’s that he’s just a bad guy that's pissed off.  Somehow, the story still manages to build a relationship with the reader and Parker, which had me rooting for him all the way through to the end.