Darwyn Cooke’s Parker graphic novels look and feel like “real” hardback crime novels:

A lot of that feeling stems from Cooke’s clean, consistent cover design. These comics look like unified entries in an ongoing novel series, with just a bit of deviation to give each book its own flavor. Here, Cooke has shifted to a brown-based color scheme (other entries in the series were blue and orange), inspired by The Score‘s desert locale.

Consistency and class make all the Parker covers look good, but for my money, The Score‘s illustration is the most intriguing of the series. (It is, however, a tight race.) Thirteen men stand atop a desert hill, looking down at an isolated town surrounded by bluffs. We know they’re here to pull off some kind of job (the titular Score). But what could it be? Why will it take so many of them? And how will they possibly escape, if they succeed? There’s a whole story packed in this one image, and I love covers that manage that feat. They immerse you in the comic’s world, before you’ve even hit page one.

(Want to check out more posts in the Cool Comic Covers series? If so, click here.)