shay d.

Review titled Play Dirty: A Love Letter to the Richard Stark Novels

We just posted our review of Shane Black’s Play Dirty on our site! Co-written by @alissadmc.bsky.social, we discuss what worked for us as Parker fans and make a few comparisons to the novels.

Check it out here: toughbusiness.neocities.org/playdirtyrev...

writing.

who was out here googling “grofield barn theater”

the P doesn’t actually stand for parker it’s for pookie

we'll get around to writing a play dirty review eventually but in the meantime im still thinking about lakeith's amazingly girlish grofield scream before getting hit by a truck. that's not really a spoiler he's ok

play dirty was all we dreamed of and more by the way. our beautiful grofield…

by the way, you can see an array of wonderful international parker covers on our website here: toughbusiness.neocities.org/reviews

Lemons Never Lie Italian cover

the artist for the italian il giallo mondadori covers, carlo jacono, also adheres to the blonde grofield belief system like i do, despite him technically canonically having dark hair and green eyes

The Dame Italian cover

The Seventh Italian cover

sometimes it appears that parker is on a grofield cover and vice versa. that’s fine!

The Score Italian cover

Deadly Edge Swedish cover

The Man with the Getaway Face Swedish cover

The Hunter Finnish cover

showing some appreciation for various international parker covers by picking out some with depictions i feel look the most like him. titles in alt

got our zines in the mail today, written by my love @alissadmc.bsky.social

and you can read it here! archive.org/details/fort...

claudia cardinale feeds cat spaghetti

claudia cardinale feeds cat spaghetti

claudia cardinale feeds cat spaghetti

These photos of Claudia Cardinale feeding cats spaghetti should honestly replace the Italian flag

as one half of tough business and as someone who generally really likes lee marvin, this is the kind of performance we should’ve had happening in point blank but unfortunately he was nearly unconscious the entire time

we just watched prime cut (1972) for the first time and why was this the all-time greatest lee marvin performance.. and film

“Parker looked at the finger. The first knuckle was bent slightly, so that the finger seemed to be calm, at ease, resting. But at the other end were small clots of dark blood, and lighter smears of blood on the cotton gauze.”

EXACTLY.

Excerpt from The Handle by Richard Stark that reads: "Once around the park, driver," Grofield said. "I believe I'll take a nap." His smile got glassy and he passed out, his head falling over on Parker's shoulder. Parker said, for England's benefit, "That's a good idea. Sleep the whole trip, why don't you?" The first part of the trip, cross-country, was rough, and it was just as well Grofield had passed out at the beginning of it.

this bit from the handle makes me smile wonderfully every time

extremely solid last four

Our new Parker & Grofield zine is now out! With delicious art by the master storyteller @lilyslabo.bsky.social we expand on the rich subtext of Richard Stark's The Handle through the lens of '50s-60s romance pulps. archive.org/details/fort...

(4/4) afterword also written by @alissadmc.bsky.social

thank you for reading!!!

(3/4)

(2/4)

(1/4) proud to present our new parker comic, forty kinds of trouble! this was such a delight to draw and I'm sooooo lucky to get to work with the best writer in the world, my beloved @alissadmc.bsky.social :)

please enjoy this pulp-inspired take on what happens after the end of the handle!

Now available online in english: Naoki Urasawa interviewing Katsuhiro Otomo about his work and his manga "Domu" during one hour.
"Manben" is such a great TV program.
>> www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/...

Amicus second anthology takes a fine cast to a funfair of fear care of Robert Bloch's twisted tales. Their least loved but it's superbly sinister fun. 1967.
#horrorcommunity #horrorfamily #film #horrormovie #horrorfilm #horrorfan #classichorror #horroraddict #filmsky #horrorsky #mutantfam #horrorfam

Question: Parker's work often seems unglamorous—he spends lots of time alone, driving, thinking, planning, waiting around, making phone calls, negotiating, checking numbers. He seems to value the bourgeois virtues of self-control, discipline, consistency, and focus. Do you agree Parker might make a great accountant? Westlake: I'm not sure he has the patience for accountancy, but I've always believed the books are really about a workman at work, doing the work to the best of his ability. However, I see him more as working stiff than professional class.

in many of his crime films he exemplifies the “workman at work” attitude westlake applied to parker, and he sure wasn’t faking it, either.

even the shape of his silhouette looks how parker ought to, not to mention the way he plays certain roles with the same bluntness and attention to detail when it comes to his work that parker exhibits

an underrated period-appropriate casting choice for parker that we're particularly attached to over at tough business (other than jack palance, of course) is alain delon

First edition cover of The Score by Richard Stark

Text from the review that reads: Review: The Score, the fifth entry in the Parker series, is a particular favorite among readers, having been adapted not only by Darwyn Cooke as a comic but also by French director Alain Cavalier as the film Mise à Sac. The novel introduces a few recurring characters as part of its large cast, including Alan Grofield, and notably features the biggest job Parker would take on - robbing an entire town. To that extent, The Score sets the tone for the rest of the series. The previous three installments had been preoccupied with tying up loose ends leftover from The Hunter, but The Score presents a new kind of story revolving around the mechanics of the heist. If the remainder of the Parker novels follow the intricacies of putting together and pulling off a job, then this novel's other recurring element becomes as vital as its plot structure. Alan Grofield appeared in three more Parker novels after his introduction, and starred in his own spin-off series of four solo novels. Grofield isn't just the deuteragonist of Stark's books or the cause of the most intense and palpable emotions Parker ever shows in the entirety of the original sixteen novels, he's also an extraordinarily complex and compelling character. He's immediately set apart from the other men both by Parker's description of him ("an intense, lean, handsome man who sometimes acted in summer stock theaters"), and his flamboyant manner of speaking ("Just a graphic illustration of the point, dear heart. [...] Essence of theater.") Grofield primarily speaks in literary references, but his perpetual financial troubles point to no social class differences between him and the other men in on the job; it's merely a matter of very different personalities.

My partner @alissadmc.bsky.social and I just posted our review of Richard Stark’s The Score on our site, Tough Business! It’s always a joy not only to write together, but also to get into the meat of these books and what makes them so fascinating. Link here: toughbusiness.neocities.org/score

KISSES YOU