Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Parker Spelling Bee
Just came across a nice sequence in The Outfit where Parker's writing a letter – not something he does very often – and has to phone the operator to check how to spell 'grievance'. Which was quite sweet.
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
Ding Dong Dang, It's Dat Dere List
Crikey, looks like a decent clutch of comics out this week – at least ones that might be of interest to me, anyway. And it's my blog, after all. I care not a jot what anyone else might think. So ner. Let's take a liddle ol' look, shall we?
Batman And Robin #10
Criminal The Sinners #5
Ex Machina #48
Unwritten #11
Those are all definites. Grant Morrison's Batman & Robin kicked up a gear when Cameron Stewart came on as artist on issue #7, and this latest issue begins a new storyline which will culminate in the return of Bruce Wayne (who, if you didn't know, is dead, or at least believed to be dead, although in fact merely lost in time; an easy mistake to make). Criminal is the final part of Tracy Lawless' second storyline, and it's been as fine a slice of tough crime storytelling as you're likely to find this side of Richard Stark, and with lovely lurid colours too. Ex Machina is racing towards its final fiftieth issue, with a fair few revelations along the way, and Unwritten is still holding my interest. Just about.
I'll give these a look too:
Mystic Hands Of Dr Strange #1
Justice League The Rise And Fall Special #1
Twelve Spearhead #1
Doctor Strange continues to hold a strange appeal, despite the fact that I've never read that many Doctor Strange comics, and indeed have abandoned one or two Doctor Strange miniseries after their first issues. I think it's residual memories of being into The Defenders when I was a kid in the '70s/'80s. I think lots of kids were into The Defenders back then, despite the comics not being that great. I suspect that's simply because it was better distributed in the UK than other comics. We knew no better.
The big question on Justice League The Rise and Fall Special is, why do I keep getting suckered into buying rubbish Justice League comics when I know they'll be rubbish? It's either a masochistic personality defect, or a continuing disbelief that James Robinson has completely lost it as a writer (he has, clearly), or a lingering fondness for Grant Morrison's JLA and a dwindling hope that the Justice League can ever be that good again. In fact it's all of these things, and I need to take myself out the back and give myself a good kicking until I see sense.
Twelve Spearhead is a fill-in issue for the MIA J. Michael Straczynski/Chris Weston The Twelve maxiseries, which was supposed to be twelve issues long but stopped at #8 a few years ago and hasn't been seen since. I really liked The Twelve, and Spearhead is drawn and written by Weston, so I think I'll give it a go.
So that's five, possibly six, maybe seven if I'm really weak, comics this week. Hell's teeth. It's almost like the bad old days again.
Batman And Robin #10
Criminal The Sinners #5
Ex Machina #48
Unwritten #11
Those are all definites. Grant Morrison's Batman & Robin kicked up a gear when Cameron Stewart came on as artist on issue #7, and this latest issue begins a new storyline which will culminate in the return of Bruce Wayne (who, if you didn't know, is dead, or at least believed to be dead, although in fact merely lost in time; an easy mistake to make). Criminal is the final part of Tracy Lawless' second storyline, and it's been as fine a slice of tough crime storytelling as you're likely to find this side of Richard Stark, and with lovely lurid colours too. Ex Machina is racing towards its final fiftieth issue, with a fair few revelations along the way, and Unwritten is still holding my interest. Just about.
I'll give these a look too:
Mystic Hands Of Dr Strange #1
Justice League The Rise And Fall Special #1
Twelve Spearhead #1
Doctor Strange continues to hold a strange appeal, despite the fact that I've never read that many Doctor Strange comics, and indeed have abandoned one or two Doctor Strange miniseries after their first issues. I think it's residual memories of being into The Defenders when I was a kid in the '70s/'80s. I think lots of kids were into The Defenders back then, despite the comics not being that great. I suspect that's simply because it was better distributed in the UK than other comics. We knew no better.
The big question on Justice League The Rise and Fall Special is, why do I keep getting suckered into buying rubbish Justice League comics when I know they'll be rubbish? It's either a masochistic personality defect, or a continuing disbelief that James Robinson has completely lost it as a writer (he has, clearly), or a lingering fondness for Grant Morrison's JLA and a dwindling hope that the Justice League can ever be that good again. In fact it's all of these things, and I need to take myself out the back and give myself a good kicking until I see sense.
Twelve Spearhead is a fill-in issue for the MIA J. Michael Straczynski/Chris Weston The Twelve maxiseries, which was supposed to be twelve issues long but stopped at #8 a few years ago and hasn't been seen since. I really liked The Twelve, and Spearhead is drawn and written by Weston, so I think I'll give it a go.
So that's five, possibly six, maybe seven if I'm really weak, comics this week. Hell's teeth. It's almost like the bad old days again.
(Parker Progress Report) The Man with the Getaway Face
This is the second of Richard Stark/Donald Westlake's Parker novels, and I polished it off at the weekend (although the edition I was reading was actually a Coronet paperback from 1972, which bears the alternative title The Steel Hit). It's a great book, but what really struck me about it was Westlake's deadly dry prose – much more so than with Point Blank/The Hunter. The methodical planning of the heist and subsequent double-cross(es) and the occasional bursts of violence are laid out in such a matter-of-fact, unfussy manner that it's almost like reading a police transcript of events.
That's not to say it isn't gripping; it is. It's just that Westlake doesn't feel the need to over-elaborate. At one point a bar is described as an oblong, and that's almost as much detail as you get. And of course you don't really need much more than that. The characters are briefly sketched, but they still manage to come alive. Parker himself is utterly focused on the job in hand to the exclusion of everything else, so that when a wrinkle arises in the shape of a character from elsewhere in his life, he simply locks them away until the job is done.
After all the planning and build-up, the heist itself takes only a few pages, and the double-cross even less. That's all they need, however, and are all the more effective for it, particularly one killing, which basically takes place while our heads are turned. Brutal, perfunctory, perfect. And once again there's a nice twist at the end, a final, stinging slap in the face after all Parker's efforts.
Next up it's The Outfit, which apparently is where the series really gets going.
That's not to say it isn't gripping; it is. It's just that Westlake doesn't feel the need to over-elaborate. At one point a bar is described as an oblong, and that's almost as much detail as you get. And of course you don't really need much more than that. The characters are briefly sketched, but they still manage to come alive. Parker himself is utterly focused on the job in hand to the exclusion of everything else, so that when a wrinkle arises in the shape of a character from elsewhere in his life, he simply locks them away until the job is done.
After all the planning and build-up, the heist itself takes only a few pages, and the double-cross even less. That's all they need, however, and are all the more effective for it, particularly one killing, which basically takes place while our heads are turned. Brutal, perfunctory, perfect. And once again there's a nice twist at the end, a final, stinging slap in the face after all Parker's efforts.
Next up it's The Outfit, which apparently is where the series really gets going.
Friday, 5 March 2010
Progress Report: The Richard Stark 'Parker' Novels
The other package I was waiting for turned up yesterday, containing this:
The 1987 Allison & Busby UK hardback edition of Richard Stark's fourth Parker novel, The Mourner. It came in the same package as this:
The 1986 A&B paperback edition of the sixth Parker novel, The Jugger. And straight away something struck me as being odd about The Mourner. I looked at it in my hands, looked at the paperback of The Jugger, looked over to the other A&B Parker hardbacks on the shelf, looked back to the book in my hands... and realised it's smaller than the other hardbacks, about the same size as The Jugger, which is larger paperback size. At first I wondered if A&B started publishing the hardbacks at a smaller size from 1987, but that can't be right 'cos I have a 1988 A&B edition of the third Parker novel, The Outfit, and that's at the same larger size as the other ones. And it can't be that A&B dropped the size to fit in with later Parker novels they'd already published (A&B published out of sequence, remember), because my copy of the A&B edition of the eighth Parker novel, The Handle, which they published in 1986, is the larger size again.
Still with me? No? Good.
Well anyway, granted, in the grand scheme of things this isn't exactly earth-shatteringly important, and is probably of no interest to anyone other than, er, me. But it does leave me with two unanswered questions:
1) Why did Allison & Busby change the size of their Parker hardbacks? The logical course for them when they were republishing the novels in the eighties would have been to keep them all at the same trim size, thus creating a uniform library. So why the change?
2) Which of the A&B Parker hardbacks I haven't yet seen are in the larger size and which are in the smaller size? (I only have five of the sixteen hardbacks, and it's going to take me a fair while to acquire the rest, so I can't see this one being answered anytime soon.)
Oh, and one other book turned up yesterday:
A 1972 Coronet reprint paperback of the ninth Parker novel, The Rare Coin Score, with one of those nifty double covers. That'll tide me over till I can find an Allison & Busby hardback edition.
And for no one's benefit other than my own, I shall now list, in order of original publication (i.e. the sixties/early seventies dates) the Parker novels from the initial run I now own (and the edition I have 'em in), and the ones I still need to track down. Here's what I got and ain't got:
Point Blank/The Hunter (Allison & Busby HB, 1985; also Coronet PB, 1967)
The Steel Hit/The Man with the Getaway Face (Coronet PB, 1971)
The Outfit (A&B HB, 1988; also Berkley PB 1973)
The Mourner (A&B HB, 1987)
The Score/Killtown (still to get)
The Jugger (A&B PB, 1986)
The Seventh/The Split (still to get)
The Handle/Run Lethal (A&B HB, 1986)
The Rare Coin Score (Coronet PB, 1972)
The Green Eagle Score (still to get)
The Black Ice Score (still to get)
The Sour Lemon Score (still to get)
Deadly Edge (still to get)
Slayground (A&B HB, 1984)
Plunder Squad (still to get)
Butcher's Moon (still to get)
All of the ones I don't have are going to be tricky to find at affordable prices, but Deadly Edge, Plunder Squad and Butcher's Moon are going to be frickin' impossible. I don't think Allison & Busby even published those last two. In fact, I'm not sure they were ever published in the UK at all.
Ah, the thrill of the chase.
The 1987 Allison & Busby UK hardback edition of Richard Stark's fourth Parker novel, The Mourner. It came in the same package as this:
The 1986 A&B paperback edition of the sixth Parker novel, The Jugger. And straight away something struck me as being odd about The Mourner. I looked at it in my hands, looked at the paperback of The Jugger, looked over to the other A&B Parker hardbacks on the shelf, looked back to the book in my hands... and realised it's smaller than the other hardbacks, about the same size as The Jugger, which is larger paperback size. At first I wondered if A&B started publishing the hardbacks at a smaller size from 1987, but that can't be right 'cos I have a 1988 A&B edition of the third Parker novel, The Outfit, and that's at the same larger size as the other ones. And it can't be that A&B dropped the size to fit in with later Parker novels they'd already published (A&B published out of sequence, remember), because my copy of the A&B edition of the eighth Parker novel, The Handle, which they published in 1986, is the larger size again.
Still with me? No? Good.
Well anyway, granted, in the grand scheme of things this isn't exactly earth-shatteringly important, and is probably of no interest to anyone other than, er, me. But it does leave me with two unanswered questions:
1) Why did Allison & Busby change the size of their Parker hardbacks? The logical course for them when they were republishing the novels in the eighties would have been to keep them all at the same trim size, thus creating a uniform library. So why the change?
2) Which of the A&B Parker hardbacks I haven't yet seen are in the larger size and which are in the smaller size? (I only have five of the sixteen hardbacks, and it's going to take me a fair while to acquire the rest, so I can't see this one being answered anytime soon.)
Oh, and one other book turned up yesterday:
A 1972 Coronet reprint paperback of the ninth Parker novel, The Rare Coin Score, with one of those nifty double covers. That'll tide me over till I can find an Allison & Busby hardback edition.
And for no one's benefit other than my own, I shall now list, in order of original publication (i.e. the sixties/early seventies dates) the Parker novels from the initial run I now own (and the edition I have 'em in), and the ones I still need to track down. Here's what I got and ain't got:
Point Blank/The Hunter (Allison & Busby HB, 1985; also Coronet PB, 1967)
The Steel Hit/The Man with the Getaway Face (Coronet PB, 1971)
The Outfit (A&B HB, 1988; also Berkley PB 1973)
The Mourner (A&B HB, 1987)
The Score/Killtown (still to get)
The Jugger (A&B PB, 1986)
The Seventh/The Split (still to get)
The Handle/Run Lethal (A&B HB, 1986)
The Rare Coin Score (Coronet PB, 1972)
The Green Eagle Score (still to get)
The Black Ice Score (still to get)
The Sour Lemon Score (still to get)
Deadly Edge (still to get)
Slayground (A&B HB, 1984)
Plunder Squad (still to get)
Butcher's Moon (still to get)
All of the ones I don't have are going to be tricky to find at affordable prices, but Deadly Edge, Plunder Squad and Butcher's Moon are going to be frickin' impossible. I don't think Allison & Busby even published those last two. In fact, I'm not sure they were ever published in the UK at all.
Ah, the thrill of the chase.
Thursday, 4 March 2010
(Revenge of) This Week's Comics
Just realised I haven't done one of these for a while, so let's take a look at what I done got in that there ol' comic shop:
Crossed #9
Invincible Iron Man #24
Er, that's it. I've seen comments on the web that this is a quiet week, but I never seem to buy more than two or three comics most weeks these days anyway, so it's a standard week for me. I toyed with getting Valerie D'Orazio's PunisherMax one-shot Butterfly, but I read a preview online and it slightly bored me. Plus, y'know what? It's Just Not Garth Ennis (Slight Return). I did, however, pick up the new Doctor Who Magazine for 20p because the woman in WHSmiths gave me the wrong change. Result.
Crossed #9
Invincible Iron Man #24
Er, that's it. I've seen comments on the web that this is a quiet week, but I never seem to buy more than two or three comics most weeks these days anyway, so it's a standard week for me. I toyed with getting Valerie D'Orazio's PunisherMax one-shot Butterfly, but I read a preview online and it slightly bored me. Plus, y'know what? It's Just Not Garth Ennis (Slight Return). I did, however, pick up the new Doctor Who Magazine for 20p because the woman in WHSmiths gave me the wrong change. Result.
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Slayground (Reprise)
Book publishers love movies. If a publisher can tie a book into a film somehow, they will. You can see why: the publicity generated by a movie (so the reasoning goes) can only benefit sales of a related book. If it's a film based on a novel, the publisher can shout about that fact on the cover or, even better, license a still or the poster from the movie for the book's cover. It almost doesn't matter if the film's any good or not. If it's a good film, stands to reason people will want to seek out the original novel. If it isn't, well, the publisher can simply spread the word that, hey, the movie might be crap, but the original novel's great! (I saw this in action for myself whilst working at Titan when the film version of Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen came out. The film turned out to be a dog, but the graphic novel sold gangbusters off the back of it.)
I mention all this because I've just checked out the back flap of Slayground (see previous post) and consequently have answered my own question as to why Allison & Busby decided to publish the fourteenth Parker novel first: there was a film out. As the flap text states, "Richard Stark has written fourteen novels featuring his coldly methodical anti-hero Parker [actually it was sixteen by this point – Plunder Squad and Butcher's Moon followed Slayground in the early seventies – but anyway...]. Peter Coyote is the fourth to take the role in a major film [er, actually he was the sixth by this point, although I guess that depends on how you define "major film"; Made in USA, Point Blank and The Split all get a mention in the text, but surely The Outfit qualifies too...?] – Slayground."
And here it is:
And yes, that bloody face in the background is indeed Mel Smith, of Alas Smith & Jones and Not the Nine O'clock News fame. I haven't seen Slayground, but the review at Violent World of Parker (which is a terrific website) ain't great. And they should know.
Anyway. Another question answered.
I mention all this because I've just checked out the back flap of Slayground (see previous post) and consequently have answered my own question as to why Allison & Busby decided to publish the fourteenth Parker novel first: there was a film out. As the flap text states, "Richard Stark has written fourteen novels featuring his coldly methodical anti-hero Parker [actually it was sixteen by this point – Plunder Squad and Butcher's Moon followed Slayground in the early seventies – but anyway...]. Peter Coyote is the fourth to take the role in a major film [er, actually he was the sixth by this point, although I guess that depends on how you define "major film"; Made in USA, Point Blank and The Split all get a mention in the text, but surely The Outfit qualifies too...?] – Slayground."
And here it is:
And yes, that bloody face in the background is indeed Mel Smith, of Alas Smith & Jones and Not the Nine O'clock News fame. I haven't seen Slayground, but the review at Violent World of Parker (which is a terrific website) ain't great. And they should know.
Anyway. Another question answered.
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