Baking in Comics (The Christmas Special)

Now baking and comics really have nothing in common, so this isn't so much a Christmas Special, and just the only special case I know.

This year for a Christmas Special, DC put out a Green Lantern Larfleeze Christmas. This past year brought about the creation of the color spectrum of Lanterns.  Now, not only is there a Green Lantern, but Red, Yellow, Orange, Blue, Pink, Indigo, White, and Black.  Each one represents some other "emotion" (that pretty much means any but Green, Black, and White).  Red is rage, Blue is hope, Pink is love, Yellow is fear, etc.

That brings us to the Orange Lantern, Larfleeze, on the cover.  Orange is the color of avarice, and so Larfleeze only wants things, and anything he can get his hands on, so this story deals with how much Larfleeze is looking forward to Santa visiting him and giving him everything he ever wanted.  Of course when Santa doesn't show, he gets angry and starts trying to hunt him down until finally the Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, finds him and tells him the truth about Santa.  In the end its a simple and fun Christmas tale that was a surprise holiday story, because most of them generally are boring.

Now back to the baking part of this.  Larfleeze left special Orange Lantern cookies for Santa.  I'm not sure I have ever seen a recipe pop up in a comic book before, but this year, this Christmas, there is was.

Cookies

¼ cup butter (softened)
½ cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons of orange juice concentrate (thawed)
1 teaspoon of orange zest
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 ½ cups all purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
A dash of salt
½ cup white chocolate chunks

1) Preheat your earth-oven to 350 degrees

2) In a big bowl beat butter, sugar, brown sugar, orange juice concentrate and orange zest. Then add egg and vanilla until it looks delicious.

3) In a small bowl stir the flour, baking powder, baking soda and dash of salt together.

4) Add the small bowl to the big bowl and stir until smooth. Mix in white chocolate chunks.

5) Drop small balls of dough across a greased cookie sheet.

6) Bake 12 to 14 minutes or until golden brown.

7) Let the cookies cool as you mix the frosting

Frosting
2 tablespoons orange concentrate (thawed)
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 tablespoons butter (softened)

1 ½ cups powdered sugar

1) Mix all of the above until it looks like frosting!

2) Spread the frosting across cooled cookies (it will melt otherwise!)

Makes approximately two dozen cookies  or one serving ENJOY!

This the symbol for the Orange Lantern, and this is the shape he draws in orange over the white frosting.

I'm just curious how these would taste now. Lots of orange, so guess you better like that.

Comic Alliances: The Complete Great Comics That Never Happened Holidays Specials

I just had to make sure at least these two pictures got out more.  These are hilarious, and I would kill for these.  Here is the full article.  Comic Alliance - Comics that Never Were



Superman's Cousins No-El and The Dreaded Dreidel of Doom
For all the non-comic book fans out there, Superman's Krpytonian name is Kal-El.

Please go check out the rest of them. Comic Alliance - Comics that Never Were

Comics and Christmas (Punk Rock) Music

So Christmas music and comics really have nothing to do with each other, so this will be pretty quick.

A number of years ago, Newarama had an interview with Joe Quesada, editor in chief, of Marvel Comics.  He talked a band he had, and a Christmas song he put together.  If I remember right, that is him and his daughter talking at points.  It is a pretty good punk rock version of Frosty The Snowman, and I have ended up listening to it every year.

Frosty the Snowman by colorblindlantern

So now that that is over, I guess I will just mention a few of my favorite songs of the holidays, even if they might not be all about Christmas.




Smashing Pumpkins: Christmas Time. This video is way too creepy.


The Kinks: Father Chrismas


Polyphonic Spree: Happy Xman/War is Over. No idea where is video came from, its all Lennon related stuff, but with the Spree's versions instead of his. I like his version, just trying to pick "different" stuff this time around.


The Ramones: Merry Christmas (I don't want to fight tonight).



Aqua Teen Hunger Force - Feliz Navidad. This is from last year's ATHF Christmas album.


I guess that is enough.  Merry Hanukkah and Happy Christmas.


I guess I'm going to throw in these last two for Anaraug.

Christmas Gifts Ideas for the comic book nerd

Sure, it is late for this kind of thing, except for some of us who still have all but a single gift purchased.  Some of use love the thrill of procrastination.  I'm going to split these up between the comic book nerd that has everything so will be looking at some newer releases, and then maybe the person you want to get into comics.

First up is the newer stuff for the everyday comic book nerd. 

Chew vol 3: Just Desserts written by John Layman with artist Rob Guillory.  Tony Chu, the main character for this series, is a cibopathic FDA agent meaning he has the ability to get a psychic impression of something by eating it.  Being an detective for the government, this quickly turns into him eating dead body parts and getting an impression of what happened to that person as they died.  This particular volume deals with Tony hunting down his ex-partner, Mason Savoy, who is also a cibopath.






The Unwritten Vol 2: Inside Man written by Mike Carey and illustrated by Peter Gross.  Unwritten follows Tom Taylor, who's father wrote books in the same vein as Harry Potter, but with his son as the main character.  Tom has to deal with somewhat celebrity status because the character was so closely based on him. So think if Harry Potter was based off a real kid, just an completely boring kid.  Only later do strange things start happening, and make his followers believe he actually is the character from the book.  Volume 2 follows Tom into prisoner where he was sent after being accused of killing a room full of famous artists.

Richard Stark's Parker: The Outfit adapted from the classic series of books and illustrated by Darwyn Cooke.  This is a sequel to The Hunter which is also a great book, and I suggest both of these books.  Parker is hunting down members of The Outfit to get revenge for messing with his life.  The style of the book has that classic noir style, and Cooke illustrated the book to keep with that them, and it works perfectly for this book.


Now for the classic books or trying to get the new people turned to into a comic book nerd.


Y: The Last Man written by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Pia Guerr. Yorick Brown is for all intents and purposes the last surviving male on Earth, save for his pet money Ampersand. This series ended two years ago, and has been out in paper back volumes for awhile, but I have been enjoying the hard back collected editions. Yorick along with his bodyguard Agent 355, has been following Doctor Mann across the country and now across continents.

Pride of Baghdad written by Brian K Vaughan as well.  During the bombings of Baghdad, a group of lines escape the city zoo and this story follows them around the city while giving them human qualities.  Based on a true story of some animals, this like the Y: The Last Man is not a traditional superhero comic book and is easily accessible to non-comic book readers.

 If you like either of the two most widely know superheroes around, then you may like the next three books.  All three are by the team of Jeph Loeb writing and Tim Sale illustrating.  Superman: Man for All Seasons, Batman: Long Halloween, and its sequel Batman: Dark Victory.  Superman is less about him being a superhero, but more about him dealing with the repercussions of being a superhero.  Batman Long Halloween centers around the crime families of Gotham, and the Holiday Killer, and also the origins of Two-Face.  Dark Victory is the follow-up with the crime families struggling after the events of Long Halloween, and then the Hang-Man Killer killing cops throughout the year.  There is classic Batman stories here with Batman being more detective instead of just a fighter.

Sleeper  written by Ed Brubaker and illustrated by Sead Phillips.  Agent Holden Carver was given superpowers by his boss in the government and then sent into a secret organization as an undercover agent. Only problem is that the only person who knew he was a double agent is now in a coma.  He struggles with not getting caught while also slipping into just accepting his fate as a supervillan as he feels that no one will ever believe him as a double agent.





Finally,  Identity Crisis by Brad Meltzer and illustrated by Rags Morales and Michael Bair.  The Superheroes of the DC Universe are in a crisis because family members of heroes are being killed. The JLA come together to try and hunt down the killer. One of the better "DC Crisis" stories, and a definite for and DC fan out there, or any who enjoyed shows like the JLA Unlimited TV Series.