Awesome Lantern Corp Art

 Kid Liger over at Deviant Art.

I would love to have a larger version of this and put it up somewhere. Or maybe the original without Black Hand or Boston Brand.

Here is the original:

Favorites of 2010

Chew - Chew started around October 2009, and 2010 was its first full year, and it has been great. The artist and writer both won the Eisner Award, and Harvey Awards, and was nominated for 2 Eagle Awards this year.  Above all, check this book out.  Great concept in Tony Chu, an FDA agent,  who gets psychic impressions from things he eats

Sweets - Artist created, written and illustrated work, Sweets is a crime story that takes place in New Orleans, and written by Kody Chamberlain who now lives in Lafayette but used to live here in New Orleans.  Classic noir feel, and looks and feels like New Orleans.  Many books have tried to get that look, but without being here and living here, it misses some of the nuances.






 
Blackest Night - Blackest Night started in 2009, but finished up in 2010, and with the introduction the of all of the new lantern corps, this series has continued to bring new stories to DC.  In the grand scheme of things, it may have looked just like a super powered zombie story with the Black Lanterns bringing back those that have been dead for years.








Superman: Earth One - I'm not sure I have seen single book get more pre-release press than this book this year, and unfortunately most of it was all wrong. It was billed as a Superman version of Twilight, and it could not be further from that.  I'm generally not a Superman fan, he is usually too powerful and ends up being to boring of a character, but Straczynski did a great job in telling a story of young Clark Kent, struggling with wanting to help his parents, wanting to just be a regular person, or whether to use his powers to help others.


Criminal Vol. 5: The Sinners -  Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips finished up this series this year, and if you are not in any of the superhero or any "metahuman" this series was just about regular people, except for the career criminal of the people of the story.  This book brings back the main character Tracy Lawless trying to solve some mysterious murders. Always well done, always a good story in all of these books.




Parker: The Outfit (Richard Stark's Parker) - I have mentioned this one before, but just wanted to mention it again here, because it is so good.  I love a good noir story whether its in comics, movies, or books, and these stories are based off of a good noir book series, and when you add in the art style of this book and its just a really great book.


 Here are two examples of the art style of the book.
 

Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer Volume 2: The Great Puppet Theater  - This one is just a mention, not an all time favorite for the year, but a good quick book to read that makes to laugh when you think of Pinocchio slaying vampires.  This series is directed at the younger audience like teens, for what it is, it is good, and it has stepped up from the first volume.

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.