Xmas Card 2019

What's that?

You forgot a gift?

You're trying to take advantage of post holiday sales without looking desperately cheap?

We here at The Voice Of ODD! have got you covered. Just print this postcard sized (4"x6" at 200 dpi) note to go with your gift or card:

Merry Xmas Everybody!

art by -3- (2019)

A Necessary Reminder

Somehow, it seems like a good time to repeat this Public Service post from 2017.

(This image is sized for 8x10 printing at 150dpi for easy distribution. Click for full print version)

Becoming Lookie Lous

My thanks to Steven Thompson for placing Lou Cameron in my path. If you like his work, Mr. Thompson also wrote the introduction for a new collection of Cameron's horror work - Lou Cameron's Unsleeping Dead. As we look at Lou this weekend, i'll be trying to avoid material in the book - but i don't actually know what that is. The advert only list five titles for 144 pages. Once again it seems there's a lot i don't know.

Before the recommendation, Lou Cameron was a name that i had seen, but had little attached to it. Only vague memories of seeing him listed as an artist for Classics Illustrated at one time. It turns out, however, that most readers of old comics were familiar with his work, even if they didn't know who it was. His work ran and reran in DC comics for decades...

Well, no surprise we didn't know his name from those public service ads. After all, PSAs very rarely receive credits. But i did see some of his Classics Illustrated work, including what i believe is the only cover he did for the series -

Here's the splash page for that story, and a few others from Cameron -

Only one story is signed, and policy in those days was to give publishers and editors bragging rights while ignoring the actual creators of the work. Due to my backlash reaction to the egotistic arrogance of those old credit policies, it took me many years to learn the value of an Editor. It always looked like money and bosses got credit, anybody actually important remained a secret mystery.

I might be rambling...

So, anyway - with no credits, it's not a major surprise that Cameron escaped my notice even though i had a few of his Classics Illustrated tales. It turns out that i had seen his work in a few other places, but he had escaped my notice as they were old issues i had picked up for the Jack Kirby tales which they contained.
It's hard not to get overshadowed by Kirby, especially when i was specifically looking for his work at the time. But now that i'm going back and digging into his comic works, i'm digging Lou.

Tomorrow and Sunday we'll be running several old Cameron science fiction and horror comic tales. We might even manage to squeeze in an old war story, too. (Wait...   does World War III count as an old war?)

Join us for a weekend of Lou Cameron, following the morning's Saturday Solutions post.

art by Lou Cameron from various DC titles, Space Action #1, and Classics Illustrated #s 3, 13, 124, 129 & 133 (1950s, 1960s)

I Know Of No Reason...

Tomorrow is the 5th of November.

As a Public Service, to help minimize national embarrassment, please take note:

This is NOT a Guy FOX mask!

 Carry On.

A Necessary PSA

We're overdue for another Public Service posting.
This is sized for 8x10 printing at 150dpi:

Whatcha Gonna Munch?

It's Public Service time once again. Today we'll be sharing one of our House Yummies - the Peanut Butter Pan Cookie. After a few rounds of testing, this rapidly became a fixture snack here in the Hermit Cave.
We assume that complex and involved recipes are not the plan for munchies, and this one is nice and simple.

Preheat your oven to 350 and have a standard 13"x9" cookie sheet standing by.

First - you'll need some peanut butter cookie dough, and mixes are fine here. I generally use Betty Crocker's  17.5 oz bag mix - $1.99 at Target. To compile the mix, you'll also need an egg, 3 tablespoons of cooking oil, and one tablespoon of water.
As Always - mix the egg and liquid ingredients first, then add the dry ingredients (the cookie mix, in this case). Mix until you've got a uniform consistency - watch for those little dry lumps hiding out in the dough.

Second - you'll need some chocolate. I prefer Cadbury's Dairy Milk Chocolate bar - about 8 squares cut into quarters. Plain M&Ms are good for parties - cheaper & nice colours.

Now,  press the dough out into the cookie sheet. It might seem a little thin, but it'll rise. Scatter your chocolate bits of choice over the dough to get a good spread, then push them down into the dough.
Don't worry about chocolate poking up out of the dough. The chocolate will melt down and the dough will rise up and they'll all be happy together.

You might have noted that the package calls for 375 on the oven when making cookies. We've gone a little cooler at 350, and we're going to cook for a little longer - about 16 minutes. You might like a little longer, you'll have to experiment for your personal preference. I like 16 minutes on my oven.

Pull your pan from the oven and let cool for as long as you can stand. (15 minutes is plenty good)
Don't have a cooling rack? Counter stack some cheap chopsticks to create an airflow space beneath the pan.
You can cut it up into whatever size snacking hunks you like. It'll make a dozen 3"x3.25" cookie bars if you do a 3x4 grid.
Or one really big cookie with a jug of milk.

And, yes - there is half a pan sitting in the kitchen now. But i'm off to experiment for dinner - making some Broccoli Chicken with red pepper & sesame seeds.
So off to the cue with this batch of yummy goodness.

House Yummies recipe by -3- and Cartman

22 Panels That Always Work!!

As a Public Service, here's Wally Wood's invaluable reference for comic book artists - 22 Panels That Always Work!!

(Actually, it's as much private service as public service. Now i can find it without hunting when i want to refer to it.)

Breed You Should Not!

As a public service, this card is being made available at print size in a lossless format (indexed png).
Click on the images for full printable size versions.

Front:

Back:

Artwork by -3-. Yoda by the log in the swamp on Dagoba. (You know what god owns Yoda!)