It’s kind of like Green Lantern artist central. 

The studio in North Branch, Minn., where DC artists Doug Mahnke and Patrick Gleason work together has suddenly become a bastion of space battles and zombified superheroes as the two pencilers guide the Green Lantern universe through this summer’s Blackest Night event.

Although Gleason has been working on Green Lantern Corps for years, Mahnke came on board the Green Lantern title just in time for all the excitement to begin. As Blackest Night began to spill from the Green Lantern universe into the whole DCU, Mahnke took over Green Lanternfor regular series artist Ivan Reis, who is now drawing the main Blackest Night mini-series.

So far, Mahnke has drawn everything from the disturbingly dark history of Black Hand in his debut Issue #43, to the upcoming space battle between Sinestro and Mongul in Green Lantern #46. And along the way, he’s had his studio-mate to help him out with advice on how to draw the characters that Gleason already knows so well.

In the first part of our discussion with the two artists, Newsarama talked to Mahnke about drawing Green Lantern in the middle of Blackest Night and how he meets the tight deadlines of this year’s premier DC event.

  In the last couple of weeks as I’ve been dealing with my health. I ended up shutting down one of my webpages I was working on and dropped a lot of books for budget reasons. I decided to focus back on my Spider-Girl page, Spider-Girl’s World. In doing so, I also set up a new blog to talk about the world of both Spider-Girl and Spider-man. You can head over there and check out the latest. The Indigo Café

DC Comics just released a cover for Brave and the Bold #30 that shows the teaming up of Green Lantern and Dr. Fate. I have to the say, the last and next couple of months make me happy to be a Dr. Fate fan. The character has been pretty much left in limbo since the end of Infinite Crisis back in 2006. Now, granted there have been some other problems that have kept the character in the shadows the last few years. However, I’m very happy to see people like JMS and the new Justice Society team. Coming in, giving Dr. Fate some much needed spotlight and starting with a blank slate with the inheritor to Kent Hall’s legacy. Just leave it up to fate.

Greetings everyone, it’s Monday and I’m back from the comic con and I have to say, I was very disappointed and so was my 18 year old brother. While it’s been widely publicized since Thursday night. There was a huge lack of booths this year from any named company, sans Aspen. Great vendors though this year, my brother and I picked up some great trades this year for a fraction of the cost anywhere else. Artists Alley was nice but was a major mess. We had people moved to differ ant areas and others not arriving until late in the day. Panels were majorly lacking with only the Mark Millar panels and DC Nation as the best. Mark is a hilarious guy and he picked up our spirits but still… this was lacking. Even worse, my brother and I finally met up with Dan Slott after 4 years and the volunteers were letting guys with like 50 comics including Dan’s old Ren and Stimpy days sign. In 45 minutes, the like moved a whopping 4 people until frustrated fans started yelling at the other fan boys. Then about 25 people moved in less than 10 minutes, including yours truly.

With everything said and done, my brother and I sadly walked away feeling we had wasted 200 dollars from gas to tickets to parking. After 12 years, the two of us are seriously reviewing Chicago next year if we bother to go. Chicago was full of washed up celebrities trying to get 60 dollars for autographs and lacking big name creators outside of Artist Alley. A very bad experience indeed.

Everything you needed to know about Green Lantern and the Blackest Night from this past weekend at the San Dieago Comic Convention.

Blackest Night Panel

DCU Editorial Panel

Dan DiDio Talks Blackest Night

Hey everyone, I bet a lot of you have been wondering why the updates have been so slow of late and more podcasts. Well, truth is, my life and all the other guys’ lives have been pretty busy of late. For me, I got engaged a few weeks ago and we’re busy planning the wedding for this October. A friend of mine also was in a recent motorcycle accident and had to have surgery and also developed pneumonia too. So, we’ve been praying and focusing on her too. A lot of us have also been going on various vacations and doing interviews around the web and it’s convention time now. So, we’re keeping things up to date as fast and as often as possible. Right now this site pretty much takes up all my net time with a little time devoted to my love of Spider-Girl and the Cosmic Marvel Universe. Don’t worry, though, things will start to balance out in the next two months with the relaunch of the new Green Lantern Corps website and a few other things. We’ll continued to rock your Green Lantern lead lives!

After being in a three-way battle for the role with Bradley Cooper and Justin Timberlake, word has come via Variety that Ryan Reynolds will play Hal Jordan in the upcoming Green Lantern movie.

Production for the film is expected to begin in January based on a screenplay by Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and Michael Green. Green Lantern will be directed by Goldeneye and Casino Royale’s Martin Campbell.

The casting, of course, puts a question mark on Reynolds’ picking up the role of Deadpool for the previously announce spinoff of Wolverine: Origins.

The role is Reynolds’ third film role adapting a comic book character, as he previously played Hannibal King in Blade: Trinity as well as the aforementioned Deadpool. Of course, by playing Hal Jordan, Reynolds keeps comic roles in the family while setting up a home-based Marvel vs. DC rivalry, as his wife, Scarlett Johansson appeared in Will Esiner’s The Spirit as Silken Floss, and will appear in Iron Man 2 as the Black Widow.

And now it begins.

Anticipated by comic book fans since it was first teased in 2007 within the pages of Green Lantern, Blackest Night kicks off this month with the release of Blackest Night #1 by writer Geoff Johns and artist Ivan Reis.

The eight-issue mini-series promises to bring back a slew of dead DC heroes, reviving them as zombie-like Black Lanterns as part of an epic battle between the power rings of the Green Lantern universe.

As we follow up on our last conversation with Johns about Blackest Night , we get more details about what just happened in the last issue of Green Lantern and find out more about what’s coming in Blackest Night .

Ian Sattler, Senior Story Editor hosted Friday’s DC Universe panel, welcoming fans to the first DC panel of the Heroes Con 2009 weekend. Panelists included Jamal Igle, artist of Supergirl, Dustin Nguyen, artist on Streets of Gotham, and Editor Brian Cunningham.

Sattler began the panel by asking the panelists about their respective projects, beginning with Nguyen. The artist said that there is a difference between drawing Dick Grayson in the suit rather than Bruce Wayne, which is something that he reflects in the fighting style of the new Batman.