A few links of note for Tuesday

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Happy Tuesday, Source readers. It's been a busy few days here at the DC offices, with tons to discuss and point you to. So, let's hop to it.

• Over at NEWSARAMA, Dan DiDio answers the latest batch of fan questions, and shares more details on DOC SAVAGE, BLACKEST NIGHT, ADVENTURE COMICS and the new cover design for books featuring co-features. See above for a visual aide. Also at NEWSARAMA, James Robinson and Greg Rucka share some info on the August Superman crossover, CODENAME: PATRIOT.

• BATTLE FOR THE COWL is speeding toward its final issue, and IGN's got a first look at the third issue. Not to mention a peek at the BLACKEST NIGHT stuff hitting in August, along with the cover to BLACKEST NIGHT #2.

• Speaking of James Robinson, COMIC BOOK RESOURCES sits down with him to talk about JLA: CRY FOR JUSTICE.

• And congrats to the VIXEN creative team of G. Willow Wilson and CAFU, for their Glyph Award victory in the Fan Award For Best Comic category.

A few Free Comic Book Day links of note

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Happy Monday, all. By now, you've probably pried yourself away from the pile of free goodies you snagged from your local comic shop on Free Comic Book Day, which was Saturday at participating stores. How was it? Get anything cool? As you probably know, FCBD also marked the debut of BLACKEST NIGHT #0, kicking off this summer's mega-event from writer Geoff Johns and artist Ivan Reis, along with artist Doug Mahnke. If you haven't gotten a copy, you might have time to take an early lunch and beg your favorite retailer to pretend it's Saturday.

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS kicked things off for New Yorkers with a nice primer of events happening in the Big Apple.

Geoff Boucher, over at THE LA TIMES Hero Complex blog, had a nice general FCBD primer for fans on the big day, which is worth checking out to get a sense of what publishers were offering.

USA TODAY's David Colton also had a nice FCBD preview, along with a quote from our very own Geoff Johns, who summed up the event like so:

"It's like the peace summit of comic books when all of the major publishers work together," says Geoff Johns, writer of DC's Green Lantern. "There's always something for everyone."

• Speaking of USA TODAY, over at their Pop Candy blog, Whitney Matheson points out five books fans should've picked up on FCBD, including BLACKEST NIGHT #0, which Whitney described as: "Green Lantern fans are psyched about this all-new story that introduces the new series and is guaranteed to include more top-notch writing from Johns."

• Additionally, Comic Book Resources had a 15-hour marathon of coverage, while Newsarama made their annual FCBD pilgrimage to Heroes Aren't Hard to Find, in Charlotte.

So, how was your Free Comic Book Day? Let us know.

FINAL CRISIS AFTERMATH -- just one of many things to be excited about in the coming months

Hey everybody – Senior Story Editor Ian Sattler here.  It’s almost hard to put into words how excited I am right now.  I’m not talking about winning the championship in my fantasy basketball league -- and that was pretty awesome.  I’m not talking about the huge sandwich I had for lunch that was totally killer.  I’m not even talking about my copy of Van Halen that I found last night, which is an all-time classic.  No, I’m excited because working at DC Comics right now is amazing!  We’re close to the end of Battle for the Cowl and a Batman event in June that’s going to change everything.  The events of New Krypton in the Superman books are spectacular.  Flash: Rebirth is setting yet another new standard.  JLA: Cry for Justice is FULL of surprises.  Wednesday Comics…co-features…I haven’t even gotten to Blackest Night yet and the list goes on and on!  And I’m not even allowed to tell you about a few of the big-ticket items we have coming.  So yeah – I’m a little bit excited.

It seems like every time I turn around the creative team on a book is blowing my mind.  Let’s take today for example.  Now it’s no secret that I think the Final Crisis Aftermath titles are something special.  After all I’m editing ¾ of the line so you’d expect some favoritism.  But I can seriously say that these books have taken off beyond my wildest dreams and today it was Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink that was in the spotlight.

When we started this line we wanted to make sure to do something special with all of the covers.  Since Ink starred The Tattooed Man we knew we wanted to focus on the tattoos, but we were having a hard time figuring out the exact angle to go for.  Enter DCU Art Director and style ninja Mark Chiarello.  Chi said that there was only one guy for the job and that he’d call Brian Stelfreeze.  Brian gave us the sketch you see below that not only offered a totally unique way to layout connecting covers, but also really tell the story of what the main character goes through in the book with his powers.

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Each cover Brian turned in was superb, but it was only today that I had them put together for this blog entry.  Whoa.  As you can see when connected the covers to Ink are truly spectacular.  I just started pulling random people walking by my office in to see what I was yelling about.

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As if this wasn’t enough I also finished the latest script from Eric Wallace who is the freaking man.  My notes on his scripts consist of me going “OK – you know that part where you came up with the totally epic plot twist?  Yeah, that was awesome.”  Eric and I wasted no time in getting talking about our artist Farbrizio Fiorentino.  Plain and simple – Fabrizio is putting it down on Ink.  He’s owning every inch of each page and he’s going to be one of your new favorites by the end of the summer.  But you’ll be able to see all of this for yourself when Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink #1 comes out May 27th.

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So yeah – I’m a little bit excited to be at DC right now.  Speaking of which, I gotta go back to work now. But I hope you’re enjoying the books as much as we are.

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Take care,

Ian.

CORPS 101: THE FINALE

Well, of course we had to end with the Black Lanterns. And, as you've probably noticed, IGN has a first look at the amazing piece of work by artist Doug Mahnke, which gives us a first look at the Black Lanterns and some of their potential members.

And in case you missed it, here's a collection of our entire CORPS 101 series, from Green to Black. Why waste valuable time linking back when we can show it all in one place? That's my logic, and I'm sticking to it.

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A few links of note for Tuesday

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Yes, it's only Tuesday. But look at it this way -- that means a few more days of cool debuts here at The Source. Surely that's motivation enough?

• In case you missed it, the team at MYSPACE COMIC BOOKS previewed SUPERMAN #687 and SUPERMAN/BATMAN #59.

• Over at Comic Book Resources' Robot 6 blog, Tim O'Shea talks to R.E.B.E.L.S writer Tony Bedard about the series, and artist Claude St. Aubin's upcoming stint as artist.

• In Batman news, Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert's conclusion to "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" got positive review attention from Comic Book Resources, Newsarama's "Best Shots" team and IGN. IGN also previewed the first issue of BATMAN: BATTLE FOR THE COWL -- THE UNDERGROUND.

Newsarama shows off some shiny TRINITY pages and Robot 6's Tom Bondurant continues to annotate every issue. Impressive, eh?

• The build up to BLACKEST NIGHT continues, with IGN previewing GREEN LANTERN #40, and reminded people about that page Eddie Berganza posted last week. Newsarama's Vaneta Rogers spoke to artist Ethan Van Sciver at length about the looks for the different Lantern Corps and their symbols.

• And in case you were still hungry for Red Circle info after our debuts last week, superstar artist J.G. Jones spoke to Newsarama's Matt Brady about his role in redesigning the characters for the DCU.

CORPS 101: THE STAR SAPPHIRES

What's love got to do with it? A lot, actually.

The Guardians of Oa have the Green Lanterns while their counterparts, the Zamarons -- fueled by emotions, unlike the Guardians -- created the Star Sapphires, a group of super-powered soldiers wielding the power of love.

Click below for more info on the Star Sapphires, in this, our penultimate "Corps 101." Can you guess which comes last?

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