Doug Mahnke

Douglas "Doug" Mahnke (born 1955) is an American comic book artist who provided art for the comic Aliens: Stronghold for Dark Horse Comics.

Biography[]

A veteran comics artist known for his strong, horror-influenced artwork, Mahnke first came to prominence as the artist for Dark Horse's smash hit series The Mask in the 1980s. More recently he has worked as an in-demand artist for DC Comics, recently being named as artist on its popular Green Lantern series.

Mahnke's co-creator on The Mask was writer John Arcudi (from an idea by Dark Horse publisher Mike Richardson). The duo would go on to work on numerous other projects together including Aliens: Stronghold. Arcudi would go on to become one of the most prominent Aliens and Predator writers.

Mahnke was the original artist for the Dark Horse title X, a run inked by Jimmy Palmiotti who joined him as inker on Stronghold, as well as being the cover artist for King Tiger/Motorhead, a two-issue series set in the same universe as X, Dark Horse's "Comics Greatest Universe" supehero line.

Mahnke has since worked for DC Comics on a number of top comic book series including JLA, Batman, and Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein (with fellow A/P/AVP-universe alumn Grant Morrison). Mahnke's work on Batman included the controversial story detailing how the previously deceased second Robin, Jason Todd, was alive and actively working against Batman's interests as the Red Hood. Mahnke also worked on the critically acclaimed prestige one-shot Batman: The Man Who Laughs.

His work also includes titles such as Major Bummer, Superman: The Man of Steel, Team Zero and Justice League Elite.

In 2005, with comic book inker Tom Nguyen, Mahnke produced two comic book art instructional DVDs. In 2006, he took over the art for StormWatch P.H.D. for Wildstorm Comics. His work in 2007 included the DC miniseries, Black Adam: The Dark Age, detailing the anti-hero Black Adam's mourning over his wife Isis and regaining his powers. In 2008, he reunited with Tomasi to pencil an issue of Nightwing for the writer.

Mahnke was again an important collaborator with writer Grant Morrison on DC's event series Final Crisis, pencilling the Requiem one-shot and the two-issue Superman Beyond 3D tie-in. Mahnke also pencilled the final pages of the main series' 6th issue featuring the "death" of Batman, and replaced artist J.G. Jones entirely on the series finale issue #7 over concerns of Jones' speed.

Starting in July 2009, Mahnke became the ongoing artist for DC's Green Lantern with writer Geoff Johns, right at the beginning of the Blackest Night storyline.