For a line arrangement ${\mathcal{A}}$ in the complex projective plane $\mathbb{P}^{2}$, we investigate the compactification $\overline{F}$ in $\mathbb{P}^{3}$ of the affine Milnor fiber $F$ and its minimal resolution $\tilde{F}$. We compute the Chern numbers of $\tilde{F}$ in terms of the combinatorics of the line arrangement ${\mathcal{A}}$. As applications of the computation of the Chern numbers, we show that the minimal resolution is never a quotient of a ball; in addition, we also prove that $\tilde{F}$ is of general type when the arrangement has only nodes or triple points as singularities. Finally, we compute all the Hodge numbers of some $\tilde{F}$ by using some knowledge about the Milnor fiber monodromy of the arrangement.

Using a recent result by S. Papadima and A. Suciu, we show that the equivariant Poincaré– Deligne polynomial of the Milnor fiber of a projective line arrangement having only double and triple points is combinatorially determined.

Let $\mathcal{A}$ be a line arrangement in the complex projective plane ${{\mathbb{P}}^{2}}$, having the points of multiplicity $\ge \,3$ situated on two lines in $\mathcal{A}$, say ${{H}_{0}}$ and ${{H}_{\infty }}$. Then we show that the non-local irreducible components of the first resonance variety ${{\mathcal{R}}_{1}}(\mathcal{A})$ are 2-dimensional and correspond to parallelograms $P$ in ${{\mathbb{C}}^{2}}={{\mathbb{P}}^{2}}\text{ }\backslash \text{ }{{H}_{\infty }}$ whose sides are in $\mathcal{A}$ and for which ${{H}_{0}}$ is a diagonal.

We show that a line arrangement in the complex projective plane supports a nontrivial resonance variety if and only if it is the underlying arrangement of a ‘multinet’, a multi-arrangement with a partition into three or more equinumerous classes which have equal multiplicities at each inter-class intersection point, and satisfy a connectivity condition. We also prove that this combinatorial structure is equivalent to the existence of a pencil of plane curves, also satisfying a connectivity condition, whose singular fibers include at least three products of lines, which comprise the arrangement. We derive numerical conditions which impose restrictions on the number of classes, and the line and point multiplicities that can appear in multinets, and allow us to detect whether the associated pencils yield nonlinear fiberings of the complement.