Placing a block next to the comments section
The regions are usually printed in the page.tpl.php

And the comments are printed with in the node.tpl.php

You could follow the below steps to get a region with in node.tpl.php


Add a region in the .info file by adding regions[custom] = Custom 
If you already have a preprocess_node in you theme template.php then add the below code or else create a function in the template.php with the name mythemename_preprocess_node(&amp;$variables)

$variables['custom'] = block_get_blocks_by_region('custom');


This would give you a variable with in the node.tpl.php named custom. This is a renderable array of the blocks with in the region. 

Now in your node.tpl.php you would be having something like &lt;?php print render($content['comments']); ?&gt; above or below that you can add  

Or you could wrap them in a DIV to suit your requirement. 

What ever you add to The region custom would now be displayed near the comments