Hello Mr Layton,
I was a member of the John Byrne forum until recently when I was banned for stating that I loved your inking on John Romita Jr.'s art work on Iron man. It seems as though John Byrne does not have the same opinion of your inking that I do, and banned me because of it. Here is the thread if you are interested in the unprofessional comments Mr Byrne had to say about you.
I am a big fan of both of your artwork, but I am not a fan of his unprofessional manner towards fans and other members of the comic community.
 

Thanks for your time.

Brett Payne
Chairmans Office
Lucasfilm

Brett,

I appreciate the defense of my work on the JB boards.  It’s unfortunate that John possesses something of an ‘attitude’ when it comes to his fans and his fellow professionals. 

That’s a shame, because I have nothing but respect for John Byrne and the body of work that he has contributed to the comics industry.

I know he wasn’t a fan of my early comics work, but we were both in the learning stages of our careers. His work evolved and improved over time—as did mine.  To maintain some sort of grudge after 25-30 years seems ludicrous, if you ask me.

Keep in mind that nothing John Byrne, or anyone else with ‘an ax to grind’, says will erase the body of quality work that I’ve contributed to the medium over the last thirty years.  So, to be perfectly honest, I’m emotionally ambivalent concerning his  comments.

I don’t think I’ve done anything recently to tick John off.  He’s always behaved amicably towards me whenever I’ve had a face-to-face encounter with him—so I really don’t get it.

However, I am so sorry that you had to pay the price for merely voicing an opinion. 

You DO have my gratitude for the support, Brett.

Hey Bob!

Great stuff on the blog (June 07) this month! I can't wait to see this stuff come to fruition. It'll be very cool to see these projects come to life, whatever they are. So--here I sit, like a kid on Christmas Eve, waiting for the big guy to pop down the chimney and surprise me with his bag of goodies.

Can't wait till next month!

Ralph L. Angelo Jr.

Dear Ralph,

Glad you liked my little rant last month! Surprisingly, not too many people reacted to the fact that Rockin' Ron Lim has joined the Michelinie/Layton team for the Iron Man/Doctor Doom mini-series. In fact, yours was the only letter I got concerning it and nobody on any of the message boards seemed to have picked up on it.

Obviously, I still can't talk about much of it-- like what the major motion picture is, who's pencilling the Iron Man: The End special project, etc. But, David and I have completed the first two plots for the Doom/Camelot mini and Ron should be getting to work on it shortly. I, for one, am extremely excited to be teamed up with my old buddy from Metallix on a Marvel Iron Man project! Interestingly enough, Ron and I never had a chance to work together during all the years we were simultaneously employed at the House of Ideas.

Stand by for more info, as it becomes available.

Hi Bob.

The commissions list may have been long, but you’ve kicked out some really great pieces.  Good to see that the busier you are, the better art you appear to produce.  Would you say that’s the way it has always been?

As an aside, I now find that I miss the little scroll that was on the commission page during May...I liked being able to see that I was closing in and could keep an eye on the pieces you posted on Comic Art Fans to get an idea who was in front of me.  Any chance that scroll will return?

Mike Cross

Dear Mike,

I don't believe there's a correlation between deadline pressure and a level of competency. I  think that there are months that I get "in the zone" and start producing some really interesting illustrations. No magic involved, just a little sweat and elbow grease.

As far as the scrolling commissions list, we decided to eliminate it last month, at least for the time being.

Part of the problem was  that it had become SO long that it become almost a daily issue to manage it. That, and circumstances sometimes dictate that I have to skip over a few people in the order until I can find the proper reference, special paper, or other specific request. That lead to a few people getting their "panties in a bunch" over their specific place in line. Generally speaking, no one who commissions something from me is going to have to wait too long. I pride myself in a quick turn around while keeping the quality as high as I possibly can. Due to the special I ran in April, my commission list has been exceptionally large for the last few months and that made the scroll a bit difficult to manage. As soon as I get all caught up, the scroll will return!

You have my promise.

Hi,

I don't know if you were on the list that I informed, but Advanced Iron is going through a complete redesign which will be unveiled on Friday, June 8th.  Since we've previously discussed web design via email I thought you might be interested in it, and since you've been a long time contributor and are a pillar of the Iron Man community I thought you'd like to be aware of it.

It's going to be a rockin' cool-looking site especially compared to the "stuck in the early 90's" look that it's sported for so long. :-)

If you go there now I've put a countdown timer in place just for fun.

Best regards,

Vic Holtreman

Dear Vic,

I know you didn't ask a question...I just wanted to run your letter on this month's page in order to give my fans an opportunity to click on the banner and check out this month's Advanced Iron. I've enjoyed contributing to it in the past and, as my new Iron Man projects come to fruition, I'm sure I'll have choice information and art for you to display as well.

Hi There,

Mr. Layton, I think for IRON MAN you are the best artist!  Just wanted to say that I think your run on IRON MAN is my favorite of the entire series, which has now gone down the tubes!  I am greatly displeased with Marvel for turning my favorite hero into the most hated character of all time.  Believe me, I wanted to say something else--which would not be nice.

I am so displeased that I emailed Marvel and told them that I will be selling my collection on Ebay within the next couple of months.  I am only missing 24 issues of the Tales of Suspense and I would have ALL of the IRON MAN issues.  Now, thanks to what is happening, I don't give a damn!  They will be going on Ebay!   Except for your run, of course.

I‘m looking forward to the movie since the pics that I have seen....the armor looks really cool!

Thank you and I hope that one day you will return to IRON MAN and make it good again,

Keith Stuka

Keith,

As I've stated in previous letters this month, David Michelinie and I are back at Marvel and working on two, separate Iron Man projects.

I appreciate the compliments and sympathize with your disillusionment with the current handling of the character. Personally--I think that the current Tony Stark might actually be a Skrull. That would explain a lot, wouldn't it?

Thanks for the kind words and don't be too quick to dump all those great Iron Man issues. There have been plenty of good stories that have been done by people other than David and me.

I'm looking forward to the Iron Man movie, as well-- but probably for different reasons than everyone else.

Bob,

In your CAF Gallery, for the unused Batman: Hollywood Knight cover to issue #2, you said that “I came upon the pencils to the two rejected covers and decided to ink them and add the trade dress for April's "Art Find of the Month". 

Do you have an image of the other covers?

Thanks for everything,

Wayne Mousseau

Dear Wayne,

I found a couple of the original sketches that were intended for the Hollywood Knight series. You can check out the images below:

The layout for issue one was your basic movie-poster type design. DC rejected that for something more along the lines of a mood piece. The layout for issue #2 was rejected outright due to the fact that Batman was using guns. Dickie and I argued that, "This isn't the DC Batman, but the actor who played Batman in the movie serials. Therefore using guns would not violate the canon of the character." Obviously, we lost that argument too.

For some reason, I haven’t been able to locate the unpublished third issue layout. But, I know it’s around somewhere.  I remember it distinctly because it had Batman and Robin leaping around on giant typewriters and pencils and stuff like the old Bob Kane comics.