All e-mails sent to Bob may be published on this Letters Page unless withholding is specifically requested.

Hello again, I had another VALIANT related question and was hoping you could take a minute to answer it.  Toward the end of the Second Life of Doctor Mirage series, in the issues written by James Perham, it was revealed that Carmen was pregnant with Hwen's child.

As the creator (or was that co-creator?) of Dr. Mirage and Hwen do you think you might be interested in exploring this character in a new series if the

new owners were inclined to do one? (though Hwen might have to be dead seeing as the Darque Pool supposedly dried in '99 following Darque's death)

If yes, what do you think you might do with a hybrid of a mortal and a creature made of necromantic energy?

Personally, I've always thought it be a cross between Anakin Skywalker and Wyatt from Charmed.

Thanks!

Mike Sacal

Mike,

Dr. Mirage was one of my all-time favorite series in my career. To be perfectly honest, I only read a few of James Perham's issues of Dr. Mirage after I left the book (attribute it to 'abandoned child syndrome'). So, commenting on them at the moment would be somewhat difficult and presumptuous. As far as my interest in a new series, if the current copyright holders decide to re-launch that title and ask me to participate, I would certainly give it serious consideration.

As far as ghost babies go...yuck! No thanks.

           DR. MIRAGE #1

Hello Bob,

Can you tell us please what is a page rate and how high or so is it for an artist.

All the best,

Klaus & Wolfgang :-)

Dear Klaus & Wolfgang,

Page rate is the method in which comic book creators, be it writers, pencillers or inkers, are compensated for their contributions to each issue.  The rates will vary based on popularity, longevity with the series or company and other factors.

The creator is paid a specific amount per page--which is tallied and paid out upon the completion of each 22 page issue.

The pay rates have changed over the years, but on average, inkers can generally make anywhere from $120.00-175.00 per page.  Pencillers make considerably more.

Dear Mr. Layton

I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on Wizard magazine. In early August I wrote them a mostly critical letter where among other things I all but begged them to do more stories on past creators but it pretty much fell on deaf ears. I didn't figure my letter would be printed so I posted it on their message board. Below are portions of my letter. My comments are quoted and the responses from Wizard Editor Brian Cunningham are in brackets.

"In the past I felt you spent way too much time hyping the guys at Image. I don’t deny that the creation of Image was a major wakeup call to the comics industry and helped to champion creators rights, but the way you gushed over Lee, McFarland and the rest you’d think that it was the early sixties at Marvel Comics all over again rather than guys who seemed more interested in cashing checks than creating comics. As time went on you seemed to grow out of that some but that didn’t last long. You replaced the Image guys with others like Bendis, Morrison and Millar and you show no real signs of stopping. And what about Kevin Smith? He was going to replace JMS on Amazing Spider-Man a few years back remember but it never happened and yet with only a handful of issues to his credit you give him more coverage than some comics.

How nice for Quesada to hire his friend the "celebrity" yet many long time comic creators with proven track records need not apply. Smith couldn’t even get out a mini series in a timely manner so what made them think he could do something bigger."

[Bottom line: We report the happenings in the industry, we don't create them. The fans dictate what and who are hot, and therefore worthy of more coverage. We cover what's hot in the industry -- readers vote on who they want us to cover with their wallets.]

"Yes but you have final say. You are not slaves to the industry. If you are only going to cover what is "hot"

then you are not doing anything that any other magazine could do. That's called herd mentality. Take a chance once in a while and cover other things. Look at all the articles you guys did on Identity and Infinite Crisis and tell me how many of them actually told us anything. For several months in a row we got articles on these storylines which revealed very little if any new material. You could have bumped one of those stories surely and given us something unique."

"And while I think it’s great that you occasionally do interviews or stories on creators that are not as well know by the current crop of comic fans you don’t do them nearly enough. When can we expect to see equal time given to guys like Roger Stern, David Michelinie, John Byrne, Bob Layton, Paul Gulacy, Terry Austin, Norm Breyfogle, Alan Grant, Ross Andru, Ron Wilson, Bill Mantlo, Gerry Conway, Mark Gruenwald, Tom Lyle, Keith Pollard, Doug Moench, Frank Brunner, Don Perlin, M. D. Bright and Graham Nolan just to name a few?"

[You’ll see some stories with creators you cite. But for the most part, it’s difficult to do stories on everyone. Especially if they’re not active in comics at the moment. We need to reach the broadest spectrum of current comic fans.]

"I understand that you have to focus more on the younger fans, but you ran articles on Steve Gerber and Harvey Pekar not long ago and I doubt if they are active in comics to the degree that you meant. And they are not exactly household names among comic fans either."

[When events open an interesting angle for us to reach out and cover some of the names you've listed, we try to."]

"Have you ever heard someone say that if you wait until you can afford kids to have them you never will?

They same thing applies here. Why wait for an interesting angle. Isn't it enough that these guys contributed so much to comics? Don't wait for an excuse just do it. You should be able to find enough room to do a feature on some of these guys at least twice a year. You guys publish movie and poster book special editions right? Well how about an old school edition that features nothing but articles on the comics of the 70's and 80's that many of us grew up on. If magazines like Wizard are not going to educate the current generation of comic fans on what they missed out on then who will? I'm not trying to be rude here sir but you guys should really be coming up with these kinds of ideas by yourselves. I'm giving you gold here. Maybe if you would focus more on them it would spur more demand for their work to find its way to trade paperbacks. Mark Gruenwald's work on Captain America alone could easily fill five volumes of Marvel Visionaries trades. And if it was up to me they would."

Well those are my thoughts on the matter Mr. Layton.

If you choose not to print this on your letters page I will understand, but I hope that you do so that more of my fellow "old school" fans can express their thoughts on these matters.

Thank you for you time.

Frank M. Reding

Frank,

I've made my opinions concerning Wizard Magazine abundantly clear in previous posts on this letters page. I'm not a huge fan of what they do and I've found myself at odds with them in various public forums on more than one occasion.

Part of that was probably due to the fact that Wizard was filled, at one time, with disgruntled ex-Valiant employees.  Wizard systematically ignored the efforts of Future Comics--even when we were giving their 'partner-in-crime' Diamond a run for their money in the distribution department. You think that a rogue company, successfully challenging the monopoly of Diamond, would be somewhat news-worthy.  But, they never bothered to cover us, even though we were a regular advertiser. Needless to say--I pulled our advertising dollars shortly after we concluded that they were biased.  Here is a copy of the text of a letter I wrote to Wizard Senior V.P. and former Valiant V.P. Fred Pierce concerning Wizard's treatment of my fledgling comic book company:

By the way...this letter was totally ignored by the powers-that-be at Wizard.

So, I totally agree with your assessment in their current publishing policy and only wish that some time in the future they would reconsider the type of material that they choose to hype to include the entire comic book industry, not just a narrow niche' part of it.

But you may have hit on something, Frank, maybe it's time for something like "Rockin' Old School Comics Magazine" as a companion book to the flavor-of-the-month regular publication that Wizard circulates. 

Bob,

I just wanted to say thank you for the years of great art work. I met you many many years ago.(trying not to date ourselves here --heh!)  at a Creation Con in DC and you actually signed my whole short box (That my dad at the time said was silly for me to bring). And I STILL have the original art you did for me with Iron Man in black and silver armor as well as all those books. You were incredibly nice and generous to a 13 year old kid and it’s one of those memories I remember now 20 years later (oops I dated us). 

Iron man has been a constant for me and keeps me young. I’m actually scoping out Tattoo artists for my next piece of ink that will be some sort of Bob Layton Iron Man. (Believe it or not my favorite armor is the Silver Centurion armor from 200-235).  

Once I get it done I’ll send you a pic.

Once again-- just a little random but just wanted to thank you.

Tony Intrabartolo

Tony,

Thank you so much for the kind words. It pleases me to know that I made a positive impression on that thirteen year old boy that remains to this day.

As far as a tattoo based on my art, I've always contended that human flesh is a messy medium to work in as an artist. However, I'm certainly not going to try to dissuade you.

Please send me a picture of  the tat when and if you have it done.

1. BATMAN: DARK KNIGHT OF THE ROUND TABLE (1999) was an ingeniously well-crafted two-part Elseworlds epic written and inked by you. Comic legend Dick Giordano, a long-time BATMAN penciler and your co-creator on another Elseworlds miniseries, HOLLYWOOD KNIGHT (2001), was the artist. The story focused upon the life and times of young Bruce of Waynesmoor after his family’s exile from England by King Arthur. I won¹t reveal any of the actual plot. Instead, I¹ll simply encourage Bob Layton fans to seek out this title, especially those folks who wholeheartedly enjoyed Iron Man¹s two Camelot encounters.
The first thing I noticed about BATMAN: DKOTRT were the covers -- four of the three were drawn by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez. The back cover for the second issue was produced by you. Ironically, Garcia-Lopez didn't sign his work, but simply used the initials GL...which, at first, seems like Giordano/Layton, since the illustrations are similar to the style within the book.
Why didn't you and Dick provide the covers? Personally, I have nothing against Garcia-Lopez's illustrations -- in fact, they offer several different tweaks of your and Dick’s Batman armor.
 

1. The back cover to issue 2, featuring my art, was actually a model sheet that I created with the presentation for the mini-series to editor Denny O'Neal. Denny liked it so much that he decided to use it as the back cover for that issue. However, at the time that we were producing the comic Denny felt that Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez was a more marketable cover artist for Batman and chose to go with him rather than allowing Dick and I to produce the covers. Given the fact that they were allowing us carte blanche with the Batman character for this project, I felt it was a small price to pay.

2. Batman and Green Arrow, to name two, are DC icons who have traveled back in time to meet up with classic folk heroes. Robin Hood comes immediately to mind. How and why did you and Dick choose King Arthur as the focal point for a Batman story? Also, how did you pitch the idea to DC?

2. Mike, you of above all people should know my obsession with the Arthurian legends and how they permeated my run on Iron Man. Given a chance to do an historical drama featuring Batman what other time period would I choose? As far as pitching the story, I came up with a two issue detailed plot synopsis along with the model sheet that I submitted to Denny. Denny met with the others managing editors to get their feedback on the project. When I received their comments there were extensive notes by the late great Archie Goodwin that helped me fine tune the plot to everyone's liking. Archie was an amazing writer and understood how little nuances can change the tone of the entire story. So if you liked the Dark Knight of the Round Table mini-series, a lot of the thanks goes to Archie.

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