Bob Layton (born September 25, 1953) is an American comic book artist, writer, and editor. He is best known for his work on Marvel Comics titles such as Iron Man and Hercules, and for co-founding Valiant Comics with Jim Shooter.
Early life
Bob Layton was born on September 25, 1953. He learned to read comics from the age of four, explaining that his "older sister Sue became bored with reading the same comic to me about fifty times. (It was a Showcase featuring the Challengers of the Unknown.)"
After leaving high school, Layton began "playing comics dealer ... selling them out of his apartment in Indianapolis," through which he met Roger Stern in 1973, while the latter was working for a radio station in Indianapolis.
Career
CPL
Layton and Stern began publishing a fanzine called CPL (Contemporary Pictorial Literature) out of Layton's apartment.
Stern recalls that, "CPL started out as Bob's sale catalog. Bob was drawing the covers and including little reviews written by some of his customers. By issue #5, it turned into a small 'zine with a catalog insert, and I started writing short articles for it. I eventually became an editor of sorts." This apprenticeship led to work for Charlton on anthology titles, but not working from the Charlton offices, Marvel Comics and DC Comics, while still publishing fanzines.
Part of Layton's role as Wally Wood's apprentice included him occasionally delivering artwork to "NYC from Connecticut." Layton recalls that: