 Welcome to Suncoast Spotlight. Thank you for tuning in. I'm your host, Jeannie Corcoran, the film commissioner for Sarasota County, and I have, as always, amazing guests that are part of our industry in film and television, and new media, print media, all forms of communication come to our show, and we're always so grateful. With me today is the amazing, legendary, comic book creator, artist, entrepreneur, filmmaker, writer, producer. Did I miss anything? No, I'm tired of just listening to you. Bob Gaten. Best known for Iron Man and Ant-Man, and owning a comic company of his own, and two actually, so many, so many credits we're gonna talk about today, and the show has brought you through the partnership of the Educational Channel, the Suncoast Technical College, the Digital Filmmaking Department, headed by Bob Gray at STC, and we're so glad you're here with us. Thanks for tuning in. So, Bob, are you ready to get this rolling? Yes, let's pretend we don't know each other. That's right. And as people may notice behind you, you have a pop-up banner of Iron Man, and I guess that goes with you everywhere you go, doesn't it? Pretty much does, yeah. I mean, because you and I do conventions all around the world, so. In fact, I first met you at Comic-Con New York. That's true. Yes. That's true last year, and I was there promoting the Thunder Agents. Right, and those who have watched this show have seen Michael Uslan, who is the executive producer and originator of all the Batman movies, and a good buddy of yours. What they don't know is that he's a childhood friend of mine. Michael, since he was 19 years old. Oh, wow. So, we go back that way. Isn't he still 19 years old? Well, and his head. Yes, yes. Michael Uslan is many wonderful things, and one of the things I appreciate most is that he introduces me to other wonderful people like Bob Layton, and we're also going to be interviewing a friend of yours who's a renowned actor, but we'll talk about that later on the show. Right now, I just want to talk about you. Yeah, I'd rather talk about me than him, too. So, tell me now you are located occasionally here in the Tampa Bay area. You have a little home site here, and you're going to go back and forth between here and LA. Is that right? Well, mostly here. Mostly here. Mostly here, yeah, because I've been out in LA for the last 10 years. Right. You know, working in the business, and now I've come back here, as you know, to establish, they don't know, so we're going to talk about it. We're going to talk about this. To establish a larger film presence here in the state of Florida. So, I am working with wonderful people such as yourself and other film commissioners, basically, to put together a package of film slates of projects that we can do here in the state of Florida. Wonderful. I hope everybody at home is listening to that, and everybody in the sound of my voice in the Tampa Bay region, especially, that Bob wants to do a slate of films. That means more than one right here in our Tampa Bay area. So, I'll be looking for talented young people to join me in this. Yes, we're looking for students, we're looking for interns, but we're also going to be looking to steer you to equipment and crew and above the line people, below the line people and everything in between. Equipment providers and more. When I ran Valiant, it was a startup company that wound up being the third largest publisher in America. How I engineered that was finding hungry young talent, people who really shared that vision that I had who wanted to be part of that, and basically trained them on the job as they went along. And that seemed to be a winning formula for us. Like I said, we grew from being a startup to the third largest publisher right after under Marvel and DC. So, I'm going to try to use the same sort of model here in Florida. I'm looking for talented young people when they, of course, when they're of age. Cause I know there's laws down here, right? Right, right. Well actually, Florida- That's right here, there's some laws. We have more and more young talent coming up for them ranks every single day. Florida's much younger than it used to be, and we have wonderful, mature talent. But I want to take you back in time. Oh my God. I want to take you back in time to Charlton Comics. Tell me a little bit about- Oh, thank you, Mr. Peabody. Yes, you be Sherman, I'll be Mr. Peabody. And we're going to go back and talk about Charlton Comics in the Bowling Alley. Tell me how you got started. Well actually, because you know about this, because a friend of mine is making a documentary on the history of Charlton Comics, which is a very small comic book company in Dermay, Connecticut that started in the 50s by two guys who were in jail at the time who basically came up with the idea of starting their own publishing company. In jail, that's a key point of it. And they set up their offices inside of a bowling alley. And if you guys want to see this, you can look up on YouTube, look up Charlton Movie Trailer and take a look at the sizzle reel that they put together for this thing. And I guarantee you if you don't laugh, something's wrong with you, okay? Didn't you refer to it as like a three-legged dog? Yeah, it's basically, Charlton was the three-legged dog of the comic book industry. But what's really amazing is stuff like the Watchmen and creators such as myself and Steve Ditko and Names to Contra with came out of Charlton, even though they're defunct now. And those characters that were created there, they still exist now, DC acquired them. But they were such a fundamental little lynchpin in comic book history, but totally unknown. People have never heard of them. And when my friends Keith and Jackie decided to make this documentary, it was what they put together in the few minutes that they put together is really amazing. You saw it and you laughed. I dared you to watch it without laughing. I did laugh, but they're gonna give us a signal for a little break right here. And that'll keep everybody waiting on Tinder hooks because when we come back, I wanna talk about your criminal past. No. Yeah. So everybody stay tuned, we'll be right back. The Cutting Edge Salon, located on the campus of Suncoast Technical College is open to the public for styling services, coloring services, chemical texturing, nail coloring, manicures and pedicures, hair removal services, facials and more. All of the beauty services are performed by the students of the Suncoast Technical Colleges Cosmetology Program under the supervision of its award-winning instructors. The Cutting Edge Salon is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. And on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays, evening appointments are also available from 4 until 9 p.m. For appointments, call 941-924-1365, extension 62343. The Cutting Edge Salon, located on the campus of Suncoast Technical College is a cut above. Welcome back, you're watching Suncoast Spotlight, courtesy of the Education Channel and Suncoast Technical College and the Sarasota County Film and Entertainment Office. I'm Jeannie Corker, your film commissioner. And with me is Bob Layton, legendary comic artist, writer, producer, oh, entrepreneur, filmmaker. An alleged criminal. An alleged criminal. I brought that up because I think it's such a funny story. Tell me that story, tell the viewers your story. To some degree, it's in the Charlton movie as well, but in part of it, they asked me if I would confess to have committing a felon on camera and of course I said, why not? Why not? Yeah, sure. The Statute of Limitations is long gone. Charlton didn't believe in the intrinsic value of original art. So at one point, this is in the 1970s, like 74, 75, right? They found out that they could get $5 a pound for bulk paper, so they decided they were gonna shred all the archives of art that they had. All the original artwork. By some of the great comic book illustrators of all time. So the assistant editor there, our friend of mine, Bill Pearson and I, we engineered a break-in and we stole all the original art out of the company and took it back, in fact, he had an old blue, like sky blue dodge dart and we had paper weighed so much that I think we broke the suspension on the very end of his car. But saved the artwork. We saved the artwork, so we spent months after that at Bill's place, shoving it into Manila envelopes and mailing it anonymously back to the artist who originally created it. It wasn't until like 20 or 30 years later that Steve Ditko, one of the artists who was working for me in Valiance, a long time I brought it up to him and he goes, so you're the one who sent that. He goes, I was always wondering where that artwork came from because they never had a policy of recording art. And the crazy thing is no one at Charlton even knew the stuff was missing. That's how much they didn't care. Didn't they use it for floor mats when it rained? Yeah, sometimes when it rained, they would take the original art pages and just throw them on the floor to soak up snow and rain and stuff like that. Mud and, wow. A Boy Scout troop would come in and it would just give them away. It's frightening to think about as a creator, but that was the difference between then and now. And one of your good friends who's actually visiting Sarasota at the same time, you are Skip Farrell, who was a comic publisher and worked with you on a variety of things. He has framed original artwork throughout his house, doesn't he? Skip has one of the largest art collections I've ever seen in my life. I don't know, you'd have to ask him exactly how many pieces he has, but yeah, it's amazing. But Skip's been a dear friend and, like you said, He has his own gallery. No, but look, you know a guy's a friend when you lose him a half a million dollars and they still wanna hang out with you, okay? Was that on graphic novels or comic books? Comic books. Well, we tried to beat the system. We actually came up with a business plan that would bypass the monopolistic distribution system of comics. But we were a little ahead of our time, because we were e-commerce in the early 2000s, right at the turn of the century, and things weren't really ripe for that at that point, because I also forgot how incredibly cheap comic book shops are. Yeah, most of those guys were not wired to the internet. They were still using a cigar box for a cash register, you know? So it was a good business model. Had a little addy machine. We were a little, we were the kind of Preston Tucker of our era. We were a little ahead of our time. Well, you're still ahead of the time. I mean, you are in, you're involved in films, you're involved in television programs, cartoon, morning cartoon shows, see your work, video games, everything, you have your finger in every electronic pie, as well as the fine arts. This figure right here is probably the most used piece of merchandising that Marvel ever has. I'm thinking of an official king of Marvel merchandising. It's about like on 10,000 items. And tell me a little bit about Ant-Man, because that was an unexpected major hit, wasn't it? It was crazy, yeah, because my co-writer and I created Scott Lang, which was a new version of Hank Pym's character. And we did like a two-shot story, a two-part story, in a showcase book at Marvel called Marvel Premiere. Back, this is 1978, all right? So he appeared in only two issues. And that was it. We made him a supporting character in Iron Man, but not as Ant-Man. He was just there as Scott Lang. But the crazy thing was one of the kids who bought that book way back when was Edgar Wright, who on the basis of those two stories became inspired. And he decided that he wanted, when the time came around, he actually went to Marvel and pitched it. It's the only Marvel movie that was pitched outside of their docket, but he's Edgar Wright. I mean, he's done some of the great movies, recent memory. So to him, that was a labor of love, something that started all from those two issues, which is crazy to me, because we did it, it was nice when we went on. And I've signed more of those books now than I have in the 40 years since the book was published. And I go around the world now, and Ant-Man is, Scott Lang, Ant-Man, is like a huge phenomenon. And they're doing a sequel. Yeah. The movie was such a hit, they're doing a sequel. And it's like, you can knock me over with a feather, because it's just, it's not anything you would ever expect to happen. It's so strange. So you never know what you do will have some sort of lasting effect later, creative kids. So keep that in mind. Everything matters. And they're gonna make us take another break, but we'll be back shortly. And we're gonna talk about a few other things that you do. I want to learn about ROM. No. No, all right, maybe we won't. Stay with us, we'll be right back. Career Source Suncoast is Florida's nationally recognized workforce system, connecting job seekers with the skills needed, not only for finding employment, but throughout a career. Our satellite office on the campus of Suncoast Technical College is open to the college's students, staff, and the public alike, offering assistance and resume writing, job searching, and registering with employeeflorida.com, the state's website for job seekers where you can complete and post a professional resume, research companies, set up job alerts, complete a professional reference sheet and conduct job interview preparation. The Suncoast Technical College's satellite office is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. and their services are always free. So stop by or call 941-927-5286. Career Source Suncoast is your one stop for career guidance and preparation. Welcome back to Suncoast Spotlight. We have with us Bob Layton, legendary comic artist and multifaceted talented guy. And you've just done so much, I'm not sure where to begin. You are still affiliated with Valiant, the one of the comic company that you help found and one of the owners of. Was she just there recently? Yeah, I was just at their offices a couple weeks ago because the 30th anniversary of being one of the founders, the 30th anniversary is coming up in about a year and a half and they kind of wanted me to come back and do something. Plus the new kids there have never met one of the founders and they kind of thought it would be nice for me to come into the office of New York and do that. When you mentioned Ram, what I do from time to time, I don't really work in comics anymore, but what I do from time to time is because I do have a fan base out there and I kind of miss it occasionally. So if somebody asks me really nice, I will sit down and I will do a cover or something like that. And usually it's for some sort of special project. The guys at IDW, they approached me about Ram because Ram Space Night was a book based on a toy long ago at Marvel, but it was a fairly popular book and I used to be the regular cover artist on it. So when IDW got the rights to revive it, they came to me and said, hey, look, you're one of the original guys on it. Would you do a cover for us? So I did that. So you're into a lot of projects kind of stick to you forever. Are you? They come and go and come back to visit. I have two major legacies in comics. I have obviously this guy and then I have Valiant. So this guy, my legacy with him was pretty secure, but Valiant again is a company that's burgeoning. It's growing, the new Valiant's very different than my original company, but they're making great strides and I'm friends with everybody up there. It's like, so it's important to me that they succeed. So whatever I can do to help, you know, lend myself to them to help them do that, I'm more than willing to. But although I've left comics, I never totally leave. There's always a little part of me that wants to go back and do a little something now and then, so. Right, it's true. That's where Ram came from. So you made a really interesting comment in one of the places I've heard you speak where you said how the culture wars have turned out. Tell me a little bit about your feeling on who won the culture wars. Well, that's how I met James, you know? In a lot of ways, because what happened was, I was living here in Florida at the time, okay? Because Skipp and I just shut down future comics and I was back at freelancing and then the word came that Marvel was about to produce Iron Man and then I got a request to come out there and work on the movie. Because you recreated the character? Yeah, basically. Completely redesigned it. The Iron Man before I came along was basically Marvel couldn't give the book away, you know? And it was one of those things where I turned it into what, you know, in the movies, the Rockstar, Tony Stark, and all the different armors and I created Rowdy and Justin Hammer and all those characters. So when it went out there, the first thing I realized after being out there a few weeks is that every producer, everybody out there was a comic geek, you know? They were all, the reason why comic movies and TV shows are exploding is because this is the material that they grew up on. And that's what they go to plum now, you know? It's like you think about in the 90s, everything in Hollywood was remakes of old TV shows because back then those producers, that's what they grew up on. So they did Bewitched and Beverly Hillbillies and Dukes of Hazard and all that kind of stuff. This generation grew up with comic books and I realized when I was out there, and I didn't tend to stay, but I realized that everyone knew who I was. And I said, well, this seems like a golden opportunity. I don't really have to break down doors to get meetings. You know, this one, I should take advantage of it. So I stayed. Right, when we come back from our next break, we're gonna talk about where you're headed with your next movie based on a comic book character that is sort of a cult favorite, but maybe the people watching haven't heard of it before, right? No. Yes, of course. So we're gonna come back shortly, stay with us and learn more. 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Welcome back, you're watching Suncoast Spotlight and our guest Bob Layton is gonna talk about more comic books but also about movies and TV and things that are being adapted from comic books as well as characters he's created that may become a comic book after they become a movie. Right at the same time. Or at the same time, simultaneously. Tell me about Shambler. Can you talk about it? I can talk a little bit about it. Shambler was a project that started years ago in Hollywood that was actually funded and then there's one of the things we went into pre-production and the company who was funding us went under. Which is, James can tell you, is a common story, okay? Well that's what builds success. People who truly succeed, entrepreneurs that really succeed, they fail multiple times because that's where they learn what works and what doesn't work and they improve every single time. Everybody knows the story of Rocky. He couldn't, seven years, he couldn't get it made, and then finally gets it made and wins the Academy Award. I saw an interview about Deadpool and they said it took seven or nine years. Yeah, well, funny you mentioned it because Shambler very much is in the vein of Deadpool that was actually created before Deadpool. But through the ages, they've done modern day adaptations of werewolves and vampires and Frankenstein but they've never done a modern day mummy that wasn't based on old Egypt or anything like that. So the Shambler is kind of a punk rock mummy movie where he's wrapped in crime scene tape and the whole tagline is he's a walking crime scene but he's kind of a monster hero. It's done, I love horror comedies, okay? You look at stuff like James Gunn did with Slyther or whatever, stuff like that. I love stuff like that or Evil Dead 2, that kind of thing. So Shambler's very much in that vein that it's a lot of laughs, a lot of violence, a lot of laughs. But that was a huge market. I mentioned a lot of laughs. A lot of laughs. Okay, so we're gonna make that right here in Florida. That's exciting. It's gonna be great. And timing is one of those things you hear so much about either your timing's good, your timing's bad or the timing was perfect or you were in the right time at the right place. We were talking about Hercules. When you started the Hercules series, it actually got ahead of the curve in terms of coming out before Wolverine, right? Well, the thing was Marvel wanted to create the first miniseries in comic history. Up to that point, every comic that was ever produced was an ongoing thing. They had an idea of doing contained stories. There was something they, a package they wanted to experiment with. So they asked, two people asked me and they asked Frank Miller. Oh, Sin City, right. Yeah, Sin City's Frank Miller, but this was early, young Frank Miller and young Bob Layton, basically to create the first two miniseries in Marvel history. And I happened to be faster than Frank. So. You were the first to finish the miniseries. But I was also writer-artist. I was doing everything on it. So it was a one-man band kind of thing. But yeah, so I actually got the credit as the first miniseries in comic book history because I actually finished mine two weeks earlier than Frank's, so they were able to publish it first. Right. But as I said, Wolverine actually sold better. Yes, Wolverine is better remembered. But Hercules is an iconic historic mythological character, comic book character, feature film, TV shows. But he was never a major character in the Marvel Universe. And my thought was to create something that was relevant and bring him into that because they already had Thor, but they didn't have anything from the Greek pantheon of characters. But mine turned out to be a space opera with him being drunk and hanging out with a robot in a transvestite. Oh, sounds completely like historical Hercules. No, I'm just kind of a Barbarella fan. So my Hercules are more like a male Barbarella, you know? Are you listening to that, ladies? You know, a male Barbarella. It's time the women had something to root for. But over the years, I've done over 900 pages of Hercules stuff. I would go back and I would do another miniseries and I'd go back and do a grabbing novel and I'd go back and do another miniseries. And I would just kind of keep that little space saga going, you know? Which was way fun, but it was very tongue-in-cheek. I love doing comedies, and I'm sure... And Sapptire and parody, all right. You know me, it's like, I'm not a very serious person. You know that. Yes, but you're a very talented person. You take your work seriously. Yeah, but I like to make people laugh. So a lot of my movies will have comedy elements to them without a doubt. Right, and we're gonna have you speaking at other places in Sarasota County and people will be hearing more and more about your career and your accomplishments and they'll hear some of what you said here today in more detail. I think we are gonna take a break, but then we'll be back to close the show. So stay with us, don't go away. The Automotive Service Technology Program at Suncoast Technical College prepares students for careers in high-demand areas of automotive specialization, such as brakes, suspension and steering, electrical systems, engine repair, transmission and transaxles, heating and air conditioning, and much more. For more information, log on to suncoast.edu or call 941-924-1365. Suncoast Technical College, career in a year. Welcome back, you're watching Suncoast Spotlight, courtesy of the Education Channel and Suncoast Technical College and the Sarasota County Film and Entertainment Office. I'm your host, Jeannie Corcoran, the film commissioner for your region and my wonderful guest today, Bob Layton. Too many talents to list in the closing portion of our show, but if you've been watching, you know the list is long and you travel all the time. Tell me about your travels. Well that's one of the things about my job that I love the most, you know, because the phenomenon of comic book conventions has exploded all over the world. I mean, one of the great things now with Iron Man and Ant-Man being such international phenomena is because Iron Man is huge in China and it's like huge in Japan and all around the world that just amazes me. I mean, next year I'm going to New Delhi, India and to St. Petersburg, Russia, you know, all because of the phenomenon of Iron Man and Ant-Man and the Avengers stuff. But for me, you know, too, I love traveling. I'm one of those glutton's for punishment. I really love to travel. So in fact, next week after we're done here with this event, I'm off to Scotland. You know, I'm going to spend my birthday doing a con in Scotland and then I come back here and then I'm off to Luca, Italy and to Belgium after that, yeah. And you don't get jet lag. No, not really. But it's so much fun to meet people who've been reading this stuff, printed another language. It's for 40 years, you know, and they're so excited when they finally get a chance to meet you in person. And I love that. I love it because I can go visit a city in a foreign country and people come to me. They come to see me. So it's not like I have to go out and find them. They come to me and they tell me where to go and what's good, exactly what I need to see. And you know, it's amazing for now. I mean, the love I feel from the fans is amazing. And the fact that I get to see really interesting places and they pay for them, I mentioned that. They pay for everything. We have a very interesting clip. I hope they can roll it in here of you many years ago at an early signing and appearance and then you have a mustache. That cheesy mustache. Oh my God, it's so awful. Yes, I know. I don't know where my videographer, Jason, found that at. But I'm like, really? This is the clip you found with the cheesy mustache. I obviously had no self-awareness at that point. Actually, you were just, you were in the trend of the era. Oh, I was. You look hip back then. I think I was 25. So you're just gonna be making movies in the Tampa Bay area. You're gonna probably adapt them to graphic novels, possibly comic books, and just possibly video games. Who knows? You've got a busy time ahead. My biggest problem with the comics to film, okay? Let's say right now, as we were talking about earlier with Skip and James, that the comic book phenomenon, the characters have never been more popular, but the comic books aren't the place where people are jumping on. That's not the starting point for them now. You mean the print. The print medium. It's Arrow, it's the Avengers movie. It's Iron Man and it's, you know, it's not Batman v Superman, but, you know, it's like. No fans of Michael. No, yeah, no fans of Michael. But I'm just saying it's that popular culture in film and television, Daredevil and Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. Even the secret agents of Marvel. Yeah, agents of Marvel. Shield, right? That's become the jumping on point for people now, you know? It's a whole different thing. But if those people are interested in the comics and they go by some odd chance, find a comic book shop, the comics are totally different than the movie and TV properties. So it's one of those things where the colors and cups don't match, where people go to get more of what they saw on TV and it doesn't bear any resemblance to it at all. There's a disconnect between the two industries. So, you know, my idea was to basically create properties for film or for television, but release the comic book simultaneously and the fact that it's exactly like the show, you know? And video games, they're doing a lot of that, video game releases that are simultaneous to major film. That's the mobility that I will have. That's the agility I will have here in Florida to do something like that. Well, we're looking forward to it. And we really just so appreciate you having been here, Bob. Thank you for being such a good sport. I always love chatting with you. If they gave you an Academy Award for being a good sport, Bob would get it. So, you've been great. Thanks for being with us. And to all of you watching, tune in to Suncoast Spotlight next time and enjoy more wonderful people like this. Thanks for being here.