1970s–1992

Cover to The Complete normalman trade paperback collecting the series

Valentino began his career in the late 1970s,creating small press and mostly autobiographical comics. The early-mid-1980s saw normalman, which first appeared as a back-up story in Aardvark-Vanaheim's comic book series Cerebus. Aardvark-Vanaheim's Dave Sim and Deni Loubert (Sim's wife at the time) began publishing normalman as a 13-issue limited series but only did so until #8, when Loubert began her own publishing company, Renegade Press, which finished the series. Renegade also published three issues of Valentino's self-titled series in the mid-late 1980s.

In the late 1980s, Valentino began working for Marvel Comics on their superhero titles. He was writer/artist on the future-set superhero series Guardians of the Galaxy, selected issues of What If...?, and fill-ins on most of Marvel's major titles. Valentino, a longtime fan of Guardians of the Galaxy, submitted his pitch for a new series on the group to editor-in-chief Tom DeFalco at the 1989 WonderCon. Coincidentally, DeFalco had already written his own proposal for a Guardians of the Galaxy series, but preferred Valentino's, and approved that proposal instead. That book launched in June 1990 and ran for 62 issues. This series was initially written and illustrated by Valentino, who’d plotted the series ahead as far as issue #50, but his run was cut short when he co-founded Image Comics. Having taken on two new series and the foundation of a publication company, Valentino asked editor Craig Anderson if he reduce his duties on the book to just writing, but was fired from the series.^[3]

Image Comics

Valentino left Marvel in 1992 to co-found Image Comics with Whilce Portacio, Erik Larsen, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane and Marc Silvestri. Valentino originated several projects at Image, which he published through his own Shadowline imprint. Unlike at Marvel, where Valentino worked on characters owned by that company, the original Shadowline titles, like all those of Image, were creator-owned. His first title under the Image banner was the super-hero series ShadowHawk, on which he was both writer and artist. In 1997 he began another series in black and white called A Touch of Silver, a semi-autobiographical book about a young comic book fan coming of age in the 1960s. Also during this time he repackaged most of his earliest autobiographical work into a trade paperback called Vignettes, with an introduction by Dave Sim.

In 1999 he became the publisher of Image Comics. Under his directorship the company diversified its line considerably. The results were mixed. On one hand, Valentino's efforts led to the discovery of a number of talented creators, including Robert Kirkman and Brian Michael Bendis. On the other hand, with the earlier departure of Marc Silvestri's Top Cow line from Image and the 1999 sale of Jim Lee's WildStorm lines to DC Comics, Image Comics saw a drop in overall sales. Still, he was able to turn the company's first profit in nearly a decade by opening new revenue streams such as sales to traditional book stores and libraries. The company managed to maintain its standing as number three in overall market share.^[4]

In 2003, Valentino was replaced as publisher of Image Comics by Erik Larsen, another co-founder of the company. Since then Valentino has resurrected Shadowline, his own arm of Image, and has published a revived ShadowHawk series, The Collected normalman, the auto-biographical Drawing From Life and creator owned properties including Bomb Queen, After the Cape and Sam Noir. He also serves on the board of directors of the comic industry charity The Hero Initiative and on its Disbursement Committee.^[5] In 2008 Valentino created Silverline Books, an all-ages imprint for original graphic novels.