Jim Valentino (born October 28, 1952) is an American writer, penciler, editor and publisher of comic books, best known for his 1990–1992 work on Guardians of the Galaxy for Marvel Comics, and for co-founding Image Comics, a company publishing creator-owned comics. At Image Comics, Valentino produced books such as the superhero vigilante series ShadowHawk, and the 1997 semi-autobiographical black and white book A Touch of Silver. Valentino also served as publisher of Image from 1999 to 2003, during which he oversaw the diversification of Image's publication through his discovery of creators such as Robert Kirkman, who co-created the critically and commercially successful comic book The Walking Dead. Early life Jim Valentino was born on October 28, 1952 in the Bronx, New York. Career 1970s–1992 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. 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