MattBrady
03-16-2007, 07:15 AM
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/Image/FromLife/drawingfromlife_01.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Image/FromLife/t_drawingfromlife_01.jpg" border="0" align="right"></a><i>by Ryan Mclelland</i>
One can’t say that Jim Valentino is returning to comics since the iconic mainstay has been doing comics consistently for the last nearly thirty years. With Image Comics’s new release <b>Drawing From Life</b> we are treated to Valentino at his best as the head of Image Comics’ Shadowline imprint delves back into a new autobiographical comic for the first time in nearly a decade.
Valentino is perhaps most well known for his creation <b>Shadowhawk</b>, his beloved run on Marvel’s <b>Guardians of the Galaxy</b>, and his time as Image Comics Publisher which saw the comic company flourish with mainstream and independent comics alike. This bridge always seemed second-nature to a pro like Valentino who could go from a creation like his book <b>normalman</b> to the daunting mystery of who was his vigilante <b>Shadowhawk</b>? With <b>Drawing From Life</b> we see Valentino going back to a personal level like what he had accomplished before in books like his semi-autobiographical <b>A Touch of Silver</b> and hearkening back to his self-titled book <b>Valentino</b> or his underground indy comic roots with titles like <b>Almost Normal Comix</b> and <b>F$%#in’ A Funnies</b>. For those who have never read Valentino in this sort of capacity are truly in for an unique look at the struggles of every day life where everything from sex to parenthood to the struggle of trying to break into comics is covered.
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/Image/FromLife/dfl_A-Day-At-the-Beach-page.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Image/FromLife/t_dfl_A-Day-At-the-Beach-page.jpg" border="0" align="left"></a>So what exactly is <b>Drawing From Life</b>? “It's an auto-biographic black and white comic,” said Valentino. “All [of the stories], save one, were drawn in the last couple of months. A couple of them were scribbled out for a future Valentino book and a couple more were verbal stories. Almost all of the auto-bio stories start out as verbal tellings. That's where I get the timing down for them and, according to Kris [Simon – Shadowline’s editor], they're far better told than they are on paper. Each story is separate entity unto itself. There's no continuity save for they all happened to the same person, me. The old one is "Th' Kid'z First Sale" it's never been reprinted before (the story is circa 1980). I was going to re-draw it, but then I figured, screw it, I just ran it as is. Hopefully young struggling artists will relate.”
The question comes to mind why now for an autobiographical book, was there something that Valentino just had to get out? “No, I've been going through this weird re-visiting stage--<b>normalman, ShadowHawk</b>, and now this. It was also due to constant harping by friends Charles Brownstein, Eric Stephenson and Kris Simon,” said Valentino who then joked. “I guess it's a sign of encroaching senility. That or an act of desperation. Take your pick, I'm not proud.”
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/Image/FromLife/dfl_A-Talk-With-Deni-page-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Image/FromLife/t_dfl_A-Talk-With-Deni-page-1.jpg" border="0" align="right"></a>In a world where superheroes have seemed to taken over the comic book market, Valentino’s Shadowline imprint seems to be the one mainstream publisher that consistently puts out some of the best unique comic books in the market today, a fact that Valentino is quite modest about. “Shadowline is dedicated to offering a diverse line of titles from super-heroes with a twist to more indy style books,” Valentino said. “Genre classifications are not relevant to our publishing philosophy not is format, thus some of our books are in color, others in black-and-white and soon we'll be moving into art books, original graphic novels, etc.”
“<b>Drawing From Life</b> adds to that diversity of content. If you like comics with a more indie flavor, humor, real life weirdness you'll like this book.”
<b>Drawing From Life</b> draws from a wide array of Valentino’s own experiences which sometimes are funny simply because they are funny and sometimes horrifying because you feel bad for some of the bad times that Jim had gone through over the years. One story has a young Valentino going to work for a mulleted man who has a vision of the <i>next big thing</i> in comics. Jim, a newbie who is looking to be the next big thing but is also concerned about making money for him and his wife, comes across Greg who is looking to do a line of black and gold clothing drawn out into a calendar. The new boss obviously doesn’t know much about women or life in general and Valentino, during their first pow-wow, tries to put just the tiniest bit of sense into his new boss which is more or less trying to fit that round peg in the square hole. Suffice to say Jim doesn’t get through to the guy and settles back for the role of ‘opinionated artist who hates his current job working for an idiot but can sure use the money’. Of course as time goes in things only go from bad to worse as the reader laughs and cringes while we can only watch what Valentino has gotten himself into when he responded to the ad looking for a comic artist.
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/Image/FromLife/dfl_elephants.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Image/FromLife/t_dfl_elephants.jpg" border="0" align="left"></a>These stories are brought to the comic page perfectly capturing the ups and downs of Valentino’s life with wit and passionate artwork. “There are some horror stories,” he added about some of the content of <b>Drawing From Life</b>, but as for young comic creators coming off with some lessons learned Valentino isn’t so sure. “I can't say what anyone will walk away with, that's up to them. I'm just telling the stories.” As for the feelings of drawing his newest autobiographic masterpiece Valentino noted, “It's kind of like looking at old photographs. You remember that person used to be you and those people used to be in your life, but you’re not necessarily that individual anymore so you can look back with some humor or some perspective.”
<b>Drawing From Life</b> certainly hasn’t been off the radar, with the book being on the cover of Diamond’s <i>Previews</i> catalog for books shipping in May. Even with the coverage Valentino isn’t sure about the consistency of putting out his newest opus, “I would call this an ‘occasional’ book. There may be another in six months, there may be another in six years, I can't say. Remember these books tell <i>me</i> when they're coming, I have no control over them.”
Being the head of Shadowline and putting out <b>Drawing From Life</b> still doesn’t keep the legend from working hard on a prose book that he’s been wanting to do for ages. And even a legend can still dream of projects he’d love to do, “I've always wanted to work on the Justice Society--that would be my fanboy dream.”
<i>Jim Valentino’s <b>Drawing From Life</b>, a 32-page black and white comic, reaches comic stores this May from Image Comics.</I>
One can’t say that Jim Valentino is returning to comics since the iconic mainstay has been doing comics consistently for the last nearly thirty years. With Image Comics’s new release <b>Drawing From Life</b> we are treated to Valentino at his best as the head of Image Comics’ Shadowline imprint delves back into a new autobiographical comic for the first time in nearly a decade.
Valentino is perhaps most well known for his creation <b>Shadowhawk</b>, his beloved run on Marvel’s <b>Guardians of the Galaxy</b>, and his time as Image Comics Publisher which saw the comic company flourish with mainstream and independent comics alike. This bridge always seemed second-nature to a pro like Valentino who could go from a creation like his book <b>normalman</b> to the daunting mystery of who was his vigilante <b>Shadowhawk</b>? With <b>Drawing From Life</b> we see Valentino going back to a personal level like what he had accomplished before in books like his semi-autobiographical <b>A Touch of Silver</b> and hearkening back to his self-titled book <b>Valentino</b> or his underground indy comic roots with titles like <b>Almost Normal Comix</b> and <b>F$%#in’ A Funnies</b>. For those who have never read Valentino in this sort of capacity are truly in for an unique look at the struggles of every day life where everything from sex to parenthood to the struggle of trying to break into comics is covered.
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/Image/FromLife/dfl_A-Day-At-the-Beach-page.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Image/FromLife/t_dfl_A-Day-At-the-Beach-page.jpg" border="0" align="left"></a>So what exactly is <b>Drawing From Life</b>? “It's an auto-biographic black and white comic,” said Valentino. “All [of the stories], save one, were drawn in the last couple of months. A couple of them were scribbled out for a future Valentino book and a couple more were verbal stories. Almost all of the auto-bio stories start out as verbal tellings. That's where I get the timing down for them and, according to Kris [Simon – Shadowline’s editor], they're far better told than they are on paper. Each story is separate entity unto itself. There's no continuity save for they all happened to the same person, me. The old one is "Th' Kid'z First Sale" it's never been reprinted before (the story is circa 1980). I was going to re-draw it, but then I figured, screw it, I just ran it as is. Hopefully young struggling artists will relate.”
The question comes to mind why now for an autobiographical book, was there something that Valentino just had to get out? “No, I've been going through this weird re-visiting stage--<b>normalman, ShadowHawk</b>, and now this. It was also due to constant harping by friends Charles Brownstein, Eric Stephenson and Kris Simon,” said Valentino who then joked. “I guess it's a sign of encroaching senility. That or an act of desperation. Take your pick, I'm not proud.”
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/Image/FromLife/dfl_A-Talk-With-Deni-page-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Image/FromLife/t_dfl_A-Talk-With-Deni-page-1.jpg" border="0" align="right"></a>In a world where superheroes have seemed to taken over the comic book market, Valentino’s Shadowline imprint seems to be the one mainstream publisher that consistently puts out some of the best unique comic books in the market today, a fact that Valentino is quite modest about. “Shadowline is dedicated to offering a diverse line of titles from super-heroes with a twist to more indy style books,” Valentino said. “Genre classifications are not relevant to our publishing philosophy not is format, thus some of our books are in color, others in black-and-white and soon we'll be moving into art books, original graphic novels, etc.”
“<b>Drawing From Life</b> adds to that diversity of content. If you like comics with a more indie flavor, humor, real life weirdness you'll like this book.”
<b>Drawing From Life</b> draws from a wide array of Valentino’s own experiences which sometimes are funny simply because they are funny and sometimes horrifying because you feel bad for some of the bad times that Jim had gone through over the years. One story has a young Valentino going to work for a mulleted man who has a vision of the <i>next big thing</i> in comics. Jim, a newbie who is looking to be the next big thing but is also concerned about making money for him and his wife, comes across Greg who is looking to do a line of black and gold clothing drawn out into a calendar. The new boss obviously doesn’t know much about women or life in general and Valentino, during their first pow-wow, tries to put just the tiniest bit of sense into his new boss which is more or less trying to fit that round peg in the square hole. Suffice to say Jim doesn’t get through to the guy and settles back for the role of ‘opinionated artist who hates his current job working for an idiot but can sure use the money’. Of course as time goes in things only go from bad to worse as the reader laughs and cringes while we can only watch what Valentino has gotten himself into when he responded to the ad looking for a comic artist.
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/Image/FromLife/dfl_elephants.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/Image/FromLife/t_dfl_elephants.jpg" border="0" align="left"></a>These stories are brought to the comic page perfectly capturing the ups and downs of Valentino’s life with wit and passionate artwork. “There are some horror stories,” he added about some of the content of <b>Drawing From Life</b>, but as for young comic creators coming off with some lessons learned Valentino isn’t so sure. “I can't say what anyone will walk away with, that's up to them. I'm just telling the stories.” As for the feelings of drawing his newest autobiographic masterpiece Valentino noted, “It's kind of like looking at old photographs. You remember that person used to be you and those people used to be in your life, but you’re not necessarily that individual anymore so you can look back with some humor or some perspective.”
<b>Drawing From Life</b> certainly hasn’t been off the radar, with the book being on the cover of Diamond’s <i>Previews</i> catalog for books shipping in May. Even with the coverage Valentino isn’t sure about the consistency of putting out his newest opus, “I would call this an ‘occasional’ book. There may be another in six months, there may be another in six years, I can't say. Remember these books tell <i>me</i> when they're coming, I have no control over them.”
Being the head of Shadowline and putting out <b>Drawing From Life</b> still doesn’t keep the legend from working hard on a prose book that he’s been wanting to do for ages. And even a legend can still dream of projects he’d love to do, “I've always wanted to work on the Justice Society--that would be my fanboy dream.”
<i>Jim Valentino’s <b>Drawing From Life</b>, a 32-page black and white comic, reaches comic stores this May from Image Comics.</I>