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Jim Valentino on Normal Man and breaking into comics
Omar: So, I wanted to start by asking you, how do you, like what was your first experience as a fan in comics? Like what did you kind of…
Jim: As a fan or as a reader?
Omar: As a reader, as a fan, whatever you were reading that kind of got you into comics.
Jim: The first comic I remember actually reading was when I was about four years old at a cousin’s house in Long Island. And he had this coverless copy of this book that this guy in read spandex who was chasing after the slowest guy in the world, and it wasn't until years later that I realized that was Showcase 4.
Omar: Wow!
Jim: That’s just far back as it goes.
Omar: Yeah, that’s incredible. So, that was like the Flash and the turtle?
Jim: Yeah.
Omar: That's really cool to kind of know that you kind of grew up on the same kind of comics we all did because I feel like my first comic book was a Flash book. So, after that, like what was your first kind of like working in comics job? Like how did you know you kind of wanted to work in comics?
Jim: Oh, I always wanted to work in comics. All my life, there was never a time when I didn't want to do comics. The first way I started was doing what we used to call mini-comics, small press comics. So, they were homemade jobbers that you did on the Xerox machine because printing like that had become easily accessible during the mid-70's, like that, or something, so, that's basically where I started. And then, I went on from there to doing like normal-man for Aardvark-Vanaheim, and eventually, Marvel and Image.
Omar: So, let's go back to your Normal-man days, and you started that - like before that, you were doing like little Ashcans for in the back of Cerebus, is that right? Like little kind of add-on stories that…
Jim: And Cerebus, yeah. I had done one story in Cerebus 50, that had come from those small press comics. And then, I met Deni Loubert at San Diego Comic-Con, and she had talked to me before the show about possibly doing a book for them, but had told me that Dave Sim was kind of worried that I'd get them into trouble because my comics were not safe for work. So, I came up with something really innocuous, I lived in a part of San Diego called Normal Heights and I came up with Normal-Man.
Omar: There was also an Image book you did with Normal-man and not too long ago.
Jim: Oh yeah. There were a couple of them. There was one that was the 20th anniversary or something like that, and then, we just reprinted Normal-man, Megaton man in the back splitting image, 80-page drawing. Then I did a collection of all the Normal-man stuff called The Complete Normal-man, which someone asked if I do another Normal-Man, what story are we going to call it? And I said, “well, the Completer Normal-Man”, just make sense.
Omar: It makes sense to keep it growing, then it’s going to be the Completest after that.
Jim: And the Completest and the Completer.
Omar: So, what was like you first job writing in comic books? Like how do you know to write and draw, like what was the process like?
Jim: I always did, just always did both.
Omar: Like in high school or in elementary school?
Jim: Yeah, always did both. A lot of the stories that I wrote in the autobiographical books were stories that were told orally and got the timing down and everything. And then, when I was ready to draw them, I knew exactly how to do it.
Omar: Yeah. Because it's in your head, you don't have to…
Jim: Yeah, but I always did both, they were never separate to me.
Omar: So, you practiced just drawing class and kind of just getting better or did you attend like a formal school formally here?
Jim: No, I never attended any kind of formal school. I just drew on everything, whether it was moving or not.
Omar: I love it. |