[2] While in school Saladino did some comic-book inking for Lloyd Jacquet's "Funnies, Inc.", one of several "packagers" of the time that produced outsourced comics for publishers entering the new medium.

[2] After graduating from high school, Saladino enlisted in the U.S. Army, which stationed him in Japan in a public relations capacity.

In 1949, he approached DC Comics, where production chief Sol Harrison showed Saladino's art samples to editors.

In the late 1950s and 1960s, Saladino was a mainstay on DC editor Julius Schwartz's books, like Strange Adventures, Mystery in Space, Justice League of America, The Flash, Showcase, and many more.

From 1976 to 1977, he lettered the Los Angeles Times Syndicate comic strip The Virtue of Vera Valiant,[7] by writer Stan Lee and artist Frank Springer.

[9] He also did the lettering for cover blurbs for a wide variety of titles and for seasonal house ads that ran in several issues at a time.

[5] In the 1990s he designed product logos for the Lucky Mojo Curio Company, a metaphysical supply manufactory founded by Catherine Yronwode, the former editor-in-chief of Eclipse Comics.

When producing house ads or cover blurbs, he sometimes altered the standard letterforms in order to interlock letters.

It was in the pages of this series that he created the concept of character-designated fonts, with Swamp Thing's distinctive outlined, "drippy" letters.