I N F O

Born in the deep dark south in 1965. Brom, an Army brat, spent his entire youth on the move and unabashedly blames living in such places as Japan, Hawaii, Germany, and Alabama for all his afflictions. From his earliest memories Brom has been obsessed with the creation of the weird, the monstrous, and the beautiful.

At the age of twenty, Brom started working full-time as a commercial illustrator. Since that time Brom has been working feverishly for every facet of the genre, from novels (Michael Moorcock, Terry Brooks, R.A.Salvatore, E.R. Burroughs), Role-playing (TSR, White Wolf, WOTC), comics (DC, Chaos, Dark Horse), Games (Doom2, Heretic, Diablo2, World of Warcraft), and film (Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, Galaxy Quest, Ghosts of Mars, Scooby Doo, Van Helsing). Brom's powerful and haunting visions can be found in his two art books "Darkwerks" and "Offerings" and also his illustrated novel "the Plucker".

Most recently, Brom has turned his hand to writing a series of illustrated novels. His first novel "The Plucker" (a twisted children's book for adults) has over 100 paintings and received numerous nominations and was awarded a Chesley. His latest edition "The Devil's Rose" (a western set in Hell) is due out summer of 2007.

Brom is currently kept in a dank cellar somewhere in the drizzly Northwest. There he subsists on poison spiders, centipedes, and bad kung-fu flicks. When not eating bugs, he is ever writing, painting, and trying to reach a happy sing-a-long with the many demons dancing about in his head.

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The Paper Snarl interview

GOTHIC FETISHISM

Well, it was our interviewee himself who introduced the term, so I guess
it's fair enough to use it as a grab-'em headline, but the art of Brom, as
his countless devotees justifiably maintain, far transcends such
considerations. Although much of his subject matter concerns Heroic Fantasy
icons -- as you'd expect from someone who was for a long time a stalwart of
TSR -- none of it has the direct, in-your-face solidity exhibited by most
practitioners in this subgenre. Instead it has an almost uncanny feel to it,
making it appeal to fantasy lovers of all stripes, even those who normally
wouldn't concern themselves too much with Sword & Sorcery. Brom's a
habitually busy man, as you'll read, but he kindly agreed to take an hour
off to answer the Snarl's pestilential questions . . .

PS: When did you first become aware that you wanted to devote your life to
art, and when did you realize you could make a professional career out of
it?

B: I feel like I was born drawing -- it seems as far back as I can remember
I had a crayon in my hand, so I do not feel I ever made a conscious decision
to be an artist. I truly believe I was born with this affliction. As far as
making a living at it is concerned: Oddly I couldn't imagine myself doing
anything else -- not because I had great confidence in my abilities, there
just wasn't anything else I could do. So I ploughed ahead blindly and was
fortunate enough to land a rep right out of art school at age 20. I've been
working full-time ever since.

PS: Which other artists do you reckon have been a particular influence on
and inspiration to you?

B: I think a list of artists that did not influence me would be shorter, but
if I had to narrow it down to the individuals that made the most profound
impact . . . Frazetta, of course. I thrived on Richard Corben when I was
growing up. Involvement with Rick Berry has deeply scarred me (his is the
little voice that nags me when I paint, "Don't be a puss, use big brushes,
loosen up"). Dead people I like: Waterhouse, Mucha, N.C. Wyeth. And some
people find this hard to believe, but Norman Rockwell has always been a
favorite -- to me there simply is no better draftsman.

PS: From what areas outside the visual arts do you draw your inspiration? Are there any
particular written fantasies which you feel have contributed to the way you
see the fantasticated scenes and people you paint?

B: Literature has always been the first source of inspiration. Ever since I
started reading Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard as a kid I would
try and draw the visions these authors so vividly painted inside my head. In
my teens I devoured every Moorcock book I could get my hands on. His gothic
fantasy sort of led the way for my particular style of fantasy.

PS: Similarly, do you draw much inspiration from music?

B: A dramatic soundtrack can definitely help set the mood. Soundtracks from
'60s spaghetti westerns as well as the melodrama of Nick Cave are very dear to my heart.

PS: A lot of your works have a certain cold but powerful eroticism to them,
even when there's nothing overtly sensual about their subject. Is this a
conscious matter on your part, or does it just turn out that way?

B: I guess that is what years of involuntary celibacy will do to you. Hmmm…I do lean towards a gothic fetishism in my work, though I do not feel it is so much a conscious effort, more that it is simply where my aesthetics lie.

PS: How do you achieve that curious translucence of color that
characterizes so much of your work? What materials do you use?

B: I start with an acrylic underpainting and build up with oils, using the
oils to sculpt the forms.

PS: How did the long association with TSR come about? Was it through your
interest in the RPG world, or was it because they were among the major
commissioners of fantasy art at the time?

B: I had been working for four years as a commercial artist in Atlanta --
doing mostly product rendering -- and was to the point of slitting a wrist.
Somehow I managed to get together a fantasy portfolio between jobs. I sent
this off to TSR in the late 1980s and they hired me. I really did not even
have a clue who they were or what they did at that time, I had never even
played an RPG before working at TSR. I just knew they had an in-house art
studio that specialized in fantasy art. The opportunity to paint fantasy
full-time and develop my craft made it irresistible.

PS: Did the Dark Age collectible cards for Friedlander fulfill all your
ambitions for them, and what was it like to be commissioned for so many
paintings in such a short time from a single source?

B: The two years I worked for FPG were incredible from an artistic point of
view. For the first time I had complete control over my work, so, even
though I did close to 200 paintings in a year, I didn't burn out. It was
such a rush to get up each morning and just go where the paint took me. I
also art-directed the set so it was terrific to line up some of the top
talent in the industry and let them do their thing. It was like unwrapping
Christmas presents when the art started rolling in.

PS: How do you find it when you work in the comics field? Do you find the
medium inhibiting or releasing by comparison with your other fantasy work?

B: After years in this business I have found that variety is the key. If I
discover myself doing too much of any one sort of genre or approach I tend
to burn out. But mixing it up with some card art, cover art, movie
concepting, comics, etc., etc., keeps the process fresh.

PS: You've illustrated fiction by a number of prominent fantasy/sf writers,
notably Michael Moorcock. Is there any one particular author, aside from
these, whom you've always yearned to illustrate?

B: I would love to do more horror -- Clive Barker, Stephen King, Neil Gaimen etc. -- but
unfortunately those covers usually take on a more design or graphic look, so
they are not as open to illustration.

PS: And what of your own writing? What are your plans there?

B: I have just finished a novel -- a twisted little tale of foulness -- and
am in the process of illustrating it. I've completed about 15 of the 40
paintings I have planned. I'm hoping to have the whole book wrapped up by
Summer 2002.

PS: What's the single major piece of advice you'd give to new, young artists
contemplating entering the fantasy/sf field?

B: Mostly make sure you are building a career around something you really
love, because if you love what you do it makes it a lot easier to keep doing
it day after day, after day, after day, after day . . .

PS: Brom, thank you very much.