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MONSTERS AND MADMEN
THE ART OF RANDY BROECKER
RANDY BROECKER loves monsters and illustrates stories.
He’ll do a bookplate here. A bag for a bookstore there. Even a book jacket for a book collector. But it all comes from and relates to his deep love of fantasy and horror stories. He’s now been doing it for thirty years.
And if you’re familiar with his work, you know it’s not enough for Randy to just illustrate a scene. He exaggerates, enhances, pushes the image to extremes; always within the context of the story, always true to the words on the paper, but always adding something more. It’s his integrity, imagination, and intention to keep to the spirit of the author’s words that make these illustrations outstanding. He labors over them intensely. He surrounds himself with scraps of paper containing half- finished ideas, rejected layouts. Almost-finished parts of the whole are stacked neatly while he works. He’ll finish a small piece and then redo it totally, because something wasn’t right. On his larger pieces, where he doesn’t have that luxury, he laboriously, painstakingly makes sure that he doesn’t make a mistake. It takes time. This is serious stuff for him.
As a result, he gets great joy from his art. He loves to show you the finished pieces, and point out the details he’s added, chuckling over this little ghoul’s expression, or the addition of that tentacle, or how he was able to fit in that character or plot detail. Little visual puns and in-jokes permeate his work, without ever lessening the effectiveness of any piece.
The Art of the Fantastic is the only place large enough and diverse enough to hold his exuberance and imagination. He delights in it all. Go to his home and see the glass case displaying monster toys and dinosaurs not five feet from an original H. M. Brock painting, and you’ll understand.
American Fantasy Press is assembling a 30-year retrospective volume of Broecker’s artwork for 2010. In its 192 pages will be hundreds of illustrations, most never before collected. Get your copy of Monsters and Madmen and visit the weird art of one of American fantasy’s best stylists.
CLICK HERE TO BE PUT ON THE LIST TO RECEIVE E-MAILS ABOUT THE RELEASE DATE AND SPECIAL PROMOTIONS FOR MONSTERS AND MADMEN Add to M&M Mailing List
“Tentacles, skulls, skeletons, demons —
illustrations that would be right at home in the
horror comics of yesteryear — Broecker
takes such glee in his work that he drags you
into his imagination before you know it.”
— Ellen Datlow—
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror
about The Broecker Sampler
BEFORE MONSTERS AND MADMEN, THERE WAS THE BROECKER SAMPLER ORDER THIS
OCHAPBOOK HERE
All Artwork Copyright Randy Broecker. All Rights Reserved
