Legendary Artist Pat Broderick Talking Career and Bronze Star Comic
Legendary Artist, Pat Broderick, at the inaugural Fan Expo San Francisco, holding up original art for his creator-owned series, BRONZE STAR (Image credit: Chris Doucher/GeekNerdNet)
This audio interview was conducted by Chris Doucher, Editor-in-Chief, Writer and Comic Panel Moderator for GeekNerdNet. (Image credits to: Pat Broderick and GeekNerdNet)
I caught up with legendary artist Patrick (Pat) Broderick, and his wife—also Pat—at the inaugural Fan Expo San Francisco. It was so great to be welcomed so graciously by Pat and his wife. The soft-spoken legend carved out quite a bit of time to talk about his career, as well as his creator-owned series, BRAVE STAR. As Broderick describes himself when discussing the beginning of his career: “First, I’m old as dirt….broke into comics in 1973. DC was sponsoring an art contest (DC COMICS: JUNIOR BULLPEN) for new talent…” a contest he would win. There is a lot more to this story and whom he approached at the time to get noticed. Be sure to listen to the story. It’s fantastic!And, in the summer of 1972, Broderick made his way to New York City to make his start in comics with DC. Broderick goes on to say: “…eventually met Neal Adams, and my life changed from that point on. And, started drawing comics for $35 a page.” Broderick, when living in New York, also is when he was introduced by Neal to advertising and storyboard art work. Fast forward to 2014, after years of teaching, when Broderick got back into doing comics again. It wasn’t an easy return, unfortunately. He talks about companies wanting to go with younger creators, his hooking up with a failing comic book company (Future Comics) at the time—which he says was “a bad choice.” Eventually, as we hit 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic pretty much shut the industry down for a while—along with the rest of the world. Out of this came an exciting co-creator-owned series, BRONZE STAR, with Eisner Award winning writer Mike Baron. (*UPDATE: The comic was successfully funded, and can now be found for purchase via Mike Baron’s site.)
Now, go on, hit play below and listen to the full Pat Broderick interview.