I had the opportunity to meet Brom but chose not to.

I arrived at Robin's Bookstore early. Brom was to read from his latest illustrated novel called, 'The Devil's Rose'. Before the talk I flipped through some great McKean/Gaiman collaborations and some Roald Dahl collections I want to read sooner than later. I noticed that not many people were in the building. I overheard some lady say, 'it's quite in here', after I had thought the same thing ten minutes prior. I began feeling sorry for Brom at this point. He's a well established sci-fi illustrator creating a career out of painting skin tight latex vixens with blood soaked swords and dark winged beasts in ashen landscapes, but on this day he was nobody in particular. Nobody showed up to hear him talk about his new book which he spent long hours making.
The talk was supposed to start at six, upstairs. I flipped through a book on minotaurs while several people approached him for signatures in their new purchased book; one a fan, another an employee, and another who said ,'you're like my favorite artist of all time!' Brom responded with pause then, 'Wow!' I almost felt embarrassed for him. I thought of what I would ask him, I thought about asking him about his early career: how he got started in illustrative work, how things got rolling for him, but then I quickly began to think that anything he were to tell me about that would be relative to his experience. That I really didn't need or care to know that anyway. He probably did what had to be done at the time for him. I walked out of there at six thirty two and not a person was sitting down in the provided chairs to hear him read from his book. Only three people came up to him to get signatures. He told the same joke about getting 'in line' to all three fans. I over heard him saying to one of the fans in response to the turn out that, 'you never know what to expect. Sometimes it's a hundred people and sometimes you only get four or five.'
I left not talking with Brom because I didn't want him to tell me what I already told myself; that you have to 'get the work out there' any way you can, everywhere you can. People will take notice if it's good. Also, that twenty years down the road I could be in this same scenario as Brom, with noone to read my work to, and I laughed because it didn't bother me. I don't think it bothered Brom either really.