We were lucky to catch up with Steven Bejma recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Steven, thanks for joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

My dad was a horror movie guy so that made me one too. He always said that when I was 5 years old my father and I sat down and watched Frankenstein on Halloween and he said that within the first 10 minutes he knew I was hooked on horror movies

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am 62 year old self taught oil painter, I grew up reading all the horror comics I could get my hands on. Titles like Creepy, Eeeie, Vampirella and of course Famous Monsters Magazine. I knew thats what I wanted to do when I grew up was to be one of the guys that drew horror comics. I was drawn to the covers of those magazines, painted by people like Basil Gogos, Frank Frazetta and Ken Kelly, all became childhood idols of mine.

So now I do Horror Movie Cons and Comic Cons all over the country. I sell my original Oil Paintings along with T-shirts, Enamel pins, button, Pint Glasses and anything else I can think of to decorate with my artwork.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

For me It’s getting out to Comic Cons and connecting with fans and meeting new people, finding out what they like, talking movies, comics and most of the time connecting on a much more personal level as oppsed to just selling merchandise online.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I started out in the screen printing industry when I was only 13 years old, drawing designs for t-shirts, I enjoyed that a lot and only occasionally dabbled in oil painting, but as I got a little older I always knew I loved painting and thought that I should give it a serious try before I got to old to have any success. So in my early 40’s I decided to give comic cons a try and see if I could find some success, a few years into it I started newtworking and got my first professional paint job, I did a cover for Scarlet Film Magazine and things picked up from there.

Now I do DVD covers for Synapse Films and Impusle picture, they restore old horror movies and I get to do the cover work for many of the title they restore

Contact Info:

• Website: Claasic Horrors 13.etsy
• Facebook: Stevenbejmaclassichorrors
• Youtube: Classic Horrors by Steven J Bejma

Image Credits
yes I have the rights to use these images from Synapse Films and Impulse Pictures