At age 17, he attended the Detroit Triple Fan Fair convention, where he met his hero Jim Steranko, and also crossed paths with Chaykin for the first time.
Bruzenak assisted Steranko on the first fifty issues of Comixscene/Prevue, as well as other concurrent projects, such as Marvel's official fan magazine, FOOM (Bruzenak was the associate editor); the illustrated novel Chandler: Red Tide, the comic book adaptation of the film Outland; and various paperback covers and posters.
Bruzenak's duties during this time were varied, basically comprising all aspects of publishing, from research, editing, copy-editing, and proof-reading; to lettering, paste-up, operating a stat camera, and other production skills.
Readers took notice — as did editors for other companies — and Bruzenak soon became the industry's first "celebrity letterer," getting more offers for jobs than he was able to take on — even with his famous non-stop work ethic.
in 1986, Bruzenak has gone on to letter much of Chaykin's later work, including Time2 (1986), Blackhawk (1987), Black Kiss (1988), the short-lived second volume of American Flagg!
[1] Bruzenak won the coveted Harvey Award for Best Letterer three consecutive years, from 1988–1990, for his work on American Flagg!, Mr. Monster, and Black Kiss.