KENNY OMEGA: Rob Schamberger Newsletter 03JUL25
Waited for the sign, waited for the moment.
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Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. Look at your future, look at your burning sky.
WORDS
For my new Kenny Omega painting I wanted to do a hybrid of traditional portraiture with some modern-ish watercolor techniques. It kind of feels like an 1800’s portrait of some admiral or something you’d see in an old manor, but with some non-traditional colors and then the mist-like fading of his face into the dark background. Fun piece to make!
UPCOMING AEW/PWT PRINTS
Skye Blue
Kyle Fletcher
The Young Bucks
Mina Shirakawa
Thekla
Card subject to change.
Mystery Signed Prints now at Shop AEW! Save on shipping and get one or two with your Kenny Omega print.
Rob’s Art on ShopAEW
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Rob and Jason Arnett's novella Rudow Can't Fail!
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Rob’s prints and shirts at Pro Wrestling Tees
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Bluesky
Cara
YouTube
ART I LIKE
In my personal opinion, America’s actual greatest and most influential artist is Jack ‘The King’ Kirby. He’s most well-known for co-creating (or straight up creating, depending on whose stories you believe) the major comic book superheroes like Captain America, Iron Man, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Thor, the New Gods and Darkseid, and so many more. See? His influence on our culture is unmistakable. He also did a lot of animation design work, notably for the Ruby Spears classic Thundarr the Barbarian.
But beyond all of that, the King was a wildly innovative and bold artist. I chose a few examples of his non-comics works to just speak to his unmistakable style. Above is my personal favorite, a space helmet he designed. Doesn’t that send your imagination in a million different directions?
This is a part of his reimagining of the Norse Gods, separate from when he did a definitive version of that with The Mighty Thor. Kirby didn’t color his own work so often and his bold yet discordant palette is just as innovative as his designs and linework. Also, another helmet that sends my imagination into the stratosphere!
Back in the 1970’s Jack was commissioned by the NFL to reimagine their uniforms as a feature in their Pro! magazine. It had his absolutely wild designs and also a few illustrations showing them in action, like the above. Look at that ball glowing with Kirby Krackles (that’s what those signature ‘dots’ are called in the biz). The man couldn’t do anything less than mythic, could he?
Finally, did you know that Jack Kirby’s art helped free the US hostages during the Iran Hostage Crisis? True story! He was hired to do concept art for a Middle-Eastern theme park, called Lord of Light. The project didn’t go anywhere (a goddam shame), but the CIA got ahold of Jack’s illustrations and used them to pose as a film crew that was in Iran to scout locations. If that sounds familiar, yes, the movie Argo is based on that operation.
So, like, yeah, his comics were a portal to a bold and exciting world for me as a kid (and still now as an adult) but holy moly his art also saved actual lives just like the heroes he created did in their stories.
The colors!
IMPORTANT GARDEN UPDATE
My Indian spike has started its second round of flowering this week and baby it’s fabulous. Those spikes shoot up in unison from a stalk and then they start each opening into these glorious orange and yellow blooms. An absolute stunner.
Love you more,
Rob