SHOP TALK: Rob Schamberger Newsletter 16MAR25
Burns like a red coal carpet.
Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. Gimme shelter or I'm gonna fade away.
WORDS
NEEDS: SHELTER
Watercolor on 12” x 16” watercolor paper
A place giving temporary protection from bad weather or danger.
I told you I was going to go full Caravaggio with this next set of the Needs Series! Model Doug has such a wonderful Classical look to him I couldn’t resist it.
Here’s my original sketch for this along with an early study done before we collaborated with Paul Andrews for the reference photoshoot. I’ve been working with Doug for several years now and I’m really looking forward to how this Safety section of the Human Needs Series turns out!
I haven’t been told which of these will be released on Thursday. Probably Joe but I don’t know for sure. I’ll let you know on Bluesky.
UPCOMING AEW/PWT PAINTINGS
Samoa Joe
Julia Hart
Will Ospreay
Mercedes Mone
Megan Bayne
Card subject to change.
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
Protect trans kids.
MYSTERY MAN
I had some AEW deadlines to meet this week so I didn’t have much time to work on Mystery Man, but I did manage to squeeze in a few minutes yesterday morning to design the antagonists he’s going to fight over the next couple pages. I don’t have a name for them yet, something like Bone Boyz that has a double entendre to it. In the original comic I made when I was 13 they were just nondescript barely-drawn muggers, so I thought it’d be fun to give them some seasoning this time around.
And yes, they’re pretty much going to be amalgams of Cobra characters from GI Joe with the Karate Kid Cobra Kai skeleton costumes. Grabbing from other things I thought were rad when I was a kid! Can’t wait to draw Mystery Man punching them in their fuggin faces.
WHAT I LIKED THIS WEEK
I’ve been inordinately excited for Dark Winds season three, especially since I didn’t think there was going to be a third season after how the second ended. Set in the Navajo Nation in the 70’s, it’s a gritty crime series populated with richly developed characters. I’m pretty much a sucker for anything Zahn McClarnon is in after his performance in Reservation Dogs, so a series where he’s a 70’s cop is right in my wheelhouse. I want to get into the Hillerman books the show is based on, too. Probably after I’m done with the Connelly books.
Righteous Gemstones season four is off to an outstanding start, with this Civil War tale of the first Gemstone to become a preacher. None of the regular cast is in it, which is one of those cool things earned by three seasons of goodwill. That said, I’m ready for Uncle Baby Billy’s next single to drop and to see what the family monster truck has been up to.
The beginning of Wheel of Time season three doesn’t pull any punches at all, leading off with a huge action set piece that shifts everything. I knew this was coming from having read several of the books but I didn’t expect it right out of the gate. Speaking of the books, I bailed on them after getting more and more tired of how the female characters were all written and how unlikable the lead character Rand was. It’s amazing how much the show corrects that, to the point it can be argued that the female cast are the leads and f%&*boi Rand is more there as a piece to be moved about by them. This then elevates the other male characters, who were all more compelling even in the books.
It’s also really horny and sexy and wonderfully queer, which is kind of amazing and I wonder if that gets to continue at Amazon or not, given their recent corporate ideological shifts. The horniness and sexiness is so very welcome too, in a culture of oddly sexless-yet-hyper-violent entertainment that dominates in America anymore.
1949 by Dustin Weaver is a fun excuse for Weaver to draw a bunch of cool stuff. It’s a story about a cyborg detective in the far future who sends her consciousness into 1949 to help another detective solve a murder. But that’s really just the interesting framework to allow Weaver to draw some outstanding scenes. There’s this one two-page spread of a coffee shop in the future that’s one of the prettiest dang things I’ve ever seen.
I’d been looking forward to Santos Sisters volume one by Greg and Fake and wasn’t let down one bit. It’s an irreverent romp about two sisters granted powers to…I guess fight evil? Maybe? They mostly have inadvertent adventures and shoot things with lasers, including facing down an abominable snow penis. Yeah. It’s a gorgeous mix of Archie, Madman, Love & Rockets and classic Hanna-Barbera that has at least one insane moment on every page.
Katy and I stopped in at a bookstore the other night and I picked up a copy of the art book JC Leyendecker by Lurence S Cutler and Judy Goffman Cutler. Leyendecker was the main Saturday Evening Post artist before Norman Rockwell and was overall one of the biggest commercial artists in America in the few decades of the 1900’s. He was also a gay man, which in hindsight is so very evident in his work. It’s funny, the men in his art became society’s pinnacle of masculinity while society was also looking down on queer people. That pops up again and again in history and speaks to how much beauty that queer (waves hi!) and trans people add to our culture.
I started listening to the History Daily podcast, which runs about 15 minutes and dives in on an event in history that happened on the day of each episode’s release. Great concept and a fun way to start a day. For instance, this week’s episodes were on Alexander Graham Bell making the first telephone call, the first meeting of PFLAG, the publication of The Cat in the Hat, the start of the Eighty Years’ War and the verdict being read for the Jack Ruby trial. Really diverse and interesting topics!
Important Tikka Update
YOU GOOD?
Not a lot to report on this week, mostly just painting and enjoying the really nice weather. Our house was built in the 1930’s, when capturing a crosswind was really important to maintaining the climate of a structure, so the spring and the fall are simply delightful. So, there’s that.
The cats go crazy for the fresh air, running all around the house and being overall menaces. The picture of Tikka above was taken after a day of intense zooming.
What else? The city’s been doing waterline infrastructure work in our neighborhood for a few months and they tore our street up again a few days ago and now our yard. Bummer! I’d done a lot of seeding in the fall and the dang yard was going to be gorgeous. Ah well, those pipes were about a century old so I guess that’s important.
And…that’s about it. Painting, cats being menaces and a tore-up yard. Nowadays, a plain old week like this is a big win and I’ll take it.
Love you more,
Rob