Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. I wanna get lost in your rock n’ roll and drift away.
WHAT’S NEW?
Katy and I are in the midst of a rewatch of Mad Men right now, which is a wildly different experience at 43 years old than it was at 27. Especially with five years of therapy under my belt! We’re taking it slow, only doing a handful of episodes a week as it tends to get really heavy. But it’s a visual masterpiece, from the casting to its attention to period detail.
So I thought it’d be fun to do a quick 7x10 watercolor of Christina Hendricks as Joan Holloway. And you know what? It WAS fun.
Speaking of, we’ve been watching Portrait Artist of the Year when we just need something chill on and I thought it’d be neat to ‘play along’ and do a painting of singer Emile Sande from 2018’s series four. And you know what? It WAS neat to do! I’m sure I’ll do more as we go.
Art for art’s sake!
ICYMI, here's the latest Canvas 2 Canvas episode.
UPCOMING WWE PAINTINGS
Bayley
The Rock
Jade Cargill
Card subject to change.
Hundreds of prints and paintings at Schamberger Labs!
Rob and Jason Arnett's novella Rudow Can't Fail!
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Prints and Signed Prints at WWE Shop
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SCHAMBERGER LABS MANIA SALE!
All prints AND PAINTINGS are 35% off now through next Sunday at Schamberger Labs. This is the first time I’ve ever discounted my paintings and I don’t know if I’ll do it again, so take advantage of this while you can.
WHAT I LIKED LAST WEEK
I finished up the audiobook for Incarcerat by Garth Marenghi a few days ago and damn, what an experience. If you’re not aware of this incredibly obscure satire, this is a giant spoof of pompous horror writers, done under a pseudonym and then done meta with ‘Marenghi’ creating a Mary Sue avatar of himself named Nick Stein. It’s such a specific gag but good lord I love it. The audiobook is narrated by ‘Marenghi’ himself and there’s incredible little touches where he mispronounces his own character’s names and makes pointless asides to fluff his own ego. Again, a very specific joke that sometimes gets a little long in the tooth but I’m the exact target audience for something like this.
Invincible Season Two is almost done and has kept up the awesomeness that made season one such a hit. Not much more to add to that: It’s very faithful to the source material but executed so aptly that it’s simply cool to see.
I wasn’t prepared for how much I’m enjoying X-Men ‘97 so far. I feel like I was about one month too old to really enjoy the original cartoon when it aired and tapped out in its second season, but this new continuation is doing everything right I felt like the OG run didn’t. Maybe because it doesn’t have network constrictions, maybe the time that’s passed for the people making it, maybe something in-between, but so far it’s firing on all cylinders. My first issue of Uncanny X-Men as a kid was 242, right in the middle of the Inferno storyline, so episode three was extra cool. Plus! Watching the X-Men metaphorically take out a bunch of J6 rioters was more cathartic than I thought it’d be.
I’d missed Killing It season two when it originally went up on Peacock but man am I glad I finally watched it. A deceptively layered story about what people are willing to do to make real money, I’m still amazed at where they went with the finale. It’s so unusual for an American-produced show to really GO THERE with a story about capitalism and what it does to us. And all done as an outrageous comedy! It’s probably the huge jokes that makes the actual plot and character arcs possible. It’s like Succession with the volume turned up on both the comedy and the character examinations.
Serial podcast season four started this week, examining the history and impact of the Guantanamo Bay detention center as well as its continuing legacy on our culture. They had originally started working on this years ago but couldn’t really get any meaningful access, but with time having passed they can now do a rounded examination of the prisoners, the guards, and the failures that allowed it all to happen (and still happen). Powerful stuff.
No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you.
YOU GOOD?
My best friend Andy and his family are currently vacationing in Singapore and he sent me this picture. He’s a true friend.
Obviously this week ahead is going to be a tough one for me. I’m not in Philadelphia, I’m not a part of an event that I’ve been a part of for the better part of a decade, and it’s for no reason other than they went in a different direction. Them’s the breaks, kid. It’s not personal, it’s just business. Personal for me, though.
But I’ve had time to prepare for this. I’ve been in therapy for half a decade now and have some pretty good tools to help me manage what I’m feeling. I’ll make some meaningful art, I’ll work on a secret project that’s likely to open up a world of possibilities for my future (I’m maybe doing the best work of my life on this), and overall just be in the moment.
That said, I’m grateful to everyone who ever stopped by my Axxess Superstore Globe Whatever It’s Called Now exhibit to say nice things about my work and pick some up to add to their collections. At the end of the day, it’s those connections that matter and that I’ll always treasure. We’ll have other opportunities to do it again down the road. And if you ARE in Philadelphia this coming week, I hope you have the absolute most fun possible.
In the meantime I’ll work on that mindfulness and being in the moment. Maybe I’ll even meditate and visualize a serene statue of a lady spraying water out of her nipples into a tranquil pond. That sounds comforting.
Love you more,
Rob