SHOP TALK: Rob Schamberger Newsletter 23MAR25
Everybody's taking the chance.
Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. I say we can act if we want to, if we don't nobody will.
WORDS
NEEDS: EMOTIONAL SAFETY
Watercolor on 12” x 16” watercolor paper
“An emotional state achieved in attachment relationships wherein each individual is open and vulnerable.”
Having worked with Doug for several years, I’ve always been struck by his profile when he’s looking over his shoulder. Simply stunning in a Classical way and I knew I had to utilize that in at least one of these paintings.
It’ll be one of these! Keep an eye on my Bluesky to find out which one.
UPCOMING AEW/PWT PAINTINGS
Julia Hart
Will Ospreay
Mercedes Mone
Megan Bayne
Harley Cameron
Card subject to change.
Science is real.
MYSTERY MAN
Here’s page four all colored up! I had fun with the goons’ designs and I’m rather happy with the second panel as that was a pretty tough one to pull off with all of the elements.
Here’s the finished inks for comparison’s sake:
And here’s the original page I did when I was thirteen:
Fun stuff so far! I think the kid version of me would think this is pretty rad.
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
“I threw my back out degassing my mead,” is a sentence I said out loud on Friday.
WHAT I LIKED THIS WEEK
Last weekend Katy and I watched Heretic and I thought it was pretty powerful. Between this, Yellowjackets and Companion, Sophie Thatcher is on her way to being a huge star. It’s a classic horror story but also a fascinating study of religious beliefs and the concept of faith overall.
Deli Boys is a fantastic show that subverts every expectation. Two trust fund brothers’ successful businessman dad unexpectedly dies. They think they’ll take over the company, but on their first day it’s raided by the FBI and all assets are seized except for a bodega shop. And, like, you think that’s what it’s going to be, a comedy about trust fund kids having to earn an honest day’s work. BUT IT’S NOT. Their aunt (incredibly played by Poorna Jagannathan, giving an unreal performance) shows up at the shop and shoots the manager in the head in front of the brothers. The show then becomes a slightly more comedic Breaking Bad, because all of the business was actually a front for cocaine distribution. And instead now these guys need to quickly learn how to survive and thrive in the drug business.
Katy and I finished watching Surface season one. I wouldn’t say that it’s great, but it’s very watchable. It actually follows most all of the tropes of 80’s and 90’s erotic thrillers, where a woman in San Francisco is married to a successful VC partner and she suffers amnesia after a mysterious accident. As she tries to piece back together her prior life, crimes and tragedies and infidelities all bubble up to the surface (get it!?!). Like, it checks almost all of the boxes you’d see in movies like Body Heat, Fatal Attraction, or even the less-successful ones like Jade or Shattered.
Severance season two was a hell of a creative success. A mix of The Prisoner, The Matrix and Office Space, it’s the best balance of high concept, drama and comedy I can think of since the aforementioned Breaking Bad. The first season was all about establishing the concept and environment of the ‘innies’, the severed personalities that do mysterious yet absurd work in an office setting, and their personalities outside of work having no memory of what they do all day. This second season dives into a lot of the questions that arose from this concept and started fleshing out the characters and their motivations. In case you haven’t seen it, I don’t want to say much more because it’s such a wonderful journey to have everything revealed while you watch. But it’s really, really good.
Last night we finally watched Anora and guess what? Apparently all of the critics and awards shows were right about it and its star Mikey Madison. I heard it described as a modern twist on the Cinderella fable and that’s accurate to a point, but it kind of also answers the question about what happens if Prince Charming turns out to be a wanker and Cinderella has to figure out what to do from there. Mature, nuanced and beautiful to watch.
Yesterday morning I watched Bill Burr’s new special Drop Dead Years. I’d held off on watching it because I didn’t really feel like watching an angry guy say everyone’s stupid, which is what Burr artfully does. But this was a different set, diving in to a lot of areas that I seriously didn’t expect about his own life.
Also, allegedly he and Billy Corgan are brothers (jump forward to 31 minutes, it’s WILD). Like, their dad was a touring musician and had secret families.
I reread Legion of Super-Heroes: The Great Darkness Saga by Paul Levitz, Keith Giffen and Larry Mahlstedt for the first time in a couple of decades. Starting in my tween years the Legion was one of my best escapes from the real world and it’s cool revisiting it now. I’ve been picking up the hardcover collections DC’s been putting out of the Legion books and man, what a seismic shift it was when Giffen and Mahlstedt took over the art duties, shortly after Levitz became the regular writer. I think it’s right there with John Byrne and Terry Austin on Uncanny X-Men and George Perez on New Teen Titans in terms of quality and excitement.
Also, this came out long before the internet was a thing and while most readers were picking up their comics from the spinner racks at gas stations and grocery stores (RIP Food Barn from my youth!), so I can only imagine what a surprise it must have been for Darkseid to be revealed as the villain in this story. This is also my favorite usage of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World concepts outside of Grant Morrison’s JLA and Final Crisis. There’s a true weight of interstellar peril and dread that Levitz and Giffen pulled off here that still stands up remarkably well.
Speaking of Breaking Bad…
YOU GOOD?
A pretty peaceful week within the confines of my yard this week. I finished up a couple paintings for Pro Wrestling Tee’s to use at the C2E2 convention next month (I won’t be there, just my art) that I’m excited to share more about soon. They’re pretty rad.
I’ve been working on my first batch of homemade mead (pictured above), which has been fascinating. The initial week is more involved with steps like adding yeast and shaking it to ‘degas’ to keep said yeast activated and converting the sugars in the honey to alcohol. The yeast is all in there now, so I’ll just continue to degas once a day through the fifth of April, then let it sit for at least ten days before it can be bottled. Science! It’s real!
The city was doing work on the water lines on our street and tore up some of our yard in the process, so starting on Thursday I’ve been watering daily to feed the grass seed they put down in those areas. (Forcing me to use water after they do waterline work seems like a conflict, but what do I know.) I really enjoy yard work and gardening so this is all rather pleasant for me. Thursday morning was likely our last freeze of the season so I’m hopeful that in a couple weeks I’ll have the plants outside and the garden started.
What else? Katy had some big things happen that I’m excited for and I’ll talk more about it once it can be talked about. The cats are good. I made some more good lunch burritos. I had a batch of red wine vinegar mature and I’m using it in my egg sandwiches for breakfast. That’s about it.
I have no control over a lot of big things, but within the boundaries of my house it’s been a pretty okay week. I’ll take that win.
Love you more,
Rob