SHOP TALK: Rob Schamberger Newsletter 20APR25
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Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. XXXx
WORDS
For fun I painted another Mystery Man picture and then mocked up a simple trade dress over it. If you haven’t read it yet (or would like to again) here’s a link to the full comic.
Also, I’d like to share with you what my therapist said after reading it:
“I love the combination of compassion and course-correction that helps you guide your younger self and show up as the safe and loving adult figure he needed and deserved. I also love the beautiful tribute to his important work to get you where you are now. "You picked up a pencil and saved us" will live on in my head for quite some time.”
A lot of people get blurbs from fellow creators or celebrities for their books. Not this guy!
Here’s a preview of Thursday’s new Julia Hart painting. Tikka is fond of using the color orange, obviously.
INTERVIEW, DUDE!
I don’t do many interviews anymore, but I had a great time chatting with Elliott Serrano and Marc Alan Fishman on The Torn Quad Podcast. If you were wondering if I’d talk about The Shockmaster, the answer is yes. You can also learn my minuscule Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon connection to Temple of Doom and the time comic book legend Neal Adams gave me some effective business advice.
UPCOMING AEW/PWT PAINTINGS
Julia Hart - SIGNED!
Timeless Toni Storm
Swerve Strickland
Hangman Adam Page
Kazuchika Okada
Card subject to change.
Kidnapping people and sending them to foreign slave labor camps is a Bad Thing.
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
WHAT I LIKED THIS WEEK
Goes Like This by Jordan Crane, in addition to being a beautifully-drawn and written book, is a precious object unto itself. Wonderfully-designed with cutting edge printing techniques, spot varnishes, and multiple paper stocks. Like, yeah, the comics are cool, but as a nerd for physically-printed things this is a masterpiece of a thing. You’ve gotta see it to believe it, honestly.
Yesterday morning I finished reading Star Trek Volume Four by Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, Megan Levens and Rachel Stott. While fully-immersed in Trek lore and continuity (if you wanted to see Charlie X from the original series ever again, this is the book for you), it still manages to be a fun read unto itself. If I have one gripe about the current state of Trek, it’s that it’s all too much about “Hey, remember that thing you used to like? Here it is again but not quite as good!” (Except that Section 31 ‘movie’ that did the seemingly-impossible job of making Search for Spock and Nemesis no longer the worst Trek movies. Or Lower Decks, which might actually be as good or even better than what it references.) ANYWAY. This has a lot of ‘remember that thing’ but still manages to be interesting and fun all on its own, which I like a lot.
Jackknife by Joe Hill is a haunting new short horror story about a man being stalked by an old tree. Yes, really. What I like about Hill’s work so much, beyond the humanity of the characters, is how in-the-real-world he makes the situations they face, then spiced up with something supernatural. In this case, it’s a soon-to-be-disgraced author and scholar facing multiple consequences for his bad decisions and actions. Worth checking out. The audiobook version is only about an hour and well worth your time.
We started watching the new Jon Hamm-starring show Your Friends and Neighbors. It’s sort of a mix between classic noir, Breaking Bad and Fight Club, where Hamm’s character is facing his own consequences for a moment of weakness, losing his high profile finance job and now having to become a cat burglar to maintain the quality of life he and his estranged family are used to. Plus, Olivia Munn and Amanda Peet co-star and are doing some fantastic work. Both of them are actors I consider to be really good but who rarely get the right project to show it off and so far it seems like they’re getting that here. Lena Hall, playing Hamm’s character’s sister, is also doing some exceptional work here.
Last night we watched Blink Twice and it kept me engaged throughout. Two women are invited by a charismatic billionaire to relax at his private island. What could go wrong? Beyond the obvious, there’s something off about all of it and the cracks in the veneer become more and more obvious the longer they’re there. All I can say is that when it’s revealed what’s actually happening it’s a similar experience to something I work on in therapy.
It’s a few years old, but check out this feature on classic backdrop paintings from old Hollywood and the efforts to preserve them. Really cool.
Garden smut.
YOU GOOD?
One of my pepper plants developed its first bud a few days ago, which is pretty exciting stuff. I’ll have a got dang pepper in a couple months or so, bah gahd. In other exciting-as-watching-grass-grow news, I cut my grass for the first time this season. There was a big patch that I must have seeded and fed really well at the end of last season because it got HUGE and THICK. Well, okay, maybe watching grass grow can be exciting.
This Tuesday will be my one year anniversary with PWT/AEW. That flew by! I like to think I’ve built up a pretty good body of work over this time and I sincerely thank you for the support you’ve shown for this new chapter of my career. It was a big gamble and I’m thankful that you’ve helped make it a success.
You and me, we’re doing neat things together.
Love you more,
Rob