SHOP TALK: Rob Schamberger Newsletter 02FEB25
Here's something that I'd like to bring to you.
Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. If you want variety, take the tip and call for me.
WORDS
(I recognize that some people read these newsletters at work so here’s a censored version. I’ll post the full one on Cara and Bluesky that you can see without your boss getting all worked up that you’re looking at art.)
NEEDS: VARIETY
Watercolor on 12” x 16” watercolor paper
It would be boring if everything and everyone were the same, wouldn’t it? Call it what you want, variety, differences, diversity, it all feeds into each of our lives in wonderful and beautiful ways.
MYSTERY MAN
After reading Brian Bendis’ new graphic novel memoir (more on that later) and with some recent work in therapy, I got to thinking about when I REALLY decided to become an artist. I knew when I was 8 that art was something I wanted to do after I got my first comic book, but it was when I was 12 that I made my first comic book (called Alpha X, about when the X-Men and Alpha Flight become one team in the future) for a school project. That summer, I was 12 or 13, I made another one for an ‘original’ character I came up with named Mystery Man. I dug that up this week and thought, hey, it’d be fun as a side thing to redraw it.
The character was basically Azrael but black and blue, and it was some sort of Batman thing about a guy experiencing trauma and that becoming his motivation to fight crime. I heavily swiped from Todd McFarlane, Jim Valentino, Jerry Ordway and Mike Manley, it looks like.
So far I’ve redesigned the costume in a Jet Jaguar/ Tokusatsu manner and did the above study and the one below. Capes are fun to draw, yo. I’m going to shoot some reference around downtown Kansas City to give it a setting since 13 year-old Rob had no time for backgrounds, apparently.
I have no idea how long this will take and have no intention to do anything with it beyond simply making it. On the therapy level, it allows me to sit down with that kid who felt so lost in the world and have a conversation about what a great decision he made to be an artist.
ORIGINAL PAINTING ALERT
On Thursday February 6 we’re going to make these three paintings available at ShopAEW. So that you can get your finances together, it’ll be $500 each for these Darby Allin and Adam Page watercolors and $750 for this Sting acrylic painting. The prints for all three of these did REALLY WELL so I imagine the paintings will get scooped up fast. I’ll send another email a half hour before they go live so that you can be prepared.
UPCOMING AEW/PWT PAINTINGS
Kenny Omega
Cope
The Hurt Syndicate
FTR
Thunder Rosa
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
WHAT I LIKED THIS WEEK
The new Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man cartoon is really fun and is gorgeous to look at. Two of the artists on the design team were comic book artists Chris Samnee and Paolo Rivera and their styles are very evident, which I think is rad. For practical reasons, traditionally cartoons based on comics look different stylistically because what looks great in a static image doesn’t translate to motion. Thanks to 3-D models and what I’m assuming are some savvy heads of the art department, this actually looks like a comic book in motion.
Last Sunday I read The Bat-Man: First Knight by Dan Jurgens and Mike Perkins, a reimagining and grounding of the character back to his first appearance in 1939, set in the realities of ‘39 America and the rise of fascism at home and abroad. Hey, remember when that was something that happened in the past? Anyway, Batman punches a lot of American nazis and that’s pretty cool to see.
Fortune and Glory: The Musical by Brian Bendis and Bill Walko is a fun memoir of Bendis’ love of comics, how that translated into a career for him, and at one point got him involved in the notorious Broadway Spider-Man musical ‘Turn Off the Dark’. Recounting the story of the musical is really a clever way in to writing this love letter to comics and it works brilliantly.
Back in 2001 when my first published comic was about to come out I went to the old Chicago Comicon and met Brian. I told him that his own work had been really influential on me, especially Jinx, and asked if he had any advice about a career. Instead of saying anything about my book itself, he instead gave me a ton of info about marketing the book and using those connections to get more work down the line. My awkward self wasn’t able to pull that off back then, but it’s always stuck with me, especially after the wrestling art thing took off, that he gave me that genuine real world advice. The war between art and commerce is persistent, but occasionally you can navigate both and make something neat happen.
Somna by Becky Cloonan and Tula Lotay is a genuine collaboration between two very talented creators, where they’ve come together to co-write and co-illustrate this gorgeous book. It’s a fable about a woman during the times of burning ‘witches’ (they didn’t burn witches at the stake, they burnt women alive) who has erotic dreams about herself and a demon. The dreams begin to fade into reality, putting her at odds with not just her community but with her own beliefs.
IMPORTANT TIKKA UPDATE
Last Sunday morning he was pretty unhinged, getting into any and every thing he could. When he’s like that, what we call his being a Fun Boy, we try our best to not get mad at him. Because he’s just a Fun Boy Having Fun, y’know? Don’t get a cat if you don’t want them to be a cat.
But the rest of the week he’s been pretty chill, what we call his Sweet Goldeneyes mode. He’s slowly becoming a bit of a lap cat, too. Not fully there yet but he’ll have some really loving moments. He’s just shy of two years old so he’s still got some mellowing to do. That said, he’s for sure going to be a full time lap cat as he ages. I’m on board, but hope he still has lots of fun.
Love you more,
Rob