SHOP TALK: Rob Schamberger Newsletter 11MAY25
It seems what's left of my human side is slowly changing in me.
Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. Oh no, there is no turning back now.
WORDS
A fun little Spider-Man ink and watercolor painting I made to surprise my neighbor’s son with. I haven’t given it to them yet because I got knocked down by a nasty sinus thing that I’m just now recovering from. Wiped me out for most of the week. Lousy!
I’ve got art to make, man!
UPCOMING AEW/PWT PAINTINGS
Swerve Strickland
Kazuchika Okada
Orange Cassidy
Speedball Mike Bailey
Konosuke Takeshita
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
A few days ago I finished reading the Fantastic Four omnibus by Mark Waid, Mike Wieringo, Howard Porter and friends. It was my first time re-reading all of this since it was originally published and it’s just as enjoyable as I remembered it being. Probably my favorite run on the characters outside of the original Lee/Kirby stuff. Wieringo’s art especially is so perfect for this book and the tone he and Waid were going for.
Katy and I watched The Four Seasons over the course of the week, an 8 episode mini-series adapting the 1981 Alan Alda movie. A really strong ensemble led by Tina Fey, Steve Carrell, Will Forte and Kerri Kenney, it’s about a group of friends who go on quarterly trips together and this one shows the arcs of love and loss they go on over the course of, you guessed it, four seasons. It wonderfully balances drama and comedy and we were so sad that it ended because we really wanted more.
The Righteous Gemstones series finale went in a lot of directions I didn’t expect, but that’s sort of…expected? with this show. Like, you think it’s going one way and then boy howdy does it go another. Katy was kinda casually watching and then the unthinkable happened and she put her phone down and we were both in it to the end. Also, a heck of a week for John Goodman wrapping up two shows in such spectacular fashion!
I’d watched the first episode of Andor when it was first released and I’ll be honest, I tapped out. The Star Wars shows made me fall out of love, you know? But I saw so many people loving on this new season whose opinions I trust that I gave it another try and found it to be really good stuff. Hey, I’ve been sick this week and needed an “I’m sick show” to watch. This does the one thing I’ve felt the franchise has omitted up to now: Showing what it is that the rebels are rebelling against. That it echoes a little too close to our own reality (hey, remember on Friday when the White House said it’s considering repealing habeus corpus and then a bunch of masked secret police arrested the mayor of Newark? That was wild. Thinking about it for no reason at all.) probably makes the show feel even more immediate. It’s chilling seeing the Empire arrest a Senator on the show as a sign that things are getting really bad.
Also, Genevieve O’Reilly as Mon Mothma is a genuine star-turning performance.
Also also, Cassian Andor should’ve been an Ewok.
Humble beginnings.
YOU GOOD?
I wintered a couple coleus plants in my basement and they did really well. I brought them up and replanted them in my window box and they promptly dropped all of their leaves and shriveled up. But I know that they’re really hearty plants so I stuck with them, gave ‘em a little fertilizer and now they’re sprouting new leaves. They grow so fast, I figure in a couple months you won’t even be able to tell.
I’ll keep you posted.
Love you more,
Rob