SHOP TALK: Rob Schamberger Newsletter 30MAR25
To everyone he meets he stays a stranger.
Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. They’ve given you a number and taken away your name.
WORDS
Busy week with AEW deadlines so I didn’t get a chance to do a new Needs Series painting. That’s okay, because I don’t want to give those anything other than my best effort.
That said, between rassler paintings I WAS able to do a new Mystery Man page:
MYSTERY MAN
Punchin’ and kickin’! Probably the page I’ve been most excited about doing, other than the big two-page spread. I wanted this to feel both claustrophobic with the various figures fighting, but also focus on that by dropping out the background totally and just using that explosive red to pop the figures out.
Here’s the inks for comparison:
I primarily used a parallel pen with water-soluble ink to make it all feel as organic and hand-made as possible.
And here’s the original page I drew when I was 13:
One more page to go, and then putting it all together with a story. I’m leaning towards incorporating the original pages to stay with the spirit of collaborating and conversing with my younger self. I think that could be kinda beautiful.
Here’s a preview of Thursday’s new Mercedes Mone painting. Green for money and envy.
UPCOMING AEW/PWT PAINTINGS
Mercedes Mone - SIGNED!
Julia Hart
Megan Bayne
Harley Cameron
Timeless Toni Storm
Card subject to change.
What you’re feeling is real and valid.
Rob’s Art on ShopAEW
###
Rob and Jason Arnett's novella Rudow Can't Fail!
###
Rob’s prints and shirts at Pro Wrestling Tees
###
Bluesky
Cara
YouTube
WHAT I LIKED THIS WEEK
I read Spectregraph by James Tynion IV and Christian Ward and found it to be gorgeous and spooky. Sort of a mix of Thirteen Ghosts and an Agatha Christie locked-room mystery where a realtor inadvertently finds herself mixed up in a conspiracy society’s haunted house, trying to figure her way out of it while dealing with the ghosts of her own past. Good stuff.
I seriously wasn’t expecting Side Quest to be so got-dang good. Like, I’ve watched Mythic Quest but find it to be a little lacking due to its comparisons to Always Sunny, sharing cast and creative, and also that I’m not overly sympathetic to tech ‘gurus’ in normal times and definitely not in our current environment. But instead this miniseries ditches all of that and instead is an anthology of self-contained episodes that explores the people orbiting the gaming industry. The first is about a creative director who is torn between his blooming personal life and his successful-yet-miserable professional life, the second is an outstanding tale around a day at a comic shop, the third about a musician pushing herself to perfection at the cost of everything else in her life, and then finally a coming-of-age story about a group of gamers. It’s just all really well done.
The Conners is back for its final season and looks to be about the family suing Big Pharma for Roseanne’s opiod-related death. It’s of course balancing the drama and the comedy perfectly and has the various characters making conflicted yet humanistic decisions in the ways we expect from this show and its well-earned history.
Bosch: Legacy is also back for its final season. Between this and the original Bosch series, would you believe that this is actually the TENTH season? A lot of the characters’ histories are coming back for them in various ways that should be interesting to see play out. A long career of being a cop who bends and breaks the rules has a tendency to catch up after a while.
We watched the first episode of The Studio on Friday and I was thoroughly hooked. As a nerd for the business of Hollywood and its history I feel like I’m the exact target demo for what Seth Rogen and friends are making. And of course Kathryn Hahn is outstanding in it.
Last night I watched the excellent Mike Mignola: Drawing Monsters documentary. It’s a lovely look at not just his work, but his life around it and how everything radically changed as he committed to his creation Hellboy.
One time I tabled at a convention and was across the aisle from Mike and I was too nervous to talk to him. Wish I’d gotten past my imposter syndrome to at least say hi and thank him for his gorgeous work and its impact on me.
Peaceful just looking at it.
YOU GOOD?
Soon it’ll be time to move the plants back outside and set up my garden and window box (last year’s pictured above). One of my favorite things, what I call a ‘no-asterisk joy’ is tending for my plants while they’re outside. I saved a few of the window box plants from last year and successfully wintered them so I’ve got a good jump on size this year around. I’m also planning to do all bell peppers in the garden again after how well that did last year and now that I know about roasting them and storing them in oil for further usage.
But it’s that little morning routine, going out and watering and pulling weeds and just observing how they look a little different from the day before that gives me a sense of joy. I don’t have control over much in life and I can’t even guarantee how a day will go, but I know that for that 20-30 minutes every morning that I’m going to enjoy what I’m doing.
Love you more,
Rob