State of the Rob

Let's Catch Up!

So, how’s life? You good?

Let’s catch up, because it’s been a whirlwind for me and I don’t feel like I’ve been as present for you as I’d like to be.

The Black Friday sales went well, which is notable as I left Twitter last Monday and couldn’t really promote there. But…maybe my assumption that social media doesn’t really matter and isn’t ‘real’ is a valid thought. I don’t know. Obviously I’m still present on Instagram and all along these emails have been the most efficient way to communicate with you. Thanks for being here, my friend. We’re making this work.

I didn’t have the space the last couple weeks to share what I’ve been enjoying so here’s a few notables:

The series finale of Atlanta has just STAYED in my brain. I don’t want to give away the direction they went, but there’s a precedent for it with TV finales and they did it in a really brilliant way. I actually audibly said, “Ha! That’s great!” once it ended.

One time at a day job the guy in the cube next to me replied to my email with “LOL!” and I stood up and said he was a liar because I distinctly did NOT hear him laugh out loud.

Anyway.

Welcome to Chippendales is off to a fantastic start. Once I realized what was happening with Dorothy Stratton and that she and her husband were involved in the early days of the club I was fully sucked in. Kumail Nanjiani is doing some fantastic work and once Juliette Lewis’ character gets going she naturally steals the show.

Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance by John Waters is Waters’ first novel and it’s the sort of ludicrous magical realism you’d expect from a master storyteller of his caliber. I listened to the audiobook narrated by him while working and yeah, it’s outrageous. A mix of The Getaway, Kill Bill, Nothing But Trouble, The Simpsons and of course Waters’ own oeuvre. With tickle enthusiasts and trampoline addicts.

I’m Still Alive by Roberto Saviano and Asaf Hanuka is a powerful graphic novel memoir by Saviano detailing what his life is like as a writer-in-exile after his book Gommorrah made him a target for the Neapolitan Mafia. Especially in light of what happened recently to Salman Rushdie this has some extra gravity to it, but Hanuka (one of my favorite artists) balances the heaviness with some thoughtful visual levity.

World of Krypton by Robert Venditti, Mike Oeming and Nick Filardi is a visual treat. The story itself is nothing that new, telling the story of Krypton’s final days, but golly what Oeming and Filardi do with the art is spectacular. Mike told me once that Filardi is one of his favorite colorists to work with but they both really went to another level here.

This year’s Survivor Series was a ton of fun, wasn’t it? I feel like this was the first big event of the Triple H regime where he had a lot of time to build the character arcs the lead to these confrontations and if this is indeed a sign of what we have to expect from WWE going forward? It’s a fun time to be a fan, at least for me! I said this over on Hive Social, but this WrestleMania season is going to be wild and I am Here. For. It.

Wrestling or elsewhere, what’d you like recently? I’m opening the comments up this week to everyone so please let me know!

So…what else? Up top I’ve got a progress shot for this Sunday’s new Becky Lynch painting. I’m super happy with how it turned out (just finished it last night) and am eager for you to see it.

In a few weeks I’ll have made the 450th episode of Canvas 2 Canvas and yeah, I’m still heavily thinking about slowing down my pace a bit. My thoughts are to do less paintings but to put just as much work in, increasing the quality of each. Instead of weekly paintings, maybe 2-3 paintings a month. The Wrestling Landscape Paintings have given me a taste for that and the reception to them has me confident.

What if ALL of my paintings were done to that level?

There’s a lot of considerations I still need to think through before making the move as much of my business model is geared around weekly debuts but it’s more manageable than I initially thought. I’m not one for rash moves and I’m going to make sure I’m doing right by you.

But I’ve kept this pace for a decade now and thanks to my catalogue and your continued support I think this can turn into something special for all of us.

We’ll see.

Maybe.

Probably.

Love you more,

Rob