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Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. You’re simply the best.

Claudio Castagnoli is someone I’ve painted for over a decade now and have known since I started doing wrestling art. He’s one of those phenomenons in pro wrestling, a person who’s regarded by other wrestlers as the very best, who you’re also never going to find someone say a bad thing about. Among the wrestlers, he’s considered the person that it’s impossible to have a bad match with, putting him in the enviable position of being the person that new talent wants to learn from, mid-card wrestlers want to work him so that they can look better, and top talent wants to work with him so that they can continue to shine.

And backstage, he’s one of those people that everyone starts smiling when he walks in a room. Like, oh, here’s that guy we enjoy being around. Also, because he speaks multiple languages he’s invaluable to companies because he can do interviews and promos on a global level.

Can you tell I like this guy?

For the painting I wanted to be a little more stylistic and experimental with my approach, letting the colors and their movements tell a story around Claudio. It speaks to how he’s not just desirable for wrestlers to work with, but for artists as well because his distinctive look will still shine through.

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
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Katy’s book Oldest Kansas City

One of the most distinctive artistic voices of the 80’s in comics was Denys Cowan, who has a style that can’t be denied. He’s right there in the same pocket as Bill Sienkiewicz, Klaus Janson and Walt Simonson but his work honestly defies any comparison. A wonderfully lush mixture of high contrast, stylized figures and frenetic line-work all come together as something wholly original, I feel.

His work on The Question with writer Dennis O’Neil is a high water mark for 1980’s DC Comics and made Cowan a top name in the industry. Truth be told, I didn’t particularly love the stories in the book but man, Cowan’s art kept me going through the whole run. There was something exciting to see every issue.

He’s had some other notable runs, with Deathlok and Steel coming to mind, but it’s work as one of the founders of Milestone Comics in the 90’s that cemented Cowan as one of the most important names in comics history. These comics were EVERYWHERE at the time and were even on display in the later seasons of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. He primarily drew (the hell out of) Hardware but also did covers for a lot of the series, like with Static above.

He’s still working today, including doing the covers for the big compendium collections of all of the Milestone books, showing that not only does he still have it but is somehow doing even better work now.

Inspired by last week’s avocado sauce, I experimented with one that has a bit more of a pico de gallo influence. It’s not quite there yet but it’s still pretty nice. Here’s what I did:

INGREDIENTS

I put all of those into the food processor and pulsed until smooth.

What I’ll do next time is use only two tomatoes and eliminate the sour cream, as they minimized the other flavors. I also forgot to pick up some fresh cilantro, which I would chop up and add in. I think I’d also have gotten better results if I had mashed the avocado instead of chopping it. The sauce is fine but it doesn’t have the oomph I was envisioning.

Still, it does it’s job as a sauce complimenting the other ingredients in my breakfast burrito. I also found the flavor was better having sat in the fridge overnight compared to tasting it fresh.

Love you more,
Rob