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Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. Forget it brother, you can go it alone.

It was a nice full circle moment doing this new Nigel McGuinness painting. Back when I first started out in 2013 with the pro wrestling art thing, Nigel and I were running Kickstarter campaigns at the same time. We got in touch and did a co-promotion for our projects that led to his documentary getting made (he got there without me, of course) and me being able to start doing this full-time (him sharing my work helped out A TON). We tabled next to each other about a year later at an event and hit it off. He did card tricks and gave me some cookies.

So seeing him back in action all of these years later has been an absolute delight and I of course jumped at the opportunity to make a new painting of him. The only issue was…I didn’t know how I wanted to do it.

My way around that was to use a method I’d learned from my time studying in Florence last year. I did six thumbnail sketches that only made sense to me, where I worked out different color combinations. I then made a small study to see how it looked when executed. That allowed me to quickly see what worked and what didn’t and give me a better idea for how to do the final painting. I had the sketches and study at the top of my drawing table for reference, making it all easier and better-informed.

A dozen years later with a lot of life lived in that time. It’s cool to come back around and collaborate with Nigel again.

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
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I’m an appreciator of art films but I confess to rarely ever seeking them out. No reason other than that’s just how things are, I reckon. But the other day I was listening to a podcast about the sci-fi short La Jetée and decided to check it out. I’m so glad that I did, because it’s really profound.

It’s just shy of 30 minutes and I highly recommend watching it first before going on with this recap of it. It’s less that I don’t want to spoil a 63 year-old movie for you than I don’t want to rob you of the experience.

Watched it? Okay. Spoilers follow.

As a comic book fan I’m fascinated by the use of sequential still images to tell the majority of the story. It forces the viewer to fill in the moments in between. I adore the idea that it’s a time travel story where time is standing still, except for that one precious moment where the woman’s eyes blink, when he’s just about to escape his fate. That felt like a straight-up actual magic trick.

This was before the condition of PTSD was even recognized beyond soldiers, but I feel like this was all about processing what the filmmakers went through during World War II and the time after. There’s a nihilism about the time loop that the story represents for those living in the present, that what they’re doing will lead to a better world for those who follow them but it’s a world that they themselves are unlikely to see. Powerful stuff, man.

Here’s a great short that Criterion put together exploring more of the filmmaking side of it and putting it into context with what was happening in the broader culture at the time, as well as its nods to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

There’s a scene in a natural history museum that I recognized from Matt Wagner’s Batman/ Grendel: Devil’s Riddle. It’s more likely that Wagner had just been to that museum or seen pictures of it and used it in the book, but in my mind I like to think he was influenced by the movie. It makes for a nice nod to the film’s sequential art nature.

Also, the German scientist totally has to be the visual inspiration for Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle, right?

In light of Robert Redford’s passing I stopped to think about the first time I think I saw him in a movie, which was the Robert Altman classic The Sting alongside Paul Newman. It’s one of my mom’s favorite movies and any time it was on TV we’d watch it. Pretty often it would get her to walk over to our piano and play Scott Joplin’s ‘The Entertainer’, the song most closely associated with the movie. Watching her play it was like magic and it’s one of my favorite childhood memories.

There was also a night where Katy and I watched it when we were first dating. I was pretty sick and it’s a comfort movie for me and thought she might like it. I was, like, really sick. It put me out of the office for about a week. But Katy showed up, bringing me groceries and a Superman balloon and later that night I told her I loved her for the first time.

It’s fascinating how a piece of entertainment can become a touchstone for so much of one’s life, right? I’d never thought of The Sting that way until Redford’s passing but it’s clear as day now. I’m glad he did this and so many other movies that brought nothing but joy into my world.

Two funny Reford stories I heard:

After Indecent Proposal came out, a female reviewer was asked if she would sleep with Robert Redford for a million dollars. “Of course! But where am I going to find a million dollars?”

Mike Nichols on considering Redford for the lead in The Graduate: “I said, ‘You can’t play it. You can never play a loser.’ And Redford said, ‘What do you mean? Of course I can play a loser.’ And I said, ‘O.K., have you ever struck out with a girl?’ and he said, ‘What do you mean?’ And he wasn’t joking.”

Love you more,
Rob