Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. XXX

The Punisher

Ink on 14” x 11” bristol, colored digitally

A few weeks ago I had an itch to do an illustration of The Punisher, probably after looking at John Romita Jr’s time on Punisher War Zone. Just seemed fun. i took inspiration from JRJR and Jim Lee’s approaches but tried to stay true to my own work at the same time. I colored it digitally using the color schemes from those late 80’s and early 90’s Punisher comics, keeping it largely flat.

Here’s the inks, done for the most part with a dip pen and several nibs and a brush for fill-ins. My original love for art is comics so it’s fun to flex those muscles again.

And yeah, it’s a bummer that the Punisher logo has been co-opted by the far right. I just want to enjoy my comic books without having to see tattered flags superimposed on them as stickers displayed next to someone’s TruckNutz.

That said, the character rarely did much for me but the Garth Ennis-written books are the bee’s knees. It’s got a who’s who of incredible artists like Steve Dillon, Lewis LaRosa, Goran Parlov, Darick Robertson, and one particular story drawn by Richard Corben that still haunts me.

Here’s a preview of Thursday’s new Samoa Joe painting. His identity by itself causes violence.

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

There’s also some new posters up at ShopAEW! Yet another way to combine wrestlers and thumbtacks.

Pluribus has the best first episode I’ve seen since The Sopranos. I don’t want to give anything away, because going in cold and letting the show work its magic is a beautiful experience. Rhea Seehorn does an exceptional job as the lead in this, especially in regards to what the concept of it is. You’ll see, and you really should see. I can’t stop thinking about it.

Friday night Katy and I watched the Death by Lightning miniseries, based on the book Destiny of the Republic by fellow Kansas Citian Candice Millard about the presidency and assassination of James Garfield. It follows his unlikely path towards the nation’s highest office and the challenges he faced when he got there, counterpointed by the story of his equally unlikely assassin. Well, maybe it’s his assassin. The guy who put it all in motion at least. It’s fun, a decade or two back Katy and I went to a writer event where Millard spoke about the new book she was researching, which ended up being this.

I finished listening to the audiobook of This Bursted Earth by Garth Marenghi, which is maybe the best way to take in this experience. Marenghi is a character created and played by Matthew Holness, who narrates the audiobook. The Marenghi character is this one very specific joke, a pompous borderline-sociopathic horror writer based on similar writers of the 80’s and 90’s.

Okay, so that’s one layer of it, the next is his Mary Sue main character Nick Steen, who had sex with a demonic typewriter thus unleashing all of the monstrous characters he created in his books into the real world. Yeah. This is the third book in the series, seeing a de-boning ghoul, a cosmic man-baby that poops too much, UFO’s that are turning the city’s men into soy boys and so many other wonderful things. The whole book, its execution, all of it is a very specific joke mocking a certain personality type and I just can’t get enough of it. I can’t believe there’s THREE books now.

Also, Marenghi has a YouTube interview show now, first up with Mike Flanagan. Here’s a teaser:

Earlier this week I finished reading Star Trek Lower Decks: Second Contact by Ryan North, Derek Charm, Jack Lawrence and friends. It perfectly matches the look and tone of the show while finding new adventures for the characters. There’s a time travel story that’s especially fun.

I also read Marvel Tales by J Michael Straczynski and friends, a book of odd pairings of Marvel characters thrusting them into equally odd adventures. It’s got six stories, featuring Dr Doom and Rocket Raccoon time traveling to the beginning of time, Captain America and Volstagg waging war on an alien planet as a matter of honor, Dr Strange helping Bruce Banner try to make sense of why the Hulk is so angry, Nick Fury facing off against Fin Fang Foom in the leadup to America’s entry to WWII, Ghost Rider trying to use his penance stare on Galactus, and Spider-Man trying to survive the Sinister Sixteen. There’s even a delightful teamup between Aunt May and Agatha Harkness at a book club gone awry. Each story has a different artist and every one of them goes above and beyond to make this all work so wonderfully.

Thursday was Katy and I’s fifteenth wedding anniversary and we went to our normal bar trivia night to enjoy it. It’s one of those games where the teams write down their answers on a whiteboard, so I naturally draw something on it each week and this time I did Batman and Superman.

See, Katy and I did our own wedding vows and for mine I said that we need a new couple name. I scoured the great works of literature and landed on when Superman and Batman team up they’re called the World’s Finest. Each of them can handle pretty much anything on their own, but together nothing can stop them. Just like us.

I swear there wasn’t a dry eye at the ceremony when I said that.

For the first time, that night someone asked us what our secret is to a long marriage. To which my internal reaction was, “Oh gosh, I’m old enough to have a long marriage.” But Katy and I both said, “Therapy” at the same time which is both funny and accurate. Anything worthwhile needs to be worked for and we’re both putting in the work.

Our team came in fifth on Thursday, by the way. Not bad!

Love you more,
Rob