Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. First time I saw you, I knew you’s gonna be trouble.

A Night at the Opera (1935): Harpo’s Aria

Watercolor on 12” x 9” watercolor paper

#13 in the 40 movies I haven’t seen from the AFI 100!

While I’ve seen a zillion things that reference the Marx Brothers this is the first of their films I’ve ever seen. There’s a plot to this movie, about the Bro’s trying to help two opera singers but that’s more the framework that ties all of these skits featuring their antics together. And they are FUNNY. Harpo’s out there handing out more concussions than a late-era ECW match.

90 years later this is still hilarious, although the timing of it feels weird to today’s audience. There’s these odd pauses where everyone stands still for a couple seconds or so after delivering a punchline that lands as odd nowadays. That’s because it wasn’t made for home viewing (which didn’t exist back then), it was made for theaters full of people. See, the Marx Brothers would tour this show as part of their Vaudeville-esque performances and they had timed exactly how long crowds would laugh for each joke and they translated that into the movie. That’s something that plain doesn’t exist anymore and it’s fascinating to see how things change and evolve.

You can see it here between Chico and Groucho:

I guarantee the 1935 audience was hollering and stomping their feet by the end.

For the painting, I captured a moment where the famously-mute Harpo Marx has broken into an opera star’s dressing room and is about to lay into a solo before getting discovered by the star. Man, Harpo earned every penny in every scene. The guy WENT FOR IT any time the camera was pointed at him.

Next week: My new favorite western movie High Noon!

Here’s a preview of Tiger Force working on Thursday’s new Will Ospreay painting! I actually painted this back in July of last year and now that Will’s back in the mix we can finally make it available. The tigers are excited.

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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Katy’s book Oldest Kansas City

I spent yesterday evening listening to Mutiny After Midnight, the new album by Sturgill Simpson aka Johnny Blue Skies. The album is only being released on physical media so for the first time since 1998 I bought a cassette tape! I have a player in my car and a bluetooth speaker made up to look like an 80’s boombox. Friday night when the tape came in I was dismayed to discover the bluetooth tape deck didn’t work anymore but I was able to get a new one yesterday.

None of which has to do with the album, but hooray for physical media!

As with all of his other albums, this one is a concept album talking about where he is at the moment and the state of the world and a wish for everyone to start $%#&ing again instead of fighting each other. Less ‘Make Love, Not War’ and ‘Shut up with that bull$#!+ and start screwing.’ It’s decidedly against the current administration (as anyone should be) but also spending more time talking about lovemakin’ and relationships. Sonically it’s a mix of Waylon Jennings’ dalliances with disco, sprinkled with some 90’s alternative and a dash of Stevie Ray Vaughn riffs, all with Simpson’s distinctive twang.

Yeah, I like it.

Invincible season four is off to a great start! While I was watching it I was thinking about what a unicorn it would’ve been back in the late 90’s. Outside of Batman and Superman and The Maxx there wasn’t much in the way of US animation that was exciting me, especially for stuff that was adapting superhero comics. That this series is so true to the original comics, especially in look and tone is an unappreciated miracle of sorts.

It’s also fun having Comedy Bang! Bang!’s Scott Aukerman playing a purple Picard in episode two.

I’d heard that Skinwalkers by Tony Hillerman was where the Leaphorn and Chee series really takes off and man, the hype was real. It’s the first time the two characters meet and they’re instantly at odds. Unlike the superhero trope of two heroes fighting over a misunderstanding and then teaming up, these two tribal cops never really see eye to eye. At best a mutual respect develops but it definitely never becomes a buddy cop story. I’m also fully in love with how steeped these books are in Navajo culture and that the stories are steeped within the lives of the people. Great, great stuff.

Superman: The Triangle Era omnibus volume 2 pretty much runs from Panic in the Sky through The Death of Superman. There’s some gems outside of those bigger story arcs, particularly a two-parter where Clark Kent discovers that the apartment next door to him is filled with domestic violence and all of his powers can’t make things better. It’s a nuanced story, I don’t know if they quite land it, but the first half by Louise Simonson and Jon Bogdonave is particularly well done. Especially for the time when it came out.

Yesterday while thinking about the book I decided a good comparison for this period of Superman stories relates to Star Trek: The Next Generation. Please allow me to push up my horn-rimmed glasses and I’ll explain. Superman is able to handle every situation ultimately through his compassion, moral center and powers until he faces off against Doomsday. TNG had the same scenario until the first time they encountered The Borg. Both of those threats irrevocably changed both series, to the point that you can’t think about either of them without thinking of The Borg and Doomsday.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Godzilla Destroys the Marvel Universe by Gerry Duggan, Javier Garron and friends is exactly what the title says it is. The same way that you know exactly how a Budweiser will taste, this book delivers on exactly what you expect it to do and that’s pretty great. Godzilla’s rampaging through New York, Madripoor and Wakanda and the Fantastic Four, the Avengers and the X-Men try to stop him. And kind of sort of succeed, the same way that the Japanese military in the Toho movies kinda succeed. There’s a follow-up book later this year called Godzilla: The Infinity Roar, in case you were wondering how that goes for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

When I was reading the first Superman Triangle Era omnibus Katy asked, “I know I’m going to regret winding you up with this question, but what’s a ‘Triangle Era ‘ and why did Superman have one?”

For once I had a short answer! If you’re unfamiliar, at one point starting in 1989 there were four Superman titles (Superman, The Man of Steel, Action Comics and Adventures of Superman) and one came out each week. Each one picked up from the prior week’s story and since comics were primarily sold on spinner racks and newsstands back then, a triangle was placed on each cover with a number in it, showing where this fell in the larger story.

I told Katy all of that and she said, “I expected you to go for at least half an hour.” Our ongoing joke (I think it’s funny at least) is the time she asked me if Voltron is a Transformer and I went for over an hour excitedly saying no, but kind of, and it’s interesting that you ask…

Because see, Voltron was actually three different things jammed together, and one of them didn’t even end up getting made, and also The Transformers are multiple different toy lines put together and they hired Marvel Comics to create a narrative between them. One of them was even from Macross, and that’s why the Robotech toys didn’t have the jet, which is funny because that’s the most distinctive thing from Robotech, and…

Okay, see, Macross and Robotech are pretty much the same thing, but…

‘Tis but a flesh wound!

The first three are of a little knight statuette my grandpa gave me as a kid, and the other three are based on some armors displayed at the Nelson-Atkins Museum. I don’t know, suits of armor are cool, man.

And then Transformers became so popular in the States that they started getting their own toys and cartoons all over again back in Japan, but most of those aren’t in continuity, but actually some of it might be, and…

On Monday my therapist told me about an interesting tool for when one knowingly goes into a situation they know is going to be rough and I thought I’d share it with you in case it helps.

I use my various therapy tools AFTER one of those situations but I asked what I can do ahead of time. She told me to essentially sandwich it on both sides with coping. There’s things that fill our cup and there’s things that drain our cup and trying to have that cup as full as possible beforehand can make it easier to refill on the other side.

You might remember the tool I use when I’m overwhelmed, about finding the things that give me no-asterisks joy and to allow those to coexist with the things challenging me. The new concept is to make time with those things ahead of time as well, to intentionally bring joy in. It may not make the hard situation better but it can make the recovery easier.

We can’t make the hard stuff go away, but we can take care of ourselves as much as we can to manage them.

Love you more,
Rob

See, the Go-Bots were a separate thing here in the States, they actually came out first!, but then the company making Transformers bought the company making Go-Bots and merged the two together. I’ve got this great comic by Tom Scioli that ties them together in a rad way, and…