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Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. It's a new vibration.

You may not think it, but I often go into a painting with one intention and as I proceed it becomes something else, and it’s actually rare when a painting is exactly what I had in mind. That’s what happened with this Skye Blue piece, that it manifested exactly the way I saw it in my head. I like how the composition worked, with the warm colors moving in one way and the design element moving in the other. It gives the viewer something to look at, to keep their eyes moving.

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

I’m a fan of comic book artists who have a singular voice, and a big booming one of those voices from when I was a kid in the 80’s and 90’s was Mike Zeck. When I think of his superhero work, the character I most associate him with is The Punisher. I mean, look at that illustration, how can you not? Zeck’s style has a fabulous combination of the high contrast and the cartoony, working in a similar vein as Michael Golden but very much doing his own thing.

He had a run as the cover artist for GI Joe, which made him one of the most-visible comics artists of the day thanks to Mattel’s attempt to circumnavigate laws about advertising toys. See, they couldn’t run their ads with the animation kids associated with the cartoon, but there weren’t any restrictions of the sort about comics, so they promoted the hell out of this comic. Although as a kid at the time, what I thought were the raddest episodes of the cartoon were just these ads and I definitely thought they were showing me how to play with the toys!

That said, Zeck showed up for these covers, telling awesome stories in just one image that definitely made people want to buy the comics. This one particularly stands out for me personally.

It’s hard to say what his high water mark was, but there’s an argument for Kraven’s Last Hunt with writer JM DeMatteis. Every panel is superb and the covers, especially this iconic one of Spider-Man crawling out of his own grave, are plain awesome. This felt like Marvel trying to do what Frank Miller, Klaus Janson and David Mazzucchelli did with Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One and in my opinion DeMatteis, Zeck and inker Bob McLeod did just that.

Zeck largely turned to doing covers and pin-up illustrations after that, but lordy just by looking at them you can tell he took the job seriously. His covers for the Batman storyline Ten Nights of the Beast (great title) are out of this world with both their dynamism and detail. They didn’t look like anything else on the stands at the time and demanded your interest.

My nervous system clenches up thinking about doing all of that detail by hand with just a pen and a ruler. But also look at how Batman’s figure is largely just big unrendered shapes, creating a lovely sense of framing in something that would otherwise be too busy.

Mike Zeck took that composition even further with this Silver Surfer illustration. The plain white space speaks volumes against that super-detailed city, doesn’t it? I feel like it also speaks to the character’s loneliness in a poignant way.

His last bit of sustained interior work was for a creator-owned book from Image Comics with Steven Grant called Damned that I thoroughly loved. It’s a noir crime story where Zeck got to show off how far his style had matured, bringing in a lot of European influences. Denis Rodier’s inks worked beautifully here, too. I think I need to go re-read this!

On Saturday I made this unreal pumpkin sage gnocchi. I subbed chipotle in adobo sauce for the bacon but otherwise followed the recipe, except for a splash of my homemade IPA vinegar while sauteeing the onions. I went too heavy on the adobo, using a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon so this batch had me wiping my brow once I was done but golly it was delicious.

This was my first time cooking gnocchi. I just got some premade instead of making it from scratch this time around, but I found some good recipes if I decide to go that route.

The pumpkin gave it a slightly sweet taste, the adobo some smokiness and the sage rounded it out with that fall flavor we love with Thanksgiving dishes. The gnocchi acts like a flavor sponge, soaking up all of that goodness to make each bite divine.

Love you more,
Rob