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Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. Just like Pagliacci did, I try to keep my surface hid.

The way that Toni Storm keeps evolving her character it gives me as an artist endless options to create a painting. For instance, her look at All In was akin to a mime or a classic clown and that immediately made me think, as one does, of the opera Pagliacci. BECAUSE EVERYONE THINKS ABOUT OPERA WHEN THEY’RE WATCHING WRESTLING OF COURSE.

But that sent me down a pleasant rabbit hole of posters for Pagliacci and the limited black, white and red palette is always fun to play around with. I also liked the older posters where the paper has aged a bit and that led me to add some sepia to the mix to give it all some extra richness. I also put in the slightest bit of Jaune Brilliant no. 2 for her skin, a light orange that I’m fond of. It’s a fun combination of colors I haven’t really used before and I’m very happy with the results.

A man goes to a doctor. “Doctor, I’m depressed,” the man says; life is harsh, unforgiving, cruel.

The doctor lights up. The treatment, after all, is simple. “The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight,” the doctor says, “Go and see him! That should sort you out.”

The man bursts into tears. “But doctor,” he says, “I am Pagliacci.”

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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Let’s take a moment to look at some stellar John Romita Jr artwork. The first time I personally encountered his work was during his time on the monthly Daredevil series with the legendary Al Williamson inking him. Issue 260 specifically, if I remember right, which is an outstanding entry point to his work. Later he did some possibly career-best work on the Man Without Fear miniseries with writer Frank Miller and again with Williamson on inks. That’s what I’ve got in the images above and below.

It’s about Matt Murdock before he became Daredevil, sort of a Year One story but also slightly removed from canon continuity. I think it was based on Miller’s treatment for a Daredevil movie. Anyway, JRJR drew the hell out of this. He was fully confident in his own style by this point and did some work that will stand the test of time.

A year earlier was when I first started getting really excited with his work when he drew the badass Punisher War Zone comic with Klaus Janson on inks. His art went to another level here and he’s pretty much stayed awesome since. The cover of the first issue below is probably my favorite Punisher cover ever. It’s just rad.

Romita Jr has stayed consistently working for decades now, still putting out pages on a regular basis. To list off his notable runs would be a futile exercise because there’s just so dang many of them (although his time on Amazing Spider-Man with J Michael Straczynski is fantastic, as well as the fight between Hulk and Sentry in World War Hulk being one of the best superhero slugfests I’ve ever seen), but it’s the above Daredevil and Punisher works that have stayed at the top of my brain.

It’s also notable that his dad, John Romita, Sr (or John Romita, Classic as I like to refer to him!) is one of the most important artists in the history of Marvel Comics and JRJR has still somehow cut his own path and gained his own high level of esteem.

I made my own refried beans for the first time on Tuesday. Way simpler than I thought it’d be and so much tastier. Here’s what I did:

I heated up the olive oil on medium-low heat and then added the onions and salted them. I let those saute for a few minutes until they cooked down a bit. I then added the garlic, chili powder, seasoning and salt and let them cook until fragrant, which was a little under a minute.

Then I added the water and beans and turned the heat up to medium. I covered the pan with a lid and let them cook for five minutes, stirring a couple times. I removed the lid and used the back of a fork to mash about half of the beans and let them cook for another three minutes on low heat, stirring regularly.

Finally I took the pan off the heat and zested the lime over the beans and juiced it and mixed that all up. I added some more seasoning to my taste and blammo!

I meant to chop up a couple medium tomatoes and I would have added them towards the end of the onions cooking, but I forgot to get them at the store. I’ll do that next time. My local grocery store jars up their own spice mixes and their burrito seasoning is pretty outstanding. Basically you want some sort of mix of cumin, chili powder, garlic powder and maybe some paprika. Also feel free to swap in black beans instead of pinto beans, depending on what you’re making the beans for.

But yeah, it only took about 15 minutes all told so I’ll probably do my beans this way going forward.

Love you more,
Rob