The Art of Family

Janet and Martheus Wade are graphic novelists extraordinaire.

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"In playing, or writing, or drawing, or simply talking oneself deep into the world of a popular artwork that invites the regard of the amateur, one is seeking above all to connect, not only with the world of the show, comic book, or film but with the encircling, embracing metaworld of all those who love it as much as you do." — Michael Chabon, “The Amateur Family”

Shiny and pink, with a smiling, teenage ninja on the cover, copies of a new hardbound graphic novel adorn shelves of bookstores and comic book shops around Memphis.

The book collects issues 1-6 of Shinobi Ninja Princess, an intermediate-level graphic novel published by Action Lab comics about a teenage trainee of the Toshigawa clan. That trainee, Shianndrea Toshigawa, juggles self-esteem, teenage angst over unrequited love, and, well, throwing stars. It’s a story of empowerment, and it represents a growing trend in comics and speculative fiction, a movement toward representation and inclusion. From Brian K. Vaughaun and Cliff Chiang’s Paper Girls to G. Willow Wilson’s run on Ms. Marvel, more and more often in the genre, women aren’t waiting to be saved. They’re stepping up and doing the saving themselves.

What makes Shinobi so special, though, is that it was made — written, illustrated, inked, and colored — in Memphis. And, as much as it tells the story of Shianndrea and her family, it is the story of another family, the family who wrote and drew and colored their dream into a hardbound, 326-page reality. This is the story of the Wade clan.

Origin Story

Long before Shinobi — and before comic book intellectual properties became such a prominent facet of popular culture, the fuel that drives the Hollywood movie machine — Martheus Wade and Janet Stone took a summer class at the University of Memphis.

“We met in creative writing class,” Martheus remembers. “I didn’t know at the time that she was an art major, too.” It was a summer course. Martheus wrote comics-related stories in class, and Janet took notice. “We became friends,” Martheus says.

The two artists had a long history with arts from the fringes of pop culture, and their friendship was a natural development of those shared interests in fictional worlds that were, in 1995, still far from the mainstream. Janet spent her early years soaking up Japanese anime at a U.S. Air Force base on Okinawa, Japan, where her father served, and Martheus had long been watching anime and reading comics. They were years ahead of their classmates when it came to embracing comics and cartoons as serious storytelling mediums.

“The way the times change is astonishing,” Martheus says. The Memphis-born artist says that, despite all the love he had for the medium, he used to feel like he had to hide his appreciation of comic books to avoid a certain social stigma: “People would be like, ‘Oh, you big nerd!’” He remembers making excuses to skip concerts and social events and go home to work on his art. “I had to lie and say, ‘No, I’m really tired,’ when I was really just trying to submit to comic book companies at night.” That burning-the-midnight-oil ethic would serve Martheus well as he worked on his own (in the lingo of the comic book business) creator-owned titles, but that wouldn’t be until later.

“My really earliest influences were anime because I lived in Japan as a kid,” Janet remembers. “My dad was in the Air Force, so my very early childhood was spent overseas in Japan and the Philippines, but we somehow landed here.” As a child, Janet was drawn to the two-hour block of anime programming on television. She didn’t understand what the characters were saying, but she loved the animation. Meanwhile, in Memphis, Martheus was discovering his own passion for comics and animation.

“I’ve always liked reading comic books,” Martheus recalls. When he was younger, he had a tutor who encouraged his burgeoning interest in comics. “She told my mom, ‘If he likes to read comic books, just let him read comic books. As long as he’s reading something.’” His mother took the tutor’s advice and took Martheus to the store. “At the time it wasn’t comic book stores. It was 7-Eleven and corner stores, with the spinner racks. I would just buy what was on the spinner racks.

“None of that stuff came in order,” Martheus says. “It was whatever the store picked up. A lot of times, I would start a storyline and not be able to finish it.” Rather than let himself be stymied by cliffhangers, though, Martheus simply began making up his own endings. “I’ve always had a ‘what if’ sense of thought,” he says. “So I started writing, ‘What if Batman did this?’” Before long, he had stopped writing alternate endings to Batman and had begun crafting original stories. “What I didn’t know at the time was that I was building a world in my head that was my own,” he says.

A World of Their Own

Martheus and Janet married on June 8, 2002, but by that time, they had been building worlds together for years. “I started self-publishing when I graduated in ’98,” Martheus says. The young artist’s senior project was to promote a comic book company, so he made his own business cards, letterhead, advertising plan, and an action figure. Thus was born MAW Productions and the company’s flagship title, Jetta: Tales of the Toshigawa. And of course, Martheus and Janet collaborated on Jetta, as they would on many stories, both their own and other properties.

“Pop culture, comic books, manga, anime, video games — to some people, I know it seems foreign, but to us, it’s not. It’s always been ingrained in our relationship. Even with our son. He and I are working on a comic book together.” — Martheus Wade

“One of my first comic book gigs working professionally was with IDW. I had to get the pages done within a week. I didn’t want to tell them no, but it was a heavy job. It was all likenesses of actors, so the penciling process alone was going to take me a week,” Martheus remembers. The solution was simple — enlist the artistic talents of his wife. Martheus stayed up for three days penciling the book, a comic book insert for the DVD case of the 2008 comedy Role Models, and Janet did the inks. Their work ethic, passion for popular art, and trust in each other would all help influence Shinobi. They’ve built a world on a deep foundation of long nights working on projects together and teasing each other about their childhood interests.

“Pop culture, comic books, manga, anime, video games — to some people, I know it seems foreign, but to us, it’s not,” Martheus says. “It’s always been ingrained in our relationship. Even with our son. He and I are working on a comic book together.” Their son, 10-year-old Anakin Wade, is a big part of the Shinobi story. In fact, without him, there may never have been a Shinobi at all.

Shinobi from the Start

We got pregnant,” Janet says, and the young couple knew they wanted to share their passion for stories with their child. Their relationship had grown from the fertile soil of their imaginations, and they wanted to share the fruits of their labor with their growing family. But, it turns out, there was one little problem. “Jetta was a little too grown-up,” Janet says.

So Janet and Martheus set about doing what they do best. They started imagining a new world, one that would be accessible to a child. What had happened, they wondered, before Jetta?

“At the time we had one car,” Janet recalls. She says Martheus insisted on driving her to and from work. “On his break times he would write little bits of story of [Shianndrea] as a kid or as a teenager, and on the ride home he would give it to me to read.”

“I had more fun doing that than I had working on comics in a long time,” Martheus remembers. “Just because it had a purpose. And it gave us something to talk about on the ride home.”

Martheus saw Shinobi as not just an opportunity to share a hobby or entertain, but as a way to pass on some wisdom and hard-learned lessons. “You’re not going to be there all the time,” he says. “It’s not preaching to ’em, but it has some relevance.” In that vein, Shinobi’s first issue deals with jealousy, as young Shianndrea is tempted to hide her talents to keep from outpacing her friends. The father who once hid his artistic talents doesn’t want his son to make the same mistake. “Don’t ever downplay yourself,” Martheus says. “Just do you. There are going to be people who don’t approve, but just do you and be the best person you can be.”

As a gift for Anakin, Shinobi is a labor of love, and that love is as crisp and clear as the ink on every page. It shows in the care taken in each step of the process. As an example, in the third chapter, Master Jubei’s story of Shianndrea’s ancestor, Yamato Toshigawa, is rendered in soft-edged watercolor. It seems to hint at the passage of time and the haziness of memory, even as the stylistic choice reinforces the character traits of Yamato Toshigawa, a fisherman. And that flashback is but one example among many of the attention lavished on the graphic novel by a family of dedicated workers.

To Infinity and Beyond

Like many artists, Martheus and Janet have day jobs. Janet works for the Girl Scouts, and Martheus is a graphic designer for the Memphis Redbirds. He does illustrations and animations, product designs, billboards, game day programs, and specialty jerseys. “It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of fun, too,” he says. “You’d be surprised how many times I get to work in comic book stuff. The second season I was there, at superhero night, I made everybody a superhero.” He interviewed each member of the team, asked them what power they would like to have, and gave them that power in their illustration. Of course, Martheus still finds time to work on his own stories and to work as a freelance illustrator.

He has worked on Action Man from Hasbro, Manavore, Bad Girls Club, and Ghostbusters. “You did Star Wars sketch cards,” Janet reminds her husband before teasing him for being shy about his accomplishments. “You did Marvel sketch cards that you sold for, like, $20 each. Those got snapped up.” The cards were for the Marvel Masterworks series, and they were worth well more than $20. “They usually sell ’em for like $100,” Martheus admits sheepishly. “He didn’t know!” exclaims Janet, laughing.

As if that’s not enough to keep the couple busy, Martheus has done some illustration work for his friend Ladelle Beamon’s nonprofit. “He’s with the Heal the Hood Foundation,” he says. “We’ve done comic books where it’s all minority comic book superhero characters, and he’s been giving them away in inner-city schools.” Martheus hopes the comics will give young students role models who look like them and, fictional or not, appear to truly care. After all, where would he be if he hadn’t had a tutor who encouraged his interest in comics?

As for the future? “I would love to have a show on Netflix,” Martheus and Janet say in unison. Shinobi is ripe for adaptation as an all-ages animation program. It wouldn’t be the first time the Wades’ work was eyed for adaptation; Jetta was optioned by the San Francisco-based Lizard Brain Production. They have a pitch packet ready, in case any animation companies are reading. “I still believe that animation has its place,” Martheus says. “It’s one of the first things we fell in love with,” Janet chimes in.

Of course, there’s more Shinobi in the works. The Wades are currently working on a holiday special, which they plan to release digitally. It’s set in Japan on Christmas Eve, and it follows Shianndrea as she and a friend meet to stave off loneliness by whiling away the holiday together. “He has to research,” Janet laughs. “My Christmas in Japan was really American because I was on the base.”

Between parenthood, being a one-family production studio, and taking time to read a comic every now and then, too, Martheus and Janet keep themselves busy — and plan to for the foreseeable future. When they’re not distributing free, inspirational comics to local children or turning the Redbirds into superheroes, the Wades can be found building a world of their own, one panel at a time.

Martheus and Janet Wade will discuss and sign their new graphic novel, Shinobi Ninja Princess, at Novel bookstore, Saturday, November 23rd, at 2 p.m. Shinobi Ninja Princess is also available at 901 Comics and Comics & Collectibles and online at comixology.com.