Martheus Wade: Ninja With a Pencil

Martheus Wade is a creative ninja who writes and draws ninjas. Why? I guess because it takes one to tell stories about one. The first time I met him he was showing off martial arts moves and demonstrating how to illustrate the human body as a piece of artwork in motion, a violent, deadly piece of artwork in motion. 

Then I read his work in Jetta: Tales of the Toshigawa. I was hooked. 

If you haven't met him and entered the world of the Toshigawa Universe, you don't know what you're missing. 

Tell us a bit about your latest work.

I've recently been working on expanding my universe of characters called the Toshigawa Universe. The universe includes our books Shinobi: Ninja Princess, Jetta: Tales of the Toshigawa, Turra: Gun Angel, and the webcomic, Ready 2 Spar. The most current book that is out now is the redesign and re-release of Jetta: Tales of the Toshigawa - Defiance which was our first book ever to go nationwide. Ironically, it was first published by Shooting Star years ago.

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

Martial arts is a huge theme of our books. I have always been a fan of anime and manga. All of that makes up the basis of our look and feel. 

What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer?

I've never considered being a “writer” really. If someone asked me to write a novel, I don’t think I could do it. I’ve always just seen these stories in my head and wanted to convey them. I've always loved reading and English class in school. So it was a natural progression to write stories and characteristics for my creations. So, I guess I am a writer in that respect!

What inspires you to write? 

I see writing as an extension of my creativity while illustrating. It’s almost like the piece isn’t finished until its personality is infused into it. That’s why it's difficult for me to find interest in drawing fan art. I can’t inject my own story into it.

What would be your dream project?

My dream project would be a Wonder Woman and Jetta: Tales of the Toshigawa crossover. I got really close with a Jetta and Shi crossover that I got to write and illustrate in Jetta/Shi: Arrow of Destiny. She and Wonder Woman are some of my favorite characters. To place them alongside my character would be awesome.

If you have any former project to do over to make it better, which one would it be, and what would you do?

I’m kind of doing that now. I’m revisiting my old graphic novels and really getting a chance to update the art as well as add to the story to make it smoother. I’m adding color. I’m adding extra conversions. The characters are a lot more well-rounded. It’s been a treat to go back into these books again.

What writers have influenced your style and technique?

I love Marv Wolfman’s Teen Titans. He was first. The late Kentaro Miura’s work as a whole has been amazing to follow over the years.  I love Stephen King’s work as well. I think all of those have been highly detailed worlds and characters. I try to bring those to my work as well.

Where would you rank writing on the "Is it an art or it is a science continuum?" Why?

Well, I think we are seeing the answer to that unfold in real time now. With the advent of AI and how it’s quickly trying to steal creative jobs, science is trying to eat the artist. Writing as well as a creative endeavor is on the chopping block because people can’t really fathom the spiritual, mental, and artistic energies it takes to make anything. The general thought is, “I should be able to do this. I see other people do it. Why can’t I?” What they don’t realize is that there is an entire history behind that person creating. A person brings their life experiences to the table while writing or drawing. But we are seeing Ai rip that end result off as creativity. Writing isn’t science. It’s as art as you can get.

What is the most difficult part of your artistic process? 

Most would say starting. But I love starting and watching it evolve. I would honestly say finishing. Being satisfied with your work enough to leave it alone. 

How do your writer friends help you become a better writer? Or do they not? 

Kevin Williams takes red pens to my work constantly and Janet Wade, tells me daily how much a piece sucks. So they keep me on my toes. Haha.

What does literary success look like to you? 

Success is being able to live comfortably while taking care of my family and having readers enjoy my work. I don’t have to be rich and have a private island or anything. I just want to live life creatively and allow my family to live it as well.

Any other upcoming projects you would like to plug? 

My graphic novel series is up and going at ToshigawaUniverse.com. There you will find all of our different series as well as apparel. So, I’d love for supporters of independent comics to go there to check it out. There are books there for all ages, adult and young adult readers.

For more information, visit: 

• Store: ToshigawaUniverse.com
• Patreon: patreon.com/MawProductions
• Art Classes: The Comic Studio on OutSchool.com
• Facebook: ToshigawaUniverse
• Instagram: ToshigawaUniverse
• TikTok: ToshigawaUniverse
• YouTube: @Toshigawadotcom

Turra Gun Angel the movie!

Contact Information:
Lys Fulda
Lys@sphinxgroup.com 

 

SHOOTING LIKE A GIRL HAS NEVER BEEN SO DEADLYTurra:Gun Angel Indieagogo campaign is LIVE

(Memphis, Tennessee-April 1, 2013)

Marshal Pictures and Maw Productions announced a joint effort to bring indy comic book heroine Turra to life. The character originated withinthe pages of Maw Productions Jetta Tales of the Toshigawa graphic novel series and carried her own in her book Turra: Bombs and Betrayal. With an established cult following and a film company who excels in genre movies as an art form, the obvious next step was to bring Turra to the big screen. Budding ingénue, Rachel Alig has been cast in the lead role and a plethora of rewards make this a crowdsourcing drive to watch. Getting in at the ground level of a kick ass action movie has never been easier! Donate to the campaign at http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/turra-gun-angel-feature-opening-scene

About Turra: Gun Angel:
Turra has been raised as a ninja assassin and is burnt out on the endless training and constant killing. She leaves Japan to become a bounty hunter in America. After the particularly brazen extraction of a target from a night club, Turra is visited by an elder member of the Japanese Mafia who offers her a job she can’t refuse. Being Turra, however, she does refuse and she soon lands in the middle of Yakuza Civil War! 

Renown artist, Jamal Y Igle (Supergirl, Nightwing) also gave his support, "Martheus [Turra's Creator] is a fantastic talent and taking such a huge leap like this, bringing Turra to life is a bold, worthy endeavor. We have to do what we can to help this project get the funding it needs, and add to the diversity of voices in the film industry."

Want to find out more visit www.turragunangel.comLike Marshal Pictures at https://www.facebook.com/marshal.picturesFollow Marshal Pictures on twitter at https://twitter.com/@MarshalPicturesLike MAW Productions at https://www.facebook.com/groups/157217357709159/Follow MAW Productions at  https://twitter.com/MartheusAW

About Marshal Pictures:The folks at Marshal Pictures love making movies. No matter how big or small the budget, their goals are always the same: produce movies that entertain people, give donors a great experience for their generous support and provide the best possible ROI for investors.

About MAW productions:
MAW productions is a small indy graphic novel publisher who punches well above their weight.  Headed by Martheus Wade (Oxygen Network's Bad Girls Club, Jetta: Takes of the Toshigawa) MAW productions has mastered a heady blend of Asian cultural lore, strong female role models, and modern high speed action. Their titles include Turra: Gun Angel and Jetta: Tales of the Toshigawa.

[Link] It All Ended in San Diego

by Martheus Wade

There I was, sitting at our booth on Sunday at San Diego Comic Con 2009, my hands clasped over my face. Our booth was put on a horrible lane with no traffic. Sells of our books were dismal. My quest to land some full time comic work failed. My portfolio was over looked by both DC and Marvel. A major production company was debuting a new t.v. show that looked a lot like Jetta: Tales of the Toshigawa. And my wife was back at home and pregnant. What’s worse, I told her that I would come home with something concrete. I looked at my last sketch for the convention and knew I would not be coming back. And, just maybe, comics may not be in the cards as a means to take care of my new family.

It was a hard pill to swallow. After all, I put in my time. Submitted my portfolio to the powers that be. Smoozed with editors. Worked on my craft. I should have been there by now. But, for some reason, I wasn’t. I saw friends and colleagues’ careers sail past me, while I stood still. When I was single, I had time to wait on that one break that SHOULD'VE happened. But with a wife and newborn, it was getting harder to justify the wait. I kept thinking, “Why am I doing this?”

Continue reading: http://mawproductions.blogspot.com/2012/08/it-all-ended-in-san-diego.html

My Interview with Maw Productions

Kevin Williams of Maw Productions (for whom I'm writing the upcoming Turra: Gun Angel comic book series) pulled me aside to talk turkey with me about what it's like writing bad-ass ninja chicks, working for Gene Simmons, and writing in my favorite genre -- the blender concoction of pulp, action-adventure, and literature.

Read the interview: http://toshigawa.com/?p=2292

[Link] Generating Ideas

By Kevin Williams and Martheus Wade

One of the questions we get asked from time-to-time is, "Where do you get your ideas?"

Kevin:
Well, sometimes from reading.  It can be a book about creating ideas, like "The Cartoonist's Muse"; or, it can happen while you're reading a novel.  Sometimes, reading other comic strips will send my brain reeling down another path and then I have to stop and go write a few comic strips.

Martheus:

I'm a big fan of movies. I find a lot of inspiration in going to a great movie (and some of the not so great ones) and falling into the story. Sometimes an idea for a comic story can come to me from something as simple as a camera angle. I remember going to see 300 and being moved so much by the fight scenes that I was determined to achieve that feeling of camera angles and movement in a Jetta comic page.

 

Janet:

I get a lot of ideas from movies and animation as well.  If there's a good storyline going, you can't help but become inspired. Good stories are timeless and transcend boundaries, so you'll see recurring themes in different books and movies.  Music can also put you in a certain mood to create.   

Continue reading: http://www.mawproductions.blogspot.com/2012/03/tutorial-1-generating-ideas.html

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now (#67) -- Playing in Sandboxes

What is more fun and rewarding for you, writing your own characters

or writing characters you've been given from someone else?

Ooh. That's a great question. Actually it's two great questions -- "Fun?" and "Rewarding?" (since they might not be the same thing) -- but luckily in this case, the answers are the same for each of them.

In my circle of writing friends, accomplices, and employers, I've learned to call writing characters that belong to someone else "playing in someone else's sandbox."

Let's look at both...

Writing my own characters is always fun because all the ideas are mine to waste, use, destroy, or run with. There's a freedom in that playing in my own sandbox gives me that playing outside it just doesn't or can't. I imagine me writing Dominatrix for Gene Simmons (and IDW, of course) must be a lot like Gail Simone or Palmiotti and Gray writing for DC's Batgirl or Jonah Hex respectively. There are limits to what you can do with the characters, and Mom and Dad have to approve it, whereas me writing Fishnet Angel gave me limitless stories to explore. She was completely at my mercy and didn't have a copyright holder to protect her from my machinations.

My own characters are also rewarding to write because I get to see people react to new characters and stories they've never heard of and never seen. And I get to explore themes and ideas that are often personal to me through them.

However, I also have fun playing in someone else's sandbox because I often am allowed to bring a slightly different viewpoint into play that allows even the person or company who owns the character to see him or her in a new way. This can be especially fun when it walks that trickly line between staying the same and showing too much new too fast. It's an art, not science, that is very rewarding when you get it right, and can suck eggs when it overstep your bounds. A case in point, Martheus Wade is giving me a pretty fair bit of latitude to write his character Turra: Gun Angel. He has had to rein me back in a few times, though, and learning how to work within the reins is all part of the give and take that comes with playing in a sandbox not my own.

What can be most rewarding about writing others' characters though is this -- there's no feeling quite like knowing you're being trusted with someone else's property, to change it, grow it, and leave your own mark on it. Whether it's Marvel trusting Brubaker to control the fate of Captain America for a while or Pulp Obscura trusting me to tale brand new tales of Armless O'Neil (coming soon!), it's immensely gratifying to have that trust from from a publisher and sometimes from a friend.

But, to answer the question completely, I have to say that the most fun and rewarding is when I am being trusted enough with someone else's toys to bring a new toy of my own creation into the mix and have it become part of that sandbox. Case in point, when I created the Saint-Devil, Monique San Diablo for my novella in Lance Star: Sky Ranger Volume 3, I asked Bobby Nash, who owns Lance as a character about my new femme fatale for Lance, and when he read the story, he liked her enough to allow her to become part and parcel of Lance's mythos, to the point that in my new story for Volume 4, she's back, and will also have another adventure with Lance in a comic book short in the upcoming second issue of All-Star Pulp Comics!

And even better, reader response has been exciting.

So, for me, the most fun and rewarding option is to combine the two. (Come on. You knew it wouldn't be a simple one or the other kind of answer for me. Right?)

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now (#36) -- What's New for 2012?

What new work should we be looking for from you this coming year?

Prose:

The Ruby Files Volume 1, Airship 27, 2012
Tall Tales Featuring Aym Geronimo and the Post-Modern Pioneers, Geronimo Press, 2012
The Danger People, New Babel Books, 2012 
Abyss Walker Anthology, New Babel Books, 2012
Price of the Missionary's Gold: The New Adventures of Armless O'Neil Volume One, Pulp Obscura (Pro Se Productions), 2012
Lance Star: Sky Ranger Volume 4, Airship 27, 2012
The Wraith, Airship 27, 2012
The Ruby Files Volume 2, Airship 27, 2012

Comics: 

Turra: Gun Angel comic book series, Maw Productions, 2012
Mayhem, Monsters & Maniacs: Tales for a Creepy Halloween graphic novel, Bandito Entertainment, 2012

An early sneak peek at Turra: Gun Angel

Here's the teaser layout sketch for page of the new, ongoing Turra: Gun Angel book from Maw Productions. Written by me and art by series creator Martheus Wade.

Ain't she purty? (And yes, I do mean the page.)

Don't forget tonight's live chat at Maw Productions!

Join me tonight for the live chat session Friday night at 9:00pm Central time at Maw Productions (www.toshigawa.com, http://www.facebook.com/groups/157217357709159/). 

 Martheus and I will spill the goods about our upcoming book together, Turra: Gun Angel, and we'll hit the "back in time" button to talk about working with the Oxygen Network and NBC on the Bad Girls Club: An Illustrated Adventure comic book as well. 

Also, as time permits, feel free to discuss any of our past projects. 

It's sure to be a fun time. Can't wait to see you there.

Chat me up. I'm easy.

 Join me on this Friday for the live chat session Friday night at 9:00pm Central time at Maw Productions (www.toshigawa.com). I'll be the special guest and we'll talk with that turkey Martheus Wade... I mean, we'll talk turkey with  Martheus Wade and me about the new Turra: Gun Angel series that will be hitting in 2012 and even the Bad Girls Club, along with any of my projects for the past few years.

Be there or we send Turra after you (and not in a good way).

Coming in 2012 -- Turra: Gun Angel

It'll be an action-packed combination of guns, martial arts, babes, dudes, romance, and -- most of all -- butt-kicking when Martheus Wade (Jetta: Tales of the Toshigawa, Bad Girls Club) and Sean Taylor (Gene Simmons Dominatrix, Fishnet Angel: Jane Doe, Bad Girls Club) team up to tell the all-new adventures of Jetta's (don't call her a) sidekick -- Turra.

Coming in 2012 from Maw Productions!