New book available: 6 January 2017. Up for Pre-order now.
graphic noiz volume 1 book summary:
Noiz is a 19 year old illustrator who just graduated from art school and created his first manga, Disaster Code volume 1. He is excited to be showing his work at a comic convention in New York City. He eagerly sets up his table at the con. When no one stops by his table on the first day, he gets discouraged. The famous writer, Shiro Ijima is also at the con signing authographs of books in his bestselling scifi Fissure series. Shiro wanders the aisles in Artist Alley on a break from signing and runs across Noiz’ table. Shiro seems intrigued with the art and walks away only to have his agent come over and inquire with Noiz. A cat and mouse game starts as Keita, Shiro’s agent leads Noiz on trying to see if he will bite. Keita wants to use Noiz to have the work cost less. Noiz realizes that his work looks like an old manga called Dawn that Shiro drew 8 years ago and published in Japan. The two dance around talking about a possible project for a while as Keita has Shiro play games with Noiz getting him anxious to start the collaboration. Shiro is a womanizer but he seems to be taking an interest in Noiz in more ways than just his art. Follow the antics of the eager artist and an aloof and arrogant writer as they plan to start the Fissure manga project in graphic noiz volume 1 of this YA yaoi series.
about the series and writing volume 1
I wanted to write something contemporary that was set in the real world. I spent a few years living in New York City after I graduated college and loved living there even though it was a tough life to be “on” all the time and move at that breakneck speed. I started going to comic conventions before I started writing books and I loved the experience even though I never had a table. Having a table at con was always one of my dreams and I will be able to experience just that at a comicon in January in 2017 so I will really get the true experience, not only as a con goer but now as a vendor.
I started writing this novel a while ago and put it aside for about 5 months as I started work on an accompanying manga that would go with it. I just recently picked it up again. I decided to turn it into a novella and it came in the manuscript at 32,133 words and 77 pages. Which is not long enough to be a novel but it does make a novella. I wanted to make the story a series and it will have the number of volumes necessary for Noiz and Shiro to get through contract, creation and drawing, editing, publishing, and then showcasing the manga at the comic convention. So there will be a few volumes that I need to write. The writing went quickly until I set it down because I lost focus trying to make it a novel. Once the decision to turn it into a novella was done picking it up again was easy and there was no issue with the flow of writing. I went in as a total pantser and got it done with a little meandering in there but it has a cohesive story from con, to tease, to contract signed.
I wanted to also make it LGBT so this is yaoi story. It is not a romance and not really a relationship but there is definitely some boy’s love teasing going on. I made Noiz gay from the outset. It was the womanizing Shiro that I have not defined a sexuality for. He mostly teases the woman fans he picks up, dates once and then dumps. I think for him it is more a game. I do mention that Shiro has kissed a guy before while he was a teenager and working on his own manga at 19 but I don’t think he is solidly gay per say or questioning. I don’t want to label him as pansexual so for now I will call him bisexual until I flush out the story. Shiro is 26 in the story and has given up being a mangaka since his scifi Fissure became a hit. Making a manga version of the story brings up some bad old feelings due to something tragic that happened to Shiro when he was young. We will get more into that and the repercussions on his personality and behavior as the story continues.
about the graphic noiz manga project
So I want to create a mini manga about this story as well that will accompany each volume. The chapters will only be about 6 pages if I can handle that. Main problem, I can draw the characters once but making a page of them recurring and looking the same in each panel has always been hard for me unless I really have a grasp on the character and their personality. So this will be a little bit of a challenge but I swear once I make up my mind on something I will go ahead and get it done. My rule, no more than 6 panels on a page. I broke that in a page of The Seer of Grace and Fire manga for volume 2 a little but I have learned my lesson.
The cover of volume 1 features Noiz giving the script for chapter 1 to Shiro to review. I think I nailed Noiz and how he looks. I need a better drawing of the aloof writer Shiro. I have a character sheet already but Shiro is not consistent over the drawings. I will make the mini manga also available as an Amazon ebook so we will have a place to sell them as volumes get done. I hope you stick around for the release of the manga volume 1 as well. It will be a snippet from the story since you can’t do much in 6 pages, maybe 12 which would be more like a comic. But it will be black and white like a manga. I see some drawing of manhattan skylines in my future though. I am totally inadequate at backgrounds so we will have work on that. I did take an architecture class in art school so I should be able to draw highrises in perspective if I think back to what I learned.
Well, this is the cover reveal for graphic noiz volume 1 which goes live on January 6 2017.
The book is up for Preorder now.
You can check it out on Amazon Kindle and free on Kindle Unlimited at: graphic noiz – volume 1
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