So I wanted to talk about manga today as I have 32 pages lineart done for graphic noiz manga 2. I wanted to talk about yaoi today as there are various heat levels in the genre. Now I have written about me not writing romance and again I will reiterate, I will not write romance but that does not stop me from writing a yaoi manga. This may be semantics but it means something to me. There is no happily ever after here in graphic noiz. I am not about that. Nope, no romance at all. And our heat level will have to be a little more tame than outright banging and sex scenes but I will tease you in graphic noiz while keeping the story at a YA level. This may be difficult to do if I want to have it qualify as yaoi but we will see what we can do. I think I can maneuver my way around PG-13 pretty well and leave it suggestive.

So I wanted to share with you some back cover art. Below is the back cover lineart for graphic noiz manga 2 featuring Shiro Ijima the bestselling author on the right and amateur manga artist Noiz. Shiro takes on an emotional trauma in this volume when Noiz, his lover is beaten up for being gay. I wanted to make commentary on LGBT rights and hate due to the current political climate and the lying in politics that is going on. LGBT teens with all the anti LGBT sentiment lately are afraid to be themselves and afraid of being discriminated against. I have a voice and wanted to use it to shed light on LGBT hate crimes and show that LGBT people are real, have feelings and that discrimination is not okay in any form be it against LGBT people, Jews, Muslims, Asians, African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, people with disabilities, those with addiction or those with mental illness. The story that is the center to graphic noiz sheds light on the need for understanding and acceptance as well as truth. Noiz is 19 in the story and I wanted to provide positive role models for LGBT youth. This is why I write.

Now yaoi can be romance and it can be explicit sex, or it can be boy’s love just dancing around the sexual attraction. Since I want to make this volume also a webcomic like volume 1 that means that I cannot have explicit sex in it. Also I am thinking about the teen and YA audience that this is directed to so I will abstain from gratuitous anything in this story. I may make a side mini comic of graphic noiz at some point that I will not make online if I want to explore drawing sex scenes but I don’t want anything tacky and I have to think about what I am publishing and want to put out there. So far in graphic noiz 2 we have had some kissing and touching but no sex at this time. And if we do have sex it will be behind closed doors. We do “take it to the bedroom” but then the lights go out and I am currently working on the final page of that scene for chapter 3.

Now the story of graphic noiz manga 2 takes place at the end of graphic noiz novella book 2 and stays in the realm of novella book 3. The story is not exactly the same but there are similar themes and there are days added to the novella of things that I could not cover in the book series. The manga lets me explore more of the emotional side of Shiro Ijima. In the books he is a hard arse and we see him have a hard exterior. In the manga we see more of Shiro’s emotions and the range of them as well as the different feeling he has.

Not to give away the story but in this volume of the manga Noiz is the target of an anti LGBT attack. This sends Shiro into an emotional turmoil seeing his lover hurt. I wanted to make commentary on the current emotional climate and LGBT hate that has surfaced as well as political discrimination at the highest levels in the United States even as the government tries to roll back marriage equality while other countries like Japan are starting to warm up to LGBT marriage and are issuing licenses in various prefectures. Other countries are coming around as well but those like Russia, china, Africa and the Middle East are still lagging behind. LGBT rights are human rights and I believe that everyone is equal and that means marriage and transgender rights. There is a transgender character in graphic noiz, Jade, Shiro’s little sister who does drag. She dresses like a woman and is full time but she has not had SRS in the story and I have not decided if I will make that a thing or not in the plot.

Well, I have shared the back cover lineart which is destined to be coloured in the future and had my say for the day. I leave you with the front cover lineart as well for the manga. This drawing will also be coloured. The front cover drawing got cropped but you get the idea. So I hope you enjoyed this update on graphic noiz manga 2. Stick around for more cause you know I will be keeping you up to date on that.

graphic noiz: “making manga has never been harder.”