The Pressure of the Closet Explodes in Filmmaker’s Graphic Novel

Comic book creators John Hahn and Quentin Lee

Gay filmmaker and writer Quentin Lee joined artist John Hahn to introduce their mysterious graphic novel "Campus Ghost Story" at the James C. Hormel Gay & Lesbian Center at the San Francisco Main Public Library on April 29.

The setting for the event is a striking circular room with a marvelous
sepia-toned, trompe l’oeil ceiling mural by Mark Evans and Charley Brown that displays famous LGBT cultural icons that include authors Willa Cather and Gertrude Stein, Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, Prussian King Frederick the Great, and Turkish Sultan Suleiman I.

The Hormel Center is an LGBT research center that preserves historical and cultural archives.

The novel presentation began with a greeting from the Hormel Center’s Karen Sundheim, and then Lee and Hahn introduced themselves to an attentive audience. A slide show of the graphic novel’s panels was shown, and Lee and Hahn took clever turns playing the female and male characters as they read the dialogue aloud. The story by Lee is ominous and has a sense of doom, which is expertly illustrated by artist Hahn, and there is an ambiguous theme of the danger of the closet. The specter of a horribly murdered student haunts its way through the pages of the book, and it is suggested that the pressures of hiding in the closet conjured up that gruesome hallucination.

Lee explained that the graphic novel is a blueprint for a film, but that his efforts to produce his ideas onto celluloid have not panned out. And his description of the sometimes sordid complications of movie creation was educational and hair-raising, with a vast amount of money appearing and disappearing.

Quentin Lee

Lee's first film "Shopping for Fangs" is well-regarded for its quirky characters that include a young man who fears that he is turning into a werewolf. "Drift" is a local favorite, partly because of the inter-racial casting and because adored Mission beauty Desi del Valle has a part, and "The People I’ve Slept With" received a huge positive reception at the recent San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. Gay actor Wilson Cruz convincingly played a sex-crazed gay man, who also wants a lover, and Karin Anna Cheung played his friend who has sex with dozens of men but she must find out which one impregnated her. The SF Bay Times reviewed the film twice, and its theater screenings are eagerly anticipated.

Filmmaker Lee is presenting Little Love at the 2010 San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival on June 26. It is a short film with a unique script — three gay Latinos are involved in a triad relationship — and knowing Lee’s technique it will be intense.

The graphic novel is available online at Netcomics.com, and its creators will be appearing at the next Comic-Con Convention. Artist Hahn has had experience with the supernatural with his "Dungeons & Dragons" efforts and he has an “Electric City” comic strip.

The lead question of the Q&A, just before the book signing, was: “What will you be doing in 5 years?” They answered more graphic novels and more films, which drew one more applause from the fans, and then they rushed up to meet Lee and Hahn.

Over the Top Sex Comedy Thrills at the Asian American Film Festival

Director Quentin Lee and actress Karin Anna Cheung

A sold-out audience gasped, laughed and even yelled loudly throughout director Quentin Lee’s unpredictable sex comedy "The People I’ve Slept With" at the Castro Theatre on March 14. The film was chosen as a Centerpiece Film for the 2010 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. Beautiful lead actress Karin Anna Cheung and director Quentin Lee, a UC Berkeley alum, attended the screening.

The gay element of the film occurred in its first few minutes, as Cheung’s self-described promiscuous character is seen in the throes of lurid passion with different men, and her voice-over details her comparison to sexually active gay men. Director Lee is openly gay, and effervescent gay Latino actor Wilson Cruz did some of his best work as a guy who enjoys sex with as many different men as possible. The first part of the film was a fascinating tribute to two people dedicating their lives to sexual pleasure.

Cheung’s character even had sexual baseball cards, which were Polaroid snapshots of the Asian, White, Black, and Latino men she had thrashed around with, and a few women also. And the cards become important to her when she discovered that she was pregnant, and the most likely father was among the snapshots. Archie Kao of TV’s "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" was a lead, and so was legendary actor James Shigeta. Shigeta starred in the 1961 film "Bridge to the Sun" as a lead with glamorous White actress Carrol Baker when such interracial casting was unheard of.

Actor Cruz’s character realized that while he is helping with the daddy hunt that one of his conquests is someone he should not have discarded. His pursuit of love ends up in a surprising finale for someone so dedicated to variety, and the character played by Cheung has a decidedly ambiguous finale to her full tilt desperate rampage through the lives of the men who may have impregnated her. Both Cheung and Cruz’s characters transcend their previous lives, a goal of films, novels, and other creative art.

Lead actors Cheung, Cruz, and Kao are impossibly good-looking and their acting energy varied measurably to add texture and to present an unusually message-filled creation, especially for a sex comedy.

The Asian American Film Festival was programmed from March 11 through March 21, and this is year 28 of the largest festival dedicated to Asian American cinema. Diverse films were screened and there were party-hopping, online contests, and interactive projects. The opening night gala at the Asian Art Museum was packed with supporters as well as directors, actresses, actors, and David Chiu, the president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

And again Karen Larsen and her crew from Larsen Associates public relations drew large audiences to the various events.