QCA Art: Kinu Sekigushi

For those of you not in the know, yaoi is a popular Japanese term for fictional comics [manga], animated movies [anime] and novels about gay man sex. Nevermind that women sometimes create yaoi for women (kinda like old-skool Playgirl).
Surprisingly, the artist of the drawings above, Kinu Sekigushi, is a young, self-taught, French artist living in Paris. He’s obviously influenced by manga and male portraiture. His idealized forms look like superhero pin-ups combining a slick comic book and centerfold aesthetic with a theatrical appeal.
Sekigushi has mixed traditional hand drawing with digital artwork, and typography to create his own style and branding. Not only has his work toured Europe and received international press, but is drawings also show up on postcards, posters, CD, calendars and today even a few books.
Sekigushi’s also an avid deep sea diver. Hanging out at the beach must give him a lot of time to observe male forms for his projects. You can check out more of his work at his official site and this gay French site.

QColumn: A Gay In The Life: Makin’ Copies

Makin’ Copies
By Steve Prince
When I’m not working on my graduate degree, I work at a law office. I started working there when I first moved to Los Angeles, back in the days when I wanted to be an actor. I started the job as an office bitch; to this day you can call the senior partner’s cellphone and you’ll be greeted by my voice. Five years later, what am I doing? Well, pretty much the same thing except now I do filings with the court, some legal research, and organize aspects of the office setup. Long story short — I’m a glorified office bitch. The great thing about my job is not the actual job, but the people — especially my boss.
My boss is Jay Day, the firm office manger. Yes, his first name is Jay and his last name is Day. It’s like his mother knew he was going to be a raging homosexual. He’s a fifty-year-old man with the enthusiasm of a twenty-five-year-old. Maybe that’s why his partner of ten years is my age; that boy has to keep up with Jay Day. Jay Day (you never say just his first name— it doesn’t sound as good) was raised in a Jewish family in Los Angeles. However, at nineteen Jay Day converted to the Mormon Church. He served as a missionary and was on the traveling church dance team for fifteen years. Yes yes, the traveling church dance team. Being a dancer all his life, Jay Day is a world-champion ballroom dancer and a world-champion Latin dancer. Finally at thirty-five, Jay Day came out, quit the Mormon church, and started a hugely successful, all-male ballroom dancing class in West Hollywood. Jay Day and I get along famously. We call one another “Girl” at the office and he brings me tagged pages from magazines that contain hot men. Because of him, I saw the movie HAIRSPRAY nine times. Yes, this man is queerer than Christmas, and he’s amazing.
When you work at a law office one of the main activities of daily office life is living at the copier. Yeah, you know where I’m going with this; I am a copy boy. It’s almost something I’m proud of. Give me something you need a copy of and I can collate it, staple it, hole punch it (three-punch or two-punch), two-side it, book format it, scan it, and on and on. The copier also takes a little bit of my soul with every molecule of toner put onto a page. As I sit almost hypnotized by the rhythmically flashing green light, I contemplate why in God’s name I got a undergrad degree in opera of all things and how I actually became proficient in the ways of the copier. Thankfully, my hypnotic trances have been shorter since I started grad school— Momma can see the way out. Still, I’d resigned myself to hate the copier like a new pimple on the night of prom — but then Grant came along.

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