>Hugz<

Boy Meets Boy is a Korean short film dealing with love affairs between high school mates. The director of this movie produced another Korean queer movie, No Regret. BMB is an autobiographical story of the director who's a renowned movie producer in Korea. According to his interview, finding and accepting his own sexual orientation wasn't that hard for him, unlike in most queer movies. He accepted himself with joy and so did his family and friends, I read from articles. Because it's a short film I don't know if I can get any chance to watch this film. But I hope that I'll have the opportunity.

Sang-wha-jeom or Ssang-wha-jeom is a Korean movie dealing with love triangle among a king, a queen and a king's guardian warrior. Before Chosun Dynasty, there was Corea Dynasty in Korean Peninsula. According to many historical records, Corea Dynasty was even more liberal than Chosun Dynasty where Confucianism played a big part in every area, politics, family rules and so on. So during the Corean period, women could inherit properties and love poems were allowed. The title of this movie is one of the love poem, a little bit sex poem. The main character the King, Gong-min is portrayed as gay even in records. Some says he hired many beautiful male warriors around him. But history is always re-written by the winner. So we can't be sure which is true and which is false. But at least we can say there was something "queer" about him. The movie runs in Korea on the 30th of December, this year. I'm waiting.

Antique Bakery is a Korean movie based on a Japanese Comic Book of same title. (See the article of October) I watched the Premiere of this movie at a theater near home. And I really enjoyed it. Wait and watch it when this movie runs in your own town.

Giovanni's Room is a novel by African-american writer James Baldwin. The narrator of the book is David, a white American. While staying at Paris after proposing to a girl named Hella, he met an Italian bartender, Giovanni and fell in love with him. But David left Giovanni which devastated Giovanni and in the end Giovanni was about to be executed for killing his employer. I don't know since when and why.. But I got obssessed with this story and I finally found a used book (thanks to my friend's help). And that, it's a Korean book. Now I'm waiting the book's delivery.

Maurice is a James Ivory film based on the novel of same title by E. M. Forster. The main Character Maurice is a Cambridge student from rich family. But after a short affair with senior student Clive, he gets dropped out of Uinversity. And he hegitates to accept his sexual desire for men. But while staying at Clive's, he has a visitor at night, Alec, a gamekeeper who works for Clive. They make love and at the end they decide to live together whatever it may bring. I saw this film when I was a Uinversity student. I could relate to Maurice so much and the movie really shook me up and down. I read the book in English before the book got translated into Korean. I bought the book in Korean, as soon as they released it. I bought the DVD from a British online shop, maybe Blackstar or something. So you can tell I'm a huge fan of this book and this movie. And lucky me that one of my friends got me two 'Maurice' books in English.

Ralf Koenig is a German cartoonist who draws gay comics. I've never had the chance to read his works. (Not easy to find his comics translated in English around my town) First I recognized him from a book on European comics called 'I went for the European Comics' or something. The book introduced him as a cartoonist having alternative theme, gays' life. The second time that I ran into his name was when I watched a movie called Killer Condom which is based on his comic book, Kondom des Grauens. I kinda like his style and I wish I could buy his books some day.

Fumi Yoshinaga is a Japanese cartoonist who is famous for dealing with love affairs between men. She got a fame via Slam Dunk(famous Japanese Comics on high school basketball teams) parody cartoon in which the characters of Slam Dunk are portrayed as gays. In Japan, there are many yaoi comics dealing with love affairs between men. But usually they tend to focus on one thing, sex. Not like usual yaoi cartoon, works of Yoshinaga show people's various feelings from suffering, agony to joy and happiness. One of her works, Antique Bakery(see the picture) was adopted to Japanese soap opera and animation of same title. And in the upcoming winter, a Korean movie of the same title will be run in the theaters.

Tom of Finland is a Finnish gay-erotica illustrator who got international fame. He drew masculine men who wear jeans, leather trousers, police uniforms or nothing!!! His influence on following illustrators is beyond words. And the way he portrayed gays as fun-loving and bright as the word "gay" means, has had positive impact on the viewers. He's done an amazing job for people around the world, including me. :)

Go Fujimoto is a Japanese gay bear manga artist. He's famous for bear calendar series. And he reguarly updates his works on his personal website. Like Tagame Gengoroh or Jiraiya he's so talented in drawing Japanese men wearing only fundoshi , which is so sexy and exotic. Go, Go Fujimoto .

Jiraiya is a manga writer who had drawn the cover of "G-men" for years and published his manga through the same magazine for years. All his characters are chubby and masculine men. And unlike Tagame Gengoroh who had drawn the magazine's cover for years before Jiraiya did is into SM and likes to put his characters in pain and torture, Jiraiya's characters are cute, fun-loving and more easy to relate to. He published two comic books including Goninbeya and one illustration book called "The Art of Giraiya".

Nonbe Kensuke is a manga writer whose works were published through Japanese gay magazines like "Sa-bu" and "G-men" from the late 1990s to the 2000's. He put an emphasis on feelings and stories in his works and his works showed his colorful and unique view of the world, which led many fans to support him strongly even though his works are no longer updated. He's also known as "Pocko dog(pocko-ken)". His works include : Father returns home (see the picture) Wriggling cover Horse Deer Threshold Beast of man Confession (from "G-men) and Tak-chan (from "Sa-bu") (this article is based on the article from Japanese Wikipedia)