Julio Torres and Friends Toast Their Latest Bizarro Creation

“It’s not a bag,” said Julio Torres, indicating the purse that dangled from his shoulder on a delicate gold chain.

Whatever it was, it was shaped like a fish, and roomy enough to carry a small shell or maybe a couple of grapes. Mr. Torres had purchased the non-bag at a flea market in Paris and brought it to a reception in Manhattan on Saturday for his new HBO series, “Fantasmas.”

Mr. Torres, 37, is a former “Saturday Night Live” writer whose galactic visual sensibility extends to his Instagram handle, @spaceprincejulio. He wrote, directs and stars in “Fantasmas,” a string of vignettes set in an eerie dreamscape that appears to be situated somewhere between Williamsburg and Roku City.

Perched in a bright corner at Jungle Bird, a Chelsea cocktail bar near the theater where the first two episodes of “Fantasmas” would be screened that evening as part of the L.G.B.T.Q. film festival NewFest Pride, Mr. Torres explained how he had recruited Steve Buscemi to play the letter Q in a sketch about the alphabet: Easily.

“He read the script and got back to me within, like, half an hour,” Mr. Torres said.

Near a disco ball roughly the size of Jupiter, a row of murals dotted with abstract nipples faced Eighth Avenue. The room was soon filled with Mr. Torres’s friends and collaborators. (The Venn diagram between the two was practically a circle.)