Rags Drum 2020: Results of the Annual Call for Submissions

Rags Drum 2020: Lab on Roof’s Annual Call for Submissions

About Rags Drum

“The kingdom of poetry has collapsed from within … Redemption is not a reward for existence, but the last way out for someone whose path, as Kafka puts it, ‘has been blocked by his own … front ribs.’” —Benjamin

To foster the continued production of more and better criticism and research on animation, comics, and games (ACG), and to encourage exchange among those who write it, Lab on Roof has decided to hold an annual call for ACG submissions beginning in 2020, under the name Rags Drum 2020.

Selection Results

Now, after a submission period of three plus two months and more than a month of judging, Lab on Roof will announce the articles accepted through the two selection stages—Pre-Festival + Post-Festival—and their authors. In this post, we will first list the titles and authors, and publish the articles as soon as possible in the days ahead:

Articles by the following eight authors passed Pre-Festival + Post-Festival (all lists below are in no particular order):

• “What Is Yun Xingwei (Vicarious Participation)? Ontology and Internal Heterogeneity”, Austoria
• “The Messiah Who Is Bound to Arrive Late: A Reading of the Anime The Big O”, 斑鸠
• “Do You Play Games, or Do Games Play You?”, 辛巴不吃素
• “The Construction of Morgan Yu’s Posthuman Body in Prey”, ilan
• “FGO 2.4: Soyons tout!”, 両儀式所失去的
• “Romero’s Monsters: The Zombie Figure and the Fallen Other”, 哲哥
• “Animation and Reality, or the Coordinates of Isao Takahata’s Realism”, 学级委员一条同学
• “The Radicality of VR and the Critical Point of Bishōjo Games: On Project LUX”, 红茶泡海苔

The following articles, listed with their authors, passed Pre-Festival but, regrettably, did not receive the judging panel’s unanimous approval at Post-Festival:

• “Tracing the Roots of Humor in Tomihiko Morimi’s Works”, 十文字
• “DTB: A Style at a Standstill”, 实在狗子

Under the previously announced event rules, each article that passed Pre-Festival + Post-Festival will receive a payment of RMB 1,250, and each article that passed Pre-Festival will receive a payment of RMB 200. Let’s celebrate.

Further Remarks

Thank you to the members of our judging panel for volunteering their time to review the submissions. They are:

马小掛, ACG enthusiast
钟子默, ACG enthusiast
塔塔君, ACG enthusiast
rocefactor, ACG enthusiast
屋顶第七任所长, ACG enthusiast

Thank you to “唯一指定真实August_Rush” for making the posters and promotional video for this event, and to the writers, groups, and platforms who offered friendly advice and sincere help.

As the organizer, Lab on Roof has learned quite a few lessons in the course of running this event. If our inexperience or limitations as organizers caused difficulties for contributors or readers along the way, we ask for your patience and understanding. For next year’s event, we will learn from this experience and continue to improve, working to increase the benefits the event brings to contributors and readers. Thank you all for your support and interest. We hope you will keep an eye out for the forthcoming articles, read them, and share them.

Rags Drum—see you next year.