#koyama will not be denied!

[ftmtftm]

I haven't had a lot of time or space to get really into theory on this blog for a minute in between everything going on in my life offline, but let's talk about theory, Tumblr, and the transandrophobia tag.

So, first off: Theory. Theory, in this case political/queer/feminist/etc. theory, changes and builds on itself over time. As the world changes, so does theory. In my opinion, becoming outdated is something that should be a goal of progressive theory/theorists - because it means that the world has changed enough that those ideas are no longer necessary in the way they once were. They're often still important as foundations, but they leave room for expansion and growth because our ideas can and should be malleable. They should be updated and changed as the world around us updates and changes and we gain new perspectives under new cultural contexts.

Tumblr has... never been the place to discuss theory in a productive manner. Social media in general has never been the place to discuss theory in a productive manner. The unproductive nature of Tumblr specifically is largely due to our relationship to discourse and the immense normalization of cyber bullying, guilt tripping, and moral/ethical panics that we have curated here. It takes one to know one, I get it. It's something I've also taken part in, particularly when I was a teen/in my early-early 20's, and I am trying to figure out how to navigate in a more productive way now. The culture of our belothed hellsite does not really support that though. We try and fail and try and usually fail again, but it gets easier to try every time.

I think there's a lot of people who don't want to try and change that culture though. I think there's a lot of people on this site who are angry, who are traumatized, who are unhappy, etc. etc. and use the bitterness and antagonistic nature of Tumblr culture as an outlet. I think that's part of why the transandrophobia tag itself is often kind of garbage. It's why I think most tags on this website are garbage - especially after Tumblr changed the tagging system to a broken search bar. I think any kind of meaningful conversation gets lost in the weeds of a bunch of jaded, marginalized people begging to be heard while simultaneously drowning each other out from all directions.

There's a reason why I barely touch the tag anymore. It's in part because I've just been extremely burnt out - but it's also because it's just unpleasant to scroll through right now. Tumblr Culture has Tumblr Culture'd and currently, every time I take a peek at the tag I don't see a desire for the development and progress that should come with the discussion of theory.

I see a bunch of Tumblr users circlejerking it and I think most people posting capital T, capital D Tumblr Discourse™️ in the tag need to chill the fuck out. That goes for both people who deny and support transandrophobia as a theory.

Shameless "I have read a lot of theory and think it's important plug" but please, I'm begging you all, read some Black Feminist works and literally any Transfeminist work outside of The Whipping Girl. I have some resources [ here ] in my reading / watch list. It desperately needs some updating but honestly if you want that? Pay me. I'll give you my Venmo.

(For real though? Please, if you know Serano but not Bornstein or Stryker or Koyama... If you talk about Intersectionality but could not tell me who Crenshaw is............. shut up.....)

[aichi-division]

Shouta's thoughts on Itabashi Division

Bernard Miyamoto

"Bernard looks like a pretty eccentric guy. I like his clothing style, he looks great. It's nice to meet other people with a passion for the arts. Even though we are in different areas, the performing arts really come into their own, and Bernard looks like someone who is quite talented in that regard. Haha, I even feel like he's going to start giving me a performance of some Shakespeare script any minute now.

From what I hear, he comes from London, right? It must be beautiful there, I've never been out of Japan. I wish I could meet him and share travel talks and tastes in art. Maybe he could recommend me some plays to see? Well, hopefully for free, I don't have the money to pay for a ticket with my kids- I mean, teammates".

Raiden Koyama

"WAIT A MINUTE! R-Rai? Rai is part of this whole competition thing? No way. He never mentioned to me that he was part of a division…. Wha-

Well, umm, how should I put it…. Rai and I had a few encounters before, y'know, through dating apps and stuff. We found some common ground, like a passion for the arts, parties and cigars. I don't remember exactly how things went down because I got drunk and…. well, I can remember his eyes and his hands on my thighs, whispering something... He's someone hypnotic, I can't deny it. He is my type, if you know what I mean...

After those encounters, Rai has not maintained much contact with me. Well, we're from different locations so it's understandable, isn't it? I wonder how he would react if he knew I was a division leader, I can't help but smile at the thought of his face-"

Issey Ito

"Oh wow, another Issey!! Although this one looks… completely opposite to our Issey, for sure.

He seems to have a rather surly attitude, reminds me a bit of SOMEONE. Anyway, he seems like a pretty talented and mysterious guy. Maybe our Issey can get some smiles out of him or something…. well, if he doesn't get killed first.

I hear he is a medical student, what a nice career! I wish him all the best! Heh, I can't help but feel a little nostalgic when I see guys his age accomplishing their goals. There is only one way to make a living and that is with hard work and dedication. I hope this kid has everything he needs to succeed in life."

Itabashi Division

I won't deny that seeing Rai- I mean, Raiden, has been a great surprise. I didn't openly know his musical side, although I sincerely believe that it was still expected that he would accept to be part of something like this. I'm genuinely glad to be able to see him again. Anyway, I think this division has a lot of potential and a lot of talent. Unlike other leaders I've met, Bernard actually looks like a pretty cool guy to spend time with. Eccentricity is part of the magic of art and music is not exempt. I already want to see what they are capable of doing.

-@itabashi-division

[postgameroutesix]

Thinking about gender critically and expansively is a central and necessary part of any anti-racist project. This point isn’t just relevant to history; challenging Western constructs of gender in the present day is essential to challenging racism. To deny the reality of any genders beyond male and female is to deny the reality of many genders that white people in Western Europe and the USA aren’t socialised to recognise […] Importantly, while white non-binary people might feel a sense of kinship or recognition with these genders, they’re not the same as being non-binary or trans in a Western sense. White non-binary people often seize upon the existence of these genders to prove the validity of our own: tokenising, instrumentalising and romanticising them, often without really taking the time to understand them on their own terms. This is a problem: when white people use the genders of people of colour in this way, it recapitulates a colonialist dynamic of exploitation. The desire to name and categorise people according to Western metrics reflects and re-enacts a similar colonialist impulse.

Black feminists like Kimberlé Creshnaw, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, B Camminga, Emi Koyama and many others have long emphasised that the way we experience and understand gender is inextricable from race. In it’s simplest terms, this is one of the points that the anti-slavery activist Sojourner Truth made as long ago as 1851, emphasising that white women were treated as if they needed to ‘be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere’ — but ‘Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman?’. Relatedly, many trans people of colour whose genders aren’t binary have emphasised that their experience of gender is inextricable from their cultures: as Carrier First Nations two-spirited researcher Michelle Cameron has described, the inter-tribal term Two-Spirit ‘is a reclaimed term designed by Aboriginals to define our unique cultural context, histories and legacy’.

The trans people whose genders are taken most seriously have tended to be those who can perform the norms of white femininity or white masculinity most effectively. This means that trans people of colour remain marginalised and must struggle harder to have their genders respected and validated. When combined with systemic racism and misogyny, this means that trans women of colour — especially Black trans women — are at devastatingly high risk of violence.

In 1977, the Combahee River Collective of Black lesbians issued a statement critiquing the way white feminism privileged gender — often understood as essentialised in a way that excluded trans women — as the most fundamental axis of oppression around which political organising should take place. ‘We know,’ they asserted, ‘that there is such a thing as racial-sexual oppression which is neither solely racial nor solely sexual.’ Similar ideas have been expressed by queer indigenous writers: as Cameron explains, the term Two-Spirit/Two-Spirited ‘was chosen to emphasise our difference in our experiences of multiple interlocking oppressions as queer Aboriginal people’. The Collective’s work paved the way for Kimberlé Creshnaw’s later articulation of the concept of intersectionality, and is has also been a key driving force behind the opposition of Black feminists to the trans-exclusionary factions of white feminism. As Emi Koyama has put it succinctly, to argue that trans women should be excluded from women’s spaces ‘because their experiences are different would have to assume that all other women’s experiences are the same, and this is a racist assumption.’ To fail to consider race as one factor that co-constitutes gender, then, is to homogenise people of all genders, erasing both the experiences of people of colour and their intellectual and activist contributions, most importantly those of Black feminism.

Stories of trans history can support our anti-racist work in the present day because they reveal the racist origins of our contemporary ideas about sex and gender. In particular, the idea that sex is dimorphic — that there are two types of sexed body, and that they’re clearly delineated — has a racist history. As nineteenth-century scientists developed racist taxonomies of human beings, grouping people into the racial categories we’ve inherited today, they also developed theories about sexual dimorphism. For these scientists, sexual dimorphism was one of the things that divided people into different races: white people’s bodies were the most ‘perfectly’ divided into male and female, while people of colour had fewer differences between the sexes. We can see the legacy of these racist ideas everywhere today: they’re behind the association of Black women with masculine-coded anger, and the feminisation of Asian men.

[..]

Emphasising that trans liberation and anti-racism are inextricable struggles, and commitment to the former must necessitate commitment to the latter.

- from the introduction to Before We Were Trans: a (new) History of Gender by Kit Heyam

(bolded emphasis is my own)

[espectres]

🔥 ABT CANON cause i like hearing u talk abt it

THANK U FOR ENJOYING MY SALT FILLED RANTS AHKSGFHKJS LOVEEEE

I enjoy mp100 a whole LOT I really do!! But there is always something to say when it comes to background characters, and especially shou lmao. Something I'm still surprised about is how open-ended and on a bad note his story seemed to be when compared to how everyone else's arcs went, to me, that's my opinion, LIKE ... main dudes aside, Tome for an example got to experience her dream and realize it wouldn't have been remarkable without friends by her side, she reached a fullfilling note in her narrative despite how little screen time she had and how minor her role in the story seemed to be, and most importantly, she is in a better place! Heck, even the dudes from the seventh division ended up starting a new life, with what little detail we were able to tell they are safe, independent, and becoming better people. Cuz that's what mp100 is about! Reaching a point in your life where you're at peace with yourself and appreciation of the good people who care about you, getting to a better place as a person.

Shou meanwhile? Everything about him is so vague! We got to see Sakurai and Koyama working at a convenience store. Why couldn't we know if Shou is going to school or not? If he's maybe with his mom? How is he doing? Why is no one concerned if the 13 y/o with dad in jail is alright or not? It's either vague or downright concerning. "Oh, his fire hair is gone, and that symbolizes letting go of the self-sacrifical tendencies becuz the rabbit jumped into fire." That's not enough!!! " Psychic powers sure are scary." "I'm not going to use them again." Now just tell me, isn't being afraid of powers and denying them what led to nearly every single bad thing that happened to Shigeo? Wasn't the whole gd story abt learning to accept these scary af powers and yourself and no longer supressing them?

In Shou's case it makes sense that he isn't fond of the side effects of being an esper, all the problems it brings, it's fair, you can see all the shit it made him go thru since so long, BUT. Having his story "end" on the same decision that made things start going bad for Shigeo is so disheartening, seeing how apparently everyone else is doing better by the end askjdfhsgka sad peach noises?????

You see, lack of story time isn't an excuse, Shou being a background character isn't reallyyyyyy an excuse. Half of the story wouldn't have been the same without him! Yet characters with less importance plot-wise didn't get the short end of the stick. As for a better conclusion, a simple thing as a single conversation with Ritsu would have done it tbh, they are both there, they already share a really strong bond, Shou sharing his new anti-powers rule to Ritsu and Ritsu, now aware of his brother's struggles, tells him to maybe not do that?? there are better ways to deal with your crippling trauma???? That's an open-ended sorta thing I can accept, cuz we wouldn't know how things would go for Shou, but at least he's not out there doing what the story strictly told us it's bad to do !!!!!! One-sensei, hear me out-

[newsmutproject]

Primary principles of transfeminism are simple. First, it is our belief that each individual has the right to define her or his own identities and to expect society to respect them. This also includes the right to express our gender without fear of discrimination or violence. Second, we hold that we have the sole right to make decisions regarding our own bodies, and that no political, medical or religious authority shall violate the integrity of our bodies against our will or impede our decisions regarding what we do with them. However, no one is completely free from the existing social and cultural dynamics of the institutionalized gender system. When we make any decisions regarding our gender identity or expression, we cannot escape the fact that we do so in the context of the patriarchal binary gender system. Trans women in particular are encouraged and sometimes required to adopt the traditional definition of femininity in order to be accepted and legitimatized by the medical community, which has appointed itself as the arbiter of who is genuinely woman enough and who is not. Trans women often find themselves having to “prove” their womanhood by internalizing gender stereotypes in order to be acknowledged as women or to receive hormonal and surgical interventions. This practice is oppressive to trans and nontrans women alike, as it denies uniqueness of each woman. Transfeminism holds that nobody shall be coerced into or out of personal decisions regarding her or his gender identity or expression in order to be a "real" woman or a “real” man. 

-from THE TRANSFEMINIST MANIFESTO by Emi Koyama

[genderkoolaid]

Sorry I'm super confused about the article you shared? Is it stating that trans women do have access to male privilege or that some could have benifitted from it at some point? Is that not a super transmisogynistic take?

The Transfeminist Manifesto was written by a trans woman, Emi Koyama, which I feel is important context. Many trans women have varying different feelings on their personal relationships with male privilege.

It can be extremely transmisognystic. "Trans women benefit from male privilege" is generally used to link trans women to their AGAB, to insist that they have some sort of Inherent Maleness that makes them inherent oppressors of women and therefore unacceptable in women's spaces.

But that is also what Emi Koyama is criticizing. There is an inherent urge to deny, outright, that we (trans people) ever benefit from male privilege because it is so often used to deny our suffering. But that is because we are positioning being able to access male privilege as the end all be all of life under the patriarchy, like just by sometimes receiving some benefit, somehow our other marginalization is just canceled out.

When a radfem accuses a trans person of benefiting from male privilege (whether it's a TERF accusing a trans woman or a TIRF accusing a trans man), we could jump to the defense that no, we never benefit from being temporarily percieved as cis men. But that's sort of playing on their terms, by agreeing that any access to male privilege = benefits from the patriarchy and can weaponize it. We could instead say that getting a bonus at work or not getting bothered at a club does not cancel out societal transphobia on every level. It does not mean that cis men listen to us, care for us, treat us well over the course of our lives. It does not mean we have power in society, and acting as though it does not only erases the experiences of trans people but marginalized cis men who suffer in society despite the fact that they may benefit at some points from being perceived as cis men.

Basically, "trans women have male privilege" is often used in highly transmisognystic ways for a reason, to erase transmisogny and make transfems seem like male oppressors who don't need support. "Trans men have male privilege" is used in the same way. But there's a difference between benefiting temporarily from people believing you to be a cis man out of lack of knowledge, and being a cis man who does not have to hide or repress a part of yourself in order to keep up the illusion of privilege. A trans woman benefiting from male privilege before she transitions does not mean she has any actual power in the patriarchy, and it is entirely unfair to erase her experiences with transmisogyny because of any sort of benefit she may receive. Trans people shouldn't have to provide proof that we have never ever benefited from people thinking we're cis men even once in order to have our place as oppressed people taken seriously, our oppression should simply be taken seriously.

[lunadragongem]

Here's part 2.

"Karma?" Nagisa asked silently. Karma's eyes were slightly glistening from held in tears. His smile was gone, and he stared at his feet.

"Karma, may I speak to you?" Koro-sensei asked. Karma looked up at him and nodded, they went to the storage room.

The two girls came back and got an update about what happened Seo and Araki.

Some whimpers and sobbing could be heard from several faint-hearted students.

<With Karma and Koro-sensei>

"Karma, I need you to talk to me. It's upsetting me to see my students suffering," Koro-sensei tried to coax the story out of Karma.

"What else do you want me to say? You already saw that video, besides, you guys would've found out sooner or later hehe," Karma said laughing a little.

"Karma..." Koro-sensei grimaced.

"It's fine, I've been like this for a long time. And the cliff thing? That wasn't the first time I tried, But it's the first time I followed through with it. You said you'd catch me no matter how many times I tried. I haven't attempted since that day, this class is...interesting. It doesn't make me feel as empty, it's nice. I'm rambling again, aren't I? Sorry," Karma scratched the back of his neck harder than before.

(A nervous tick...) Koro-sensei realized and moved Karma's hand away from his neck.

"Karma...Once you're ready to accept help, even just a hug or ranting, you can always come to your classmates and teachers. If not us, then someone else you trust. Is that ok with you? There's no need to feel like you can't trust us,"

"Y-yeah, thanks, sensei..." Karma hesitantly tried to hug Koro-sensei, who recognized this and hugged his student tight. (I'm glad I coaxed something out of him, the road of recovery has to start somewhere.)

If the redhead left some tearstains and had red-rimmed eyes, neither mentioned it as they went back.

<With the students and teachers>

They were all an emotional wreck. The Terasquad spoke to Hazama, Machida was with the baseball club and other close friends. Nagisa was slightly trembling from barely held tears. Kayano, Okuda, and Rio tried to comfort him and each other. Sugino was patting Kanzaki's back as she quietly sobbed with Kurahashi.

Asano was...strange. He cared a lot for Karma, even if he'll deny it as him wanting a proper rival again, but he is worried. He empathizes to some extent with Karma. I mean, he isn't heartless after all. Ren, Seo, Araki, and Koyama looked at him worriedly. Asano spoke quietly, enough for just the 5 of them.

"I think there should be a mental health care unit in Kunugigaoka. But for that to happen, The principal's philosophy needs to go down first. I'm...not sure what to do about this,"

Koyama cleared his throat, "Maybe we should instill a unit, in secret. We can hold more student council meetings, and we can have health care periods within each class. The principal will think it's study halls but...it's not,"

"That is a possibility, we'll have to discuss more in the future, and possibly with Principal Asano himself," Ren inquired.

Araki and Seo nodded. Everyone turned to see Karma and Koro-sensei walking back, and it was easy to see Karma's tearstained cheeks. He looked so tired. No one said anything about how he clung to Koro-sensei's side and kept his gaze on the ground. Yada stood up and walked up to him.

She hugged him tightly, and he allowed it. Slowly, all of the E-class got up and joined the group hug, even Irina and Tadaomi. Koro-sensei's big tentacle hugs were appreciated for once. Ritsu felt guilty for showing the video since Karma clearly wasn't ready. But she's glad he's accepting help.

After everyone settled back into their spots, Karma's eyes started to droop. His head fell on top of Nagisa's as he fell asleep.

"Take a break, you guys can take a nap, use the restroom or something for a while. I'll start the videos in 45 minutes," Ritsu informed.

Everyone decided to have some leisure time to help lighten the mood. Nagisa and Rio laid Karma down and snuggled into his sides. Almost everyone in E-class decided to snuggle and nap. Koro-sensei took the blankets and spread them on to his students. Many others were also emotionally drained or had to pee.

Things would get better eventually. They had to, whether they wanted it or not.

The End!

I'm really sorry if y'all didn't like this, I'm not a good writer. Compared to School watches Assassination Classroom, this is nothing, but I tried my best. I'm happy with how this turned out.

If y'all need help with depression or suicidal tendencies, talk to someone you trust!

Okie I'm done.

[graphicabyss]

2019.09.10 Strawberry DVD Release FC message

FC messages are always something but this is a whole new level. The only thing on the agenda this time was fun episodes from the concert. Tegoshi brought up the time Emma peed on Shige’s yoga mat. Shige clarified if she peed on it not shitted because to him it seemed even worse as shit is easier to remove and they went to discuss it for 2 minutes. Then they had to talk about the actual concert and their enthusiasm promptly died. They talked about setlist and costumes a bit but it was boring. Then Koyama decided to discreetly strip while noone was looking at him. He said he wanted to see how much he could strip before anyone noticed but when Massu suggested he should go on, he backed down. Your game is weak, bro. Tegoshi said he only realized it because he felt body heat. Oka~ay. Koyama then suggested Tegoshi should send a kiss to the camera and also brought up the time Koyama kissed Shige in a skit they did in another message. Tegoshi then added they do it off camera too, every morning and Shige was like “Do we though?” but neither really denied it. Then Shige said “Well, you two do it as well!” (pointing to Koyama) and Tegoshi answered “Yeah, in the evening!” It's nice to know you've got a fair kissing schedule.

They then talked about the documentary talks but it only got fun when they started to show the places they went to with their bodies. It got even better when they got to Tegoshi’s part but for some reason, Koyama was poking Tegoshi’s chest and Tegoshi began to complain how Koyama is scary and poking his nipple. Which prompted Massu to poke him from the other side. Then grab his ass. Twice. MASSU gave up! He then commented Tegoshi’s ass is hard and Shige said “we don’t need impressions!”. But we do. Shige should’ve joined the fun instead of being grumpy. In the end, they wrapped it up and bowed down to say goodbye and Tegoshi seized the opportunity to pull Koyama’s shirt off.

[yuyategoshifansusa]

Daily life in Tokyo vol.6 “Action!”

The acting is the only place that can't be like the hand. • Play the role.

| The acting will be tense. There are also few experiences compared to variety shows, and they are nervous anyway. This is no matter whether it is work or not, and when I have a private life, I have always been the same, and the only place that I can't be like. Although it is a matter of course to be involved in the role, when doing interviews with a variety of arts, football anchors, radio, magazines, etc., all of them are also done as a hand, and it is very difficult to show that it is not your own. But there are also fun to play the role.

In the "zero lottery game", I played Koyama Yamaro, and I feel more like it. It’s a fairly off-line character, maybe it’s easier to play.

Let me laugh. There is also a good atmosphere at the scene. As a guest, I am very worried that the team has had the cooperation and it is difficult to join, but this time it is easy to get along with everyone. It’s just a big eye on the scene and a big eye on the line of words (laughs). Because the amount of lines is not only incredible, it is already two days before the filming. When you get the day, if you have time, you can sing the lines like a mantra (laugh). I often hear in the topic of the series that "free time is also chatting with everyone", but when I am at the scene, I basically go back to the rest room. I started to recognize my life. If I don’t get along with each other for a while, it’s too difficult for me to make a big fight with everyone (laughs). Playing "self" This is not the case. I am as recognized by everyone (laughs). This is something that hasn't changed since I started working and started working. I didn't want to care about how others looked at me, and I didn't think I could be accepted by everyone. Of course, I still want to be loved by everyone when I am doing this job. This is very important, but it is not realistic to be liked by everyone. It is better to show the true self and want to do everything in your power to respond to those who are willing to say that they like me. But I don't deny that, I want to play my own to get closer to my ideal self. Girls want to play cute themselves for the sake of popularity. I don't think this is a bad thing. Although girls who like to be able to notice themselves can cause dislike of other girls, from the results, if they like it, then this girl is happy. There is nothing wrong with working hard for your own happiness. I haven’t heard of the same-sex embarrassment between men. I think girls are very hard. The idea that I want to be popular is also very strong, so I can understand (laugh). Although I have said it many times, I am Jennis who is only popular, and I can work hard if I want to be popular. So, I am working hard today (laughs). • The challenge of “official performance” “Official performance” is my favorite time at work. Live is also a good series. In order to improve the probability of showing the best state in the official performance, there are many meetings and rehearsals. I often hear the words "Although the results are not satisfactory, but I am working hard". Not that this is wrong, I understand that there will be such a situation, but at least it is not for me. I can't do it with such a mood. Because this is professional. I feel that no matter how hard the rehearsal preparations are made, and the official performances did not produce results, it really means no, no meaning. This is because they have nothing to do with the viewers who come to watch the "when the rehearsal is done well." During the tour, even if it was only a day did not do well. But for those who are looking forward to this day, it is an important time for luxury. It is not forgivable to say that "I am not doing well today." If you have a series or a variety show, you can't communicate it to the audience if you don't do it during the official performance. So I think that the official performance is all about one after another. Then, I want to win. The appearance of "iteQ!" is the same as the feeling that the official performance and the official performance boundary are relatively warm, probably because of the experience gained so far. Although it is considered that the camera is officially performed at the time of shooting, it is not the right choice for the show to be cool and handsome (laughs). So how much material I can provide is consciously done. To show what it is, the material director is able to edit it well, thinking about it. It turns out that it is a job that requires concerted efforts. What's more, riteQu is full of editors who have the ability to have a wrist. I am always grateful to everyone.

Recent talk

I bought a new bike after 7 years. When I went to the bicycle shop to inhale, I asked the clerk about the recent bicycle. If the tires and the like have been used for 7 years, these things have evolved a lot. The result of the trouble is to decide to buy.

One is over. Without this knowledge, I bought the recommended things. I took a ride and was light and fast. I really felt the evolution of 7 years (laughs). Thanks to the fact that it is now moving by bicycle, it has become more and more. Cycling is also very comfortable in the current season, so enjoy the new bike for the time being.

[akarorax-blog]

Fruit fly Management Techniques in India

Journal of Entomology and Zoology Studies 2019; 6(1): 245-257

                   Fruit fly management techniques in India : A Review

                                             Anil Kumar

Department of Entomology

Dr Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry Nauni, Solan H.P. 173230

Email: akarorax@gmail.com

 ABSTCACT

Fruit fly belongs to order Diptera and family Tephritidae is distributed widely in tropical, temperate and subtropical area of the world. There are about 4,500 species of fruit flies (Drew and Roming, 1997) among which 2,000 are considered economically important and are widely distributed in the temperate, tropical and sub tropical regions of the world (Christenson and Foote, 1960) of which 5 per cent of these occur in India (Ramani, 1998). The extent of losses vary from 30 -100 per cent depending upon the crop and season. Feeding by fruit fly larvae may cause complete destruction of fruits, rather than cosmetic damage as is caused by many other insect pests. Gupta and Verma (1992) observed about 80 per cent fruit fly infestation on cucumber and bottle gourd, 60 per cent on bitter gourd and 50 per cent on sponge gourd in mid hill conditions of Himachal Pradesh. Keeping in view the economic  importance of fruit fly  and crop, its management could be done using local area management and wide area management techniques (Dhillon et al.,2005). The use of geographical information system could also be used as an IPM tool to mark site- specific locations of traps, land use areas and fruit fly population within a specific operational region.Although, the sterile insect technique has been successfully used in area-wide approaches, the wide area management needs more sophisticated and powerful technologies in their eradication programme, such as insect transgenesis, which could be deployed over wide-area and is less susceptible to immigrants. Since, fruit fly is a pest which cannot be eradicated by opting one method so combination of methods like cultural, physical, biological, chemical, genetic and quarantine methods are adopted to manage fruit fly besides  other local area management options.

Introduction:

Fruit fly pests are members of the Family Tephritidae in the Order Diptera. Fruit flies are one of the most economically important groups of insect pests world wide. There are about 4,500 species of fruit flies (Drew and Roming, 1997) among which 2,000 are considered economically important and are widely distributed in the temperate, tropical and sub tropical regions of the world (Christenson and Foote, 1960) of which 5% of these occur in India (Ramani, 1998). The first detailed report on fruit flies from the Indian sub-continent was made by Bezzi (1913) who enlisted the species from India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Superior mobility, great dispersive powers, high reproductive rates, movement through market chain and extreme polyphagy are among the common traits of Bactocera species.

Several Bactrocera species are well-documented invaders of horticultural crops and also rank high on quarantine lists worldwide (Clarke et al, 2005). Since these are of quarantine importance they are of great concern to fruit producing countries where these species occur, requiring them to re-evaluate and revise their control strategies. In countries where these species have not been recorded, quarantine measures have been considerably strengthened to minimise the risk of their entry, establishment and spread.

Damage caused by fruit flies to various fruit and vegetable crops has been estimated up to 100 per cent (Dhillon et al., 2005; Philippe et al., 2010). In mid hill conditions of Himachal Pradesh (Gupta and Verma, 1992) observed about 80 per cent fruit fly infestation on cucumber and bottle gourd, 60 per cent on bitter gourd and 50 per cent on sponge gourd. Losses result from direct feeding damage, decay by opportunistic pathogens, and the loss of export market opportunities through quarantine restrictions imposed by importing countries to avoid entry and establishment of these pests. Many species of fruit flies are considered as high priority quarantine pests in various countries.

Fruit fly is a highly polyphagous species (Metcalf and Metcalf, 1992) and can disperse using mosaic of host crops available and take advantage of human agricultural trade. Bactrocera dorsalis infests plants of 40 families including many commercial fruits (Smith, P. H.,1989; Vargas et ah, 1984; Vargas and Carey, 1990). The attack of B. dorsalis on 173 different varieties   of fruit and vegetables has been reported by Metcalf and Metcalf (1992). It is a destructive pest on a wide range of tropical and sub tropical fruits and vegetables (Ye and Liu, 2005a). To name a few, mango {Mangifera indica L.), guava (Psidium guajava L.), custard apple {Annona squamosa L.), apple (Malus pumila M.) star fruit (Averrhoa carambola L.), banana {Musa paradisiacal L.), orange {Citrus sinensis jL.), papaya (Carica papaya L.), peach {Prunus persica L.), plum {Prunus domestica L.),j and tomatoes (Lycopersicum esculentum M.) (Clausen et ai, 1965, Koyama, 1989). In India this species attacks mango and causes serious loss ranging from 5-80% (Kapoor, 1993, 2004; Verghese et a i, 2002, Verghese and Jayanthi, 2001) and damage caused on guava is up to 44 percent (Stonehouse et a i, 1998, 2005).

Almost half of the world's mangoes are cultivated in India alone, with the second-largest source being China (Jedele et al., 2003). Mango is usually available in India from March to mid-August. During off season B. dorsalis survives on its alternative host, guava {Psidium guajava) thereby completing several generations within a year. Guava is an important crop commonly called as the poor man’s apple. In India, guava occupies 3.2% of the total area under fruits contributing about 3.3% of the total fruit production in the country (Indian Horticulture Database, 2011). India is the second largest producer of jbanana after China. These three fruit crops are commercially important hosts which are severely damaged by fruit flies. In India B. dorsalis attacks commercial varieties of mango (Verghese et al., 2002). Fruit fly eggs are laid into unripe or ripening fruit where the larvae develop and feed on the pulp of the fruits. Infested fruits are spoiled quickly and often fall to the ground before ripening. If that controlled, growers may lose the entire crop. Generally, the Oriental fruit flies are able to reproduce in most envirormient and climates. Since, the maggots damage the fruits internally, it is difficult to control this pest with   insecticides.   Therefore,   there   is   a   need   to explore alternative methods of control, and develop an     integrated     control     strategy     for     effective management of this pest.

 Classification:

—  Kingdom: Animalia

—  Phylum: Euarthropoda

—  Class: Insecta

—  Order: Diptera

—  Family:  Tephritidae

Major fruit fly species found in India

Insect

Scientific  Name

Guava  Fruit Fly

Bactocera  correcta

Mango  Fruit fly

B.  dorsalis

Peach  Fruit Fly

B.  zonata

Ber  Fruit Fly

Carpomya  vesuviana

Fruit  fly

B.  cucurbita, B. tau

Citrus  fly

B.  minax

Three  stripped fruit fly

B.  diversa

Olive  fruit fly

B.  oleae

Carambola  fruit fly

B.  carambola

Caryea  Fruit fly

B.  caryeae

Life Cycle of fruit fly:

Under favourable conditions female fruit flies become sexually mature and capable of laying eggs about 5 days after they emerge. After mating they actively seek out ripening fruit, and deposit their banana-shaped eggs in a small cavity just below the skin. Oviposition (sting) sites appear as small brown spots on the surface of the fruit, under which is a cavity with one to more than 20 eggs.

After 2 to 3 days in favourable conditions the minute, transparent larvae hatch and start feeding on the flesh of the fruit, slowly tunnelling towards the core. The larvae have a sharply-pointed front end with no obvious head, and a blunt rear end, and become cream-coloured as they get older. Early infestation is often indicated by a brown colouration of the fruit flesh in the area of feeding due to oxidation of the tissues. From about 7 to 40 days later, depending on fruit kind and temperature, the larvae reach maturity (8 to 10 mm long), when they leave the fruit, fall to the ground and pupate just below the surface of the soil. About 8 to 40 days later, depending on temperature, the adult flies emerge from the pupae, crawl up to the soil surface, and the cycle is complete.

During warm conditions and in ripe fruit, the life cycle can be completed in as little as 3 to 4 weeks. This duration can increase to about 2 or 3 months in winter or where eggs are laid in greener fruit.

Damage:

Fruit fly adults most often lay their eggs in the fresh flesh of fruits and vegetables. Fruit is a term that refers to the fertilized embryo of fruit and vegetable flowers.  The eggs hatch into larvae (maggots) which most often feed on the inside of the fruit, resulting in a soft, mushy mess. The maggot destroy and convert the pulp into a bad smelling, discoloured semi liquid mass unfit for human consumption. The infestation results in fruit drop and start rotting from inside. On complete rotting of the fruits, the damaged fruit develop yellow spots with black centers through which liquid oozes out on pressing.

 MANAGEMENT STRATEGY:

As with the control of many pest species, a single control method by itself is often not sufficient to eradicate (or even effectively control) the fruit fly from an area. The best results are gained from a combination of the methods found in the section below. For example, bait spraying, male annihilation and good hygiene have been used in combination in attempts to eradicate Fruit fly in New South Wales, Australia (Gilchrist, pers. Comm. 2008).

·           Physical

·           Cultural

·           Biological

·           Chemical

·           Genetic

Cultural Control:

·           Sanitation

Sanitation is a method that you can use to help: prevent fruit fly egg and larvae (maggot) development in infested fruit; and deny female adult flies a suitable place for egg laying. This method requires that you collect and destroy all fallen and unwanted fruit from the garden. The destruction of this fruit ensures that larvae do not survive to pupate in the ground, and later emerge as adult flies. Sanitation is considered an essential practice since fruit trees with fallen and rotting fruit around the base are a major source of fruit fly infestations.

·           Trapping

Fruit fly traps can be divided broadly into three groups: monitoring; mass trapping; and liquid protein trapping. With the range of products commercially available there is some overlap in these groupings.

ü   Monitoring

Monitoring traps are simply containers which fruit flies can enter, but which they cannot easily escape from. When combined with a powerful lure (parapheromone), male fruit flies will be strongly attracted into the trap and this will let you know when fruit flies are active. The numbers of flies caught will give you some indication of the level of fruit fly activity, but should only be considered as a guide.The main management advice provided by traps is an awareness of whether fruit flies are active in your orchard and whether it is time to commence other fruit fly management activities.

As a general rule, monitoring traps are deployed at a low rate, often only one or two per hectare or per orchard block. Some types of these traps are also used to monitor and verify that a pest free area truly is pest free.

There are a variety of traps available on the market, including the Lynfield (used primarily for fruit fly pest free area monitoring), the Bugs for Bugs Fruit Fly Trap, Bio-Trap, and the Susbin trap. Forms of stick traps like Jackson traps and the Fruition trap can also be used for monitoring fruit fly activity.

ü   Mass Trapping

Mass trapping can use the same traps as monitoring, but deployed at much higher rates. The theory behind this approach is to attempt to catch as many active flies as possible. However, it must be remembered that the lures used in many traps are specific to male fruit flies and the damaging egg laying females flies will be unaffected. Therefore, mass trapping must be used in conjunction with other proven techniques such as protein bait sprays. Mass trapping for male flies is also similar to another control methods, the Male Annihilation Technique (MAT).

Some fruit fly traps are able to be use a female attracting compound. Bio-Trap also supply a fruit fly attractant gel that attracts both male and female fruit flies. The Fruition trap used a lure sachet and visual cues to attract fruit flies.

ü Liquid Protein traps

Liquid protein traps can be used in some cases for monitoring in pest free areas, but their main use is to capture female fruit flies. They target the female fruit fly’s need to feed on protein in order to develop their eggs to maturity. By using a protein attractant, recently emerged female fruit flies will enter the trap, get caught, and eventually drown. There is a range of different traps and lures, and it is also possible to make these at home. The main shortcoming of liquid protein traps is that they tend to have a limited range of attraction. Commonly these traps will be placed at a 5m interval around the perimeter of an orchard.

·           Covering of fruits

Bagging of fruits on the tree (3 to 4 cm long) with 2 layers of paper bags at 2 to 3 day intervals minimizes fruit fly infestation and increases the net returns by 40 to 58% (Fang, 1989; Jaiswal et al., 1997). Akhtaruzzaman et al. (1993) suggested cucumber fruits should be bagged at 3 days after anthesis, and the bags should be retained for 5 days for effective control. It is an environmentally safe method for the management of this pest.

·           Exposing Pupae to Direct Sun

Deep ploughing is done in summer to expose the pupae to the direct sun. Pupae are killed by deep summer ploighing. In fruit crops raking of soil is done in summer to expose pupae to sun.

·           Early Harvesting

Early harvesting is method that you can use to help prevent adult fruit flies from infesting your crop. It is the practice of picking your fruit and vegetables as early as possible from your garden, even sometimes when it is green. This practice may deny adult flies the opportunity to infest your fruit, depending on fruit fly pressure. Note that early harvesting can also be achieved by planting early fruiting varieties of fruits and vegetables. These plants tend to bare produce before fruit fly populations increase as the season advances and temperatures increase.

·           Host Plant Resistance

Host plant resistance is an important component in integrated pest management programs. It does not cause any adverse effects to the environment, and no extra cost is incurred to the farmers. Unfortunately success in developing high yielding and fruit fly-resistant varieties has been limited. There is a distinct possibility of transferring resistance genes in the cultivated genotypes from the wild relatives of cucurbits for developing varieties resistant to melon fruit fly through wide hybridization.

Crop

Examples of  Resistant Varities

Bitter  Gourd

IHR-89,  IHR-243, Hisar II,

Pumpkin

IHR 35,  IHR 40, IHR 79-2, IHR 83

and IHR  86

Sponge  gourd

NS 14

Round  melon

Arka Tinda

 Physical Control:

·           Disinfestation

Disinfestation is a process which removes all life stages of Fruit fly from fruit, prior to export, to prevent the spread of this pest around the world. The most common, approved methods of pre-export disinfestations are mainly chemical treatments such as methyl bromide fumigation, or the application of insecticides. These chemical are becoming “increasingly unacceptable” to people at all stages of the export process, from the technicians performing the treatments to the end consumer (Jessup et al. 1998a). In recent years there has been an increasing emphasis on finding more consumer-accepted methods of disinfesting fruit prior to export.

Jessup et al. (1998) have shown that sealing fruit in polyethylene bags and storing them at 38°C for 3 days caused 100% mortality of Fruit fly eggs and larvae in a number of fruit. The treatment components, polythene wrap and mild heat, are relatively inexpensive when compared to both cold-storage and chemical disinfestation methods. The 3 day duration of heat treatment is substantially less than the 12 – 16 days needed to achieve 100% mortality in cold treatment programs. The heat treatment process did not promote mould or shrivelling, or negatively affect the colour evenness or taste of the fruit. Some judges used in this experiment “preferred the flavour of sealed, heat-treated tomatoes and apples over that of non-treated fruit” (Jessup et al. 1998).

 ·           Cold Treatment

Fruits are subjected to cold temperature to potentially kill fruit fly in them. Fruits that have been subjected to cold treatment include kiwifruit, pome fruit, stone fruit, citrus and grapes etc. Most of tropical fruits are susceptible to frost injury, are not given cold treatment.

0.0°C ± 0.5ºC for  minimum 14 days.

·           Male Annihilation Technique:

Male Annihilation Technique (MAT) involves the use of a high density of bait stations consisting of a male lure combined with an insecticide (usually technical malathion, and more recently fipronil), to reduce the male population of fruit flies to such a low level that mating does not occur. 

 There are several examples of the successful use of methyl eugenol in the technique.  Oriental fruit fly (Bactocera dorsalis) was eradicated from Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in the 1960s by Steiner and his colleagues.  The insecticide used during the eradication was nailed.  Outstanding successes using this method have been recorded for eradicating oriental fruit fly from California and from the Amami Islands of Japan.

·           Vapor Heat Treatment

VHT is process in which fruits are subjected to hot saturated water vapour, and without the use of any chemicals under controlled temperature and humidity. Fruit fly larvae are sterilised and made incapable of growing and multiplying. VHT is a very important step used in quarantine. This treatment is used to kill many disease causing organisms and different insect pests.

Biological Control

Over 200 hymenopteran parasitoids species have been unequivocally associated with members of the Tephritidae family. Among them, about 150 are Braconidae, most of them belonging to the Opiinae subfamily. Less than a tenth of these Opiinae are commonly used in present biocontrol programs or have the potential to be used in future classical and augmentative projects. Most of these species belong to the genera Fopius Wharton, Diachasmimorpha Viereck and Psyttalia Walker. However the importance of some other families cannot be neglected.

·           Egg-pupal parasitoids

This first category includes the egg-(pre)pupal parasitoids within the genus Fopius. Though Fopius arisanus (Sonan) is the only species in this group commonly used in various biocontrol programmes, F. ceratitivorus Wharton and F. caudatus (Szépligeti) might also be of interest against some Ceratitis spp.. Fopius arisanus has been used in classical biological control for the last 60 years. Diachasmimorpha longicaudata has been the most widely used species in tephritid biocontrol to date. Despite being outclassed by F. arisanus on all studies on competition, D. longicaudata is easier thus less expensive to rear and more efficient in regions where Bactrocera spp. are absent, especially in Florida, Central and Latin Americas.Wharton and Yoder (2007) provide its detailed native distribution as well as the list of countries where it has been introduced. This species has been associated with about 70 Tephritidae including rare cases of gall- forming species used in weed control. It is mainly used to suppress the populations of Anastrepha spp., Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann) and B. dorsalis. Numerous papers deal with its bionomics, its response to olfactory or visual stimuli, its dispersal or its avoidance of host immune response. Many of the idiobiont parasitoids attacking fruit fly pupae are not specialists on Tephritidae. Most of them are small Chalcidoidea or Evanoidea with a very low dispersion range. Some of them may also hyper-parasitize other primary parasitoids. Coptera haywardi (Oglobin) (Diapriidae) is an exception and has provided promising results during the last decade. Recent studies on its host selection behaviour suggested it could be of great interest to suppress the populations of C. capitata and Anastrepha spp. in augmentative programmes in Central and Latin Americas. The use of fungi for biocontrol purposes pre-dates the first introductions of exotic beneficial insects. However, they received comparatively little attention during the 20th century. This is mainly due to their lack of specificity, to the heavy constraints linked with their mass-production and/or their storage and to their instability under adverse environmental conditions. These general aspects were reviewed in several papers during the last 20 years. These constraints generated a lack of interest, which in turn led to a lack of research.

Against tephritid flies, pre-2000 published works are consequently sparse. Some examples are the experimentation of mycoinsecticides against C. capitata, Anastrepha fraterculus (Wiedemann) , Bactrocera tryoni (Froggatt) or B. oleae . The early 21st century has seen a growing tide of interest for entomopathogenic fungi, particularly to replace parasitoids when or where their use is impracticable. Two fungal species are mainly used: Metharhizium anisopliae (Metschnikoff) and Beauveria bassiana (Balsamo-Crivelli) Vuillemin (Deuteromycotina: Hyphomycetes).

Genetic

·           Genetic analyses to aid management

The relatedness of Fruit fly captured in traps can be examined through the analysis of microsatellite markers. This technique can be used to find out if invasions occurring in different places and at different times involve individuals which are from the same source population and that are related to each other, or if they represent distinct invasions independent of each other. In Adelaide, Australia at least six Fruit fly which were full siblings of each other were caught in traps in the same month, by Gilchrist et al. (2004). These six flies were trapped at a number of sites separated by “distances greater than the unaided dispersal distance of Fruit fly,” which provides evidence for human-aided dispersal of Fruit fly in Adelaide. Previously, many outbreaks occurring at the same time in places separated by large distances were thought to be separate outbreaks, but this research showed that this situation could be a single outbreak, spread around by humans (Gilchrist et al. 2004).

·       Transgenic control strategies

Recent developments have led to the possibility of genetically engineering “factory strains of pest insects which produce male-only broods.” When released into the wild in large numbers, these flies would mate with female flies, but all of the next generation of flies would be male. This would improve the sterile insect technique (SIT) currently used to control Queensland fruit fly (Fruit fly) populations. A 100% male population cannot reproduce, and so the fly species population would collapse. This control strategy has become near-possible due to the development of transformation vectors for insects other than drosophilid flies. There are 5 transformation vectors developed which have the potential to be used in the Fruit fly. The process by which this method works is very complex, but involves ‘RNA interference’ (RNAi) targeting genes critical to early development. The sex ratio of a population could be altered by placing this RNAi under the control of a sex-limited gene promoter. This would mean that no young which were either male or female would develop properly (Raphael et al. 2004).

·       Sterile Insect Techniques (SIT)

A technique called the sterile insect technique (SIT) is used to contain and exclude populations of Queensland fruit fly. The goal of SIT is to release a large amount of sterile males to mate with any introduced wild females, resulting in the production of infertile eggs (Knipling, 1959).  The potential of SIT for controlling pests has been around since the 1960s, when SIT trials first caused large declines in the size of fruit fly populations (Monro, 1966). Compared to insecticidal control methods, SIT has some advantages including increased specificity and can be targeted to affected regions (Knipling, 1959).  SIT programs in the past have failed due to continual immigration into the areas being targeted (Meats et al. 2003). The most common method used to make fruit flies sterile for SIT programs is to irradiate them.  The most effective time of the life cycle for irradiation to occur is when pupation is approximately 70% complete. (Gilchrist & Crisafulli, 2005). The most effective irradiation dose rate for SIT programs should be at a level which makes individuals sterile without reducing its reproductive competitiveness. Irradiated males are not reproductively disadvantaged against normal males in terms of female remating – levels of female remating have been found to be similar for irradiated and normal males (Harmer et al. 2006).

Chemical Control:

·       Cover Spray:

Cover sprays are applied to the whole tree, and target Fruit fly sheltering in the tree canopy and maggots located within host fruit. Insecticide sprays used include dimethoate, fenthion and trichlorfon, depending on the tree being sprayed (Dominiak, 2007). After cover spraying, there is a period of time for which fruit should not be picked or eaten. The length of this withholding period depends on which insecticide was used . As mentioned above, cover spraying is often used in combination with bait spraying to achieve suppression of high populations of Fruit fly.

·       Ground Spray

Ground sprays are done to target larvae and emerging adult in the soil. It is done by drenching the insecticide solution under the tree trunk. Application of insecticide in the soil as trunk of tree and the compost heaped in the viscinity of field. No more than two spray required.

Eg., Chloropyriphos.

·       Bait

This method of Fruit fly control involves the spot spraying of a combination of a dilute protein mixture and an insecticide (eg. Maldison). The protein servers as an attractant, and when the Fruit fly feed on the protein mixture the insecticide component causes death: this method targets both the male and female Fruit fly. A recommended bait spraying regime is 100 ml doses, targeting the shady spots which Fruit fly like to occupy. A density of 100 spot sprays per hectare (around 6 to 8 per residential property) is used in the Fruit Fly Exclusion Zone (FFEZ) of Eastern Australia. This amount of spraying is thought to be effective due to a bait spot being within the “daily wandering range of each fly within the treatment area. The effectiveness of this control method can be reduced by rain washing off bait spots and the pesticide degrading over time (Gilchrist, pers. Comm.. 2008). Maldison is used as an insecticide in bait spraying within the FFEZ, as it has a short residual life and low mammalian toxicity. “Bait spraying alone will not be enough to control high populations of fruit fly. It should be use in corporation with other control methods.

  Local Area management

Local area management means the minimum scale of pest management over a restricted area such as at field level/crop level/village level, which has no natural protection against reinvasion. The aim of local area management is to suppress the pest, rather than eradicate it. Under this management option a number of methods such as bagging of fruits, field sanitation, protein baits and cue-lure traps, host plant resistance, biological control, and soft insecticides, can be employed to keep the pest population below economic threshold in a particular crop over a period of time to avoid the crop losses without health and environmental hazards, which is the immediate concern of the farmers.

Wide area management

Wide area management is not a unitary concept, but incorporates a number of related but distinct methods including local area management. The methods used for a wide area management approach include male-sterile insect release, insect transgenesis, and quarantine control techniques in combination with available local area management options. The aim of wide area management is to coordinate and combine different characteristics of an insect eradication program over an entire area within a defensible perimeter. The area must be subsequently protected against reinvasion by quarantine controls, for example, by pest eradication on isolated islands. The USDA-ARS areawide IPM programs of melon fruit fly started in 1999 in collaboration with the Hawaiian State Department of Agriculture and University of Hawaii, using the environmentally sound strategies such as field sanitation, male annihilation with male lures and attractants, protein bait sprays/traps, augmentative releases of biological control agents (Fopius arisanus and Psyttalia fletcheri), and sterile insect release. It has proved to be economically viable, environmentally sensitive, sustainable, and has suppressed fruit flies below economic thresholds with the minimum use of organophosphate and carbamate insecticides (Wood, 2001; Mau et al., 2003b; Vargas et al., 2003; Klungness et al., 2005). An IPM program that used field sanitation, protein bait applications, male annihilation, and release of sterile flies and parasites reduced fruit fly infestation from 30 to 40% to less than 5%, and cut organophosphate pesticide use by 75 to 90% (Vargas, 2004).

The recent wide area management program eradication program of B. cucurbitae in Seychelles demonstrated a three tier model including a) initial population reduction using bait sprays, b) elimination of reproduction using parapheromone lure blocks to eradicate males and thus prevent oviposition by females, and c) intensive surveying by traps and fruit inspection, until it can be certain that the pest is entirely eradicated (Mumford, 2004). Although, the sterile insect technique has been successfully used in area-wide approaches, the wide area management needs more sophisticated and powerful technologies in their eradication program, such as insect transgenesis, which could be deployed over wide-area and is less susceptible to immigrants. Above all, the use of the geographical information system has been used as a tool to mark site-specific locations of traps, host plants roads, land use areas and fruit fly populations within a specified operational grid.

 CASE STUDIES:

Dr. Rana K and Kanwar HS, (2014) conducted a field trial to evaluate the efficacy of  some eco friendly techniques to manage fruit fly at Dr. Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and forestry, Nauni, solan. Treatments were poison bait spray and cue lure baited traps individually and in combination  for the management of melon fruit flies (Bactocera spp.) infesting bitter gourd crop during kharif 2011 and 2012. It was found that all the treatments were effective in reducing the fruit damage during both years.  The combined treatment of cue lue baited traps and poison baited spray proved the most effective for management of fruit flies with significantly less fruit damage(20.92%) as compared to control (45.66%) and their separate application 22.36% and 25.42% respectively.

CBT- Cue lure Bait Trap, PBT- Poison Bait Trap

A field experiment was conducted by Ahmad et al., (2005) at the Arid Zone Research Institute Bahawalpur, during the year 2005 to assess the efficacy of different methods of fruit fly control on Ber. Five different methods namely insecticides, baiting, cultural, Integrated Management and no treatment were compared for percentage fruit damage and Yield. It was concluded that application of integrated pest management methods was most effective than other applied singly.

 Liu et al (1985) reported that cultural operations in guava orchards in Taiwan suppressed the adult population of B. dorsalis temporarily, but as a result of emigration, the number of flies

increased again as soon as conditions became suitable. Hoeing with discs was also found effective in checking the pupating larvae of B. dorsalis (Mann 1989). Larval density and per cent fruit infestation was lower in half and fully ripe fruits collected from the fields where sanitation was practised. Likewise, the relative density of tephritid adults was lower in the orchards with sanitation. The orchard without sanitation had an irregular harvesting pattern which resulted in abundant ripe fruits on trees and fallen rotting fruits on the ground (Liquido 1993). Singh (2004) reported sanitation and tillage practices to be effective against B. dorsalis on guava. The infested fruits particularly the fruits on the tree which have signs of attack should be removed instead of removing fallen fruits on the ground as the larvae from such fruits have already left for pupation. In fields where sanitation measures were practiced, the level of fruit flies decreased significantly (Verghese et al 2004). Different cultural practices like soil raking by hand and, collection and destruction of fallen fruits were also helpful in reducing the damage (Singh 2004, Stonehouse et al 2007, Kumar 2011, Sharma et al 2011b, Kumar and Sharma 2012, Verghese et al 2012).

Methyl eugenol is the most powerful of all the male lures attracting usually the males of Oriental fruit fly and others and is being used for both monitoring and management of fruit flies (Drew 1974, Hardy 1979, Drew and Hooper 1981, Kapoor et al 1987, Drew and Hancock 1994, Verghese et al 2006b, Vargas et al 2009b, Singh and Sharma 2011, Singh et al 2011, Kumar and Sharma 2012, Sharma 2012, Verghese et al 2012). This technique has been successfully used for the eradication and control of several Bactrocera species (Steiner et al 1965, Bateman et al 1973,

It was reported that 1 per cent methyl eugenol alongwith 0.5 per cent malathion or 0.1 per cent carbaryl was most effective against B. dorsalis (Balasubramaniam et al 1972, Lakshmanan et al 1973). It was also advocated the monthly replenishment of methyl eugenol. However, Cunningham et al (1975) used 83 per cent methyl eugenol alongwith 10 per cent naled and 7 per cent thixein for management of B. dorsalis. Methyl eugenol (0.025, 0.05, 0.075 and 0.1 ml) impregnated on 2 cm² cotton wad had no significant difference in their efficacy when replenished at weekly interval (Belavadi 1979). Under field conditions, it was observed that single application of methyl eugenol at 0.075 ml was most effective upto 17 days for capturing B. dorsalis if the population was low (0-22 fruit flies/trap) and upto 32 days when the population was high (0-81 fruit flies/trap).

 Conclusion:

Fruit fly belongs to order Diptera and family Tephritidae. It is a very important group of pests on account of their potential to cause damage to fruits and vegetables. It is a direct pest of the crop as directly feed on the fruit and make it unmarketable hence is a very big problem agricultural point of view. There are 4500 spp of fruit flies in the world out of which 2000 are economic pests of crops and about 5% of these are found in india. Fruit fly is a pest having a wide host range it feeds on fruit crops as well as vegetable crops. The extent of losses vary from 30 -100 per cent depending upon the crop  and season. Feeding by fruit fly larvaemay cause complete destruction of fruits, rather than cosmetic damage as is caused by many other insect pests.   Keeping in view the economic  importance of fruit fly  and crop, its  management could be done using local area management and wide area management techniques (Dhillon et al.,2005).In mid hill conditions of Himachal Pradesh (Gupta and Verma, 1992) observed about 80 per cent fruit fly infestation on cucumber and bottle gourd, 60 per cent on bitter gourd and 50 per cent on sponge gourd. The use of geographical information system could also be used as an IPM tool to mark site- specific locations of traps, land use areas and fruit fly population within a specific operational region. Although, the sterile insect technique (SIT) has been successfully used in wide area approaches, this technique should be used  in eradicating pest from the field. ( Sarwar, 2015) Fruit fly is a pest which can not be eradicated by opting one method so combination of methods like cultural, physical, biological, chemical, genetic and quarantine methods are adopted to manage fruit fly besides  other local area management options and coordination of local farmers are important in eradication of fruit fly. No fruit or vegetable should be exported or imported from other place without undergoing quarantine or disinfestations of fruit or vegetable.

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Nominees for the 2018 Eisner Awards announced

Comic-Con International has announced the nominees for the 2018 Eisner Awards, presented annually in San Diego at the convention.

Monstress by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda and My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris each received five nominations across various categories; other comics with multiple nominations included Mister Miracle, Black Hammer, The Flintstones, Grass Kings, Eartha and Hawkeye.

Check out the complete list of nominees below.

Best Short Story

“Ethel Byrne,” by Cecil Castelluci and Scott Chantler, in Mine: A Celebration of Liberty and Freedom for All Benefiting Planned Parenthood (ComicMix) “Forgotten Princess,” by Phillip Kennedy Johnson and Antonio Sandoval, in Adventure Time Comics #13 (kaboom!) ”A Life in Comics: The Graphic Adventures of Karen Green,” by Nick Sousanis, in Columbia Magazine (Summer 2017), https://ift.tt/2I41VPy “Small Mistakes Make Big Problems,” by Sophia Foster-Dimino, in Comics for Choice (Hazel Newlevant) “Trans Plant,” by Megan Rose Gedris, in Enough Space for Everyone Else (Bedside Press)

Best Single Issue/One-Shot

Barbara, by Nicole Miles (ShortBox) Hellboy: Krampusnacht, by Mike Mignola and Adam Hughes (Dark Horse) Pope Hats #5, by Ethan Rilly (AdHouse Books) The Spotted Stone, by Rick Veitch (Sun Comics) What Is Left, by Rosemary Valero-O’Connell (ShortBox)

Best Continuing Series

Black Hammer, by Jeff Lemire, Dean Ormston, and David Rubín (Dark Horse) Giant Days, by John Allison, Max Sarin, and Liz Fleming (BOOM! Box) Hawkeye, by Kelly Thompson, Leonardo Romero, and Mike Walsh (Marvel) Monstress, by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda (Image) The Wicked + The Divine, by Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie (Image)

Best Limited Series

Black Panther: World of Wakanda, by Roxane Gay, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Alitha E. Martinez (Marvel) Extremity, by Daniel Warren Johnson (Image/Skybound) The Flintstones, by Mark Russell, Steve Pugh, Rick Leonardi, and Scott Hanna (DC) Mister Miracle, by Tom King and Mitch Gerads (DC) X-Men: Grand Design, by Ed Piskor (Marvel)

Best New Series

Black Bolt, by Saladin Ahmed and Christian Ward (Marvel) Grass Kings, by Matt Kindt and Tyler Jenkins (BOOM! Studios) Maestros, by Steve Skroce (Image) Redlands, by Jordie Belaire and Vanesa Del Rey (Image) Royal City, by Jeff Lemire (Image)

Best Publication for Early Readers (up to age 8)

Adele in Sand Land, by Claude Ponti, translated by Skeeter Grant and Françoise Mouly (Toon Books) Arthur and the Golden Rope, by Joe Todd-Stanton (Flying Eye/Nobrow) Egg, by Kevin Henkes (Greenwillow Books) Good Night, Planet, by Liniers (Toon Books) Little Tails in the Savannah, by Frederic Brrémaud and Federico Bertolucci, translated by Mike Kennedy (Lion Forge/Magnetic)

Best Publication for Kids (ages 9–12)

Bolivar, by Sean Rubin (Archaia) Home Time (Book One): Under the River, by Campbell Whyte (Top Shelf) Nightlights, by Lorena Alvarez (Nobrow) The Tea Dragon Society, by Katie O’Neill (Oni) Wallace the Brave, by Will Henry (Andrews McMeel) Best Publication for Teens (ages 13-17)

The Dam Keeper, by Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi (First Second/Tonko House) Jane, by Aline Brosh McKenna and Ramón K. Pérez (Archaia) Louis Undercover, by Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault, translated by Christelle Morelli and Susan Ouriou (Groundwood Books/House of Anansi) Monstress, by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda (Image) Spinning, by Tillie Walden (First Second)

Best Humor Publication

Baking with Kafka, by Tom Gauld (Drawn & Quarterly) Batman/Elmer Fudd Special #1, by Tom King, Lee Weeks, and Byron Vaughn (DC) The Flintstones, by Mark Russell, Steve Pugh, Rick Leonardi, and Scott Hanna (DC) Rock Candy Mountain, by Kyle Starks (Image) Wallace the Brave, by Will Henry (Andrews McMeel)

Best Anthology

A Bunch of Jews (and Other Stuff): A Minyen Yidn, by Max B. Perlson, Trina Robbins et al. (Bedside Press) A Castle in England, by Jamie Rhodes et al. (Nobrow) Elements: Fire, A Comic Anthology by Creators of Color, edited by Taneka Stotts (Beyond Press) Now #1, edited by Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics) The Spirit Anthology, edited by Sean Phillips (Lakes International Comic Art Festival)

Best Reality-Based Work

Audubon: On the Wings of the World, by Fabien Grolleau and Jerémie Royer, translated by Etienne Gilfillan (Nobrow) The Best We Could Do, by Thi Bui (Abrams ComicArts) Calamity Jane: The Calamitous Life of Martha Jane Cannary, 1852–1903, by Christian Perrissin and Matthieu Blanchin, translated by Diana Schutz and Brandon Kander (IDW) Lennon: The New York Years, by David Foenkinos, Corbeyran, and Horne, translated by Ivanka Hahnenberger (IDW) Spinning, by Tillie Walden (First Second)

Best Graphic Album—New

Crawl Space, by Jesse Jacobs (Koyama Press) Eartha, by Cathy Malkasian (Fantagraphics) My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, by Emil Ferris (Fantagraphics) Stages of Rot, by Linnea Sterte (Peow) The Story of Jezebel, by Elijah Brubaker (Uncivilized Books)

Best Graphic Album—Reprint

Boundless, by Jillian Tamaki (Drawn & Quarterly) Fantagraphics Studio Edition: Black Hole by Charles Burns, edited by Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics) Small Favors: The Definitive Girly Porno Collection, by Colleen Coover (Oni/Limerence) Sticks Angelica, Folk Hero, by Michael DeForge (Drawn & Quarterly) Unreal City, by D. J. Bryant (Fantagraphics)

Best Adaptation from Another Medium

Beowulf, adapted by Santiago García and David Rubín (Image) H. P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories, adapted by Gou Tanabe, translated by Zack Davisson (Dark Horse) Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, adapted by Christophe Chabouté, translated by Laure Dupont (Dark Horse) Kindred, by Octavia Butler, adapted by Damian Duffy and John Jennings (Abrams ComicArts)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material

Audubon: On the Wings of the World, by Fabien Grolleau and Jerémie Royer, translated by Etienne Gilfillan (Nobrow) Flight of the Raven, by Jean-Pierre Gibrat, translated by Diana Schutz and Brandon Kander (EuroComics/IDW) FUN, by Paolo Bacilieri, translated by Jamie Richards (SelfMadeHero) Ghost of Gaudi, by El Torres and Jesús Alonso Iglesias, translated by Esther Villardón Grande (Lion Forge/Magnetic) The Ladies-in-Waiting, by Santiago García and Javier Olivares, translated by Erica Mena (Fantagraphics) Run for It: Stories of Slaves Who Fought for the Freedom, by Marcelo D’Salete, translated by Andrea Rosenberg (Fantagraphics)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia

Furari, by Jiro Taniguchi, translated by Kumar Sivasubramanian (Fanfare/Ponent Mon) Golden Kamuy, by Satoru Noda, translated by Eiji Yasuda (VIZ Media) My Brother’s Husband, vol. 1, by Gengoroh Tagame, translated by Anne Ishii (Pantheon) Otherworld Barbara, vol. 2, by Moto Hagio, translated by Matt Thorn (Fantagraphics) Shiver: Junji Ito Selected Stories, by Junji Ito translated by Jocelyne Allen (VIZ Media)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Strips

Celebrating Snoopy, by Charles M. Shulz, edited by Alexis E. Fajardo and Dorothy O’Brien (Andrews McMeel) Crazy Quilt: Scraps and Panels on the Way to Gasoline Alley, by Frank King, edited by Peter Maresca (Sunday Press) Foolish Questions and Other Odd Observations, by Rube Goldberg, edited by Peter Maresca and Paul C. Tumey (Sunday Press Books) Sky Masters of the Space Force: The Complete Dailies, by Jack Kirby, Wally Wood et al., edited by Daniel Herman (Hermes Press) Star Wars: The Classic Newspaper Strips, vol. 1, by Russ Manning et al., edited by Dean Mullaney (LOAC/IDW)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Books

Akira 35th Anniversary Edition, by Katsuhiro Otomo, edited by Haruko Hashimoto, Ajani Oloye, and Lauren Scanlan (Kodansha) Behaving MADly, edited by Craig Yoe (Yoe Books/IDW) The Collected Neil the Horse, by Arn Saba/Katherine Collins, edited by Andy Brown (Conundrum) Fantagraphics Studio Edition: Jaime Hernandez, edited by Gary Groth (Fantagraphics) Will Eisner: The Centennial Celebration, 1917-2017, by Paul Gravett, Denis Kitchen, and John Lind (Kitchen Sink/Dark Horse)

Best Writer

Tom King, Batman, Batman Annual #2, Batman/Elmer Fudd Special #1, Mister Miracle (DC) Matt Kindt, Grass Kings (BOOM! Studios); Ether (Dark Horse); Eternity, X-O Manowar (Valiant) Jeff Lemire, Black Hammer (Dark Horse); Descender (Image) Marjorie Liu, Monstress (Image) Mark Russell, The Flintstones (DC)

Best Writer/Artist

Lorena Alvarez, Night Lights (Nobrow) Chabouté, Moby Dick (Dark Horse); Alone, Park Bench (Gallery 13/Simon & Schuster) Emil Ferris, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters (Fantagraphics) Cathy Malkasian, Eartha (Fantagraphics) Jiro Taniguchi, Furari, Louis Vuitton Travel Guide: Venice (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)

Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team

Isabelle Arsenault, Louis Undercover (Groundwood Books/House of Anansi) Mitch Gerads, Mister Miracle (DC) Gary Gianni, Hellboy: Into the Silent Sea (Dark Horse) Ramón K. Perez, Jane (Archaia) David Rubín, Black Hammer #9 & #12, Ether, Sherlock Frankenstein #1–3 (Dark Horse); Beowulf (Image)

Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art)

Federico Bertolucci, Love: The Dinosaur, Little Tails (Lion Forge/Magnetic) EFA, Monet: Itinerant of Light (NBM) Jean-Pierre Gibrat, Flight of the Raven (EuroComics/IDW) Cyril Pedrosa, Portugal (NBM) Sana Takeda, Monstress (Image)

Best Cover Artist

Jorge Corona, No. 1 with a Bullet (Image) Nick Derington, Mister Miracle (DC); Doom Patrol (DC Young Animal) Brian Stelfreeze, Black Panther (Marvel) Sana Takeda, Monstress (Image) Julian Totino Tedesco, Hawkeye (Marvel)

Best Coloring

Emil Ferris, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters (Fantagraphics) Mitch Gerads, Mister Miracle (DC) Ed Piskor, X-Men: Grand Design (Marvel) David Rubín, Ether, Black Hammer, Sherlock Frankenstein (Dark Horse); Beowulf (Image) Dave Stewart, Black Hammer, BPRD: Devil You Know, Hellboy: Into the Silent Sea, Sherlock Frankenstein, Shaolin Cowboy (Dark Horse); Maestros (Image) Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, What Is Left (ShortBox)

Best Lettering

Isabelle Arsenault, Louis Undercover (Groundwood Books/House of Anansi) Clayton Cowles, Bitch Planet: Triple Feature, Redlands, The Wicked + The Divine (Image); Black Bolt, Spider-Gwen, Astonishing X-Men, Star Wars (Marvel) Emil Ferris, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters (Fantagraphics) Stan Sakai, Usagi Yojimbo, Groo: Slay of the Gods (Dark Horse) John Workman, Mother Panic (DC Young Animal); Ragnorok (IDW)

Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism

Alter Ego, edited by Roy Thomas (TwoMorrows) The Comics Journal, edited by Dan Nadel, Timothy Hodler, and Tucker Stone, tcj.com (Fantagraphics) Hogan’s Alley, edited by Tom Heintjes Jack Kirby Collector, edited by John Morrow (TwoMorrows) PanelXPanel magazine, edited by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, panelxpanel.com

Best Comics-Related Book

Deconstructing the Incal by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius, by Jean Annestay and Christophe Quillien (Humanoids) How Comics Work, by Dave Gibbons and Tim Pilcher (Wellfleet Press/Quarto Group) How to Read Nancy: The Elements of Comics in Three Easy Panels, by Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden (Fantagraphics) Line of Beauty: The Art of Wendy Pini, by Richard Pini (Flesk) Monograph, by Chris Ware (Rizzoli) To Laugh That We May Not Weep: The Life and Times of Art Young, by Glenn Bray and Frank M. Young (Fantagraphics)

Best Academic/Scholarly Work

The Comics of Charles Schulz: The Good Grief of Modern Life, edited by Jared Gardner and Ian Gordon (University Press of Mississippi) Ethics in the Gutter: Empathy and Historical Fiction in Comics, by Kate Polak (Ohio State University Press) Latinx Superheroes in Mainstream Comics, by Frederick Luis Aldama (University of Arizona Press) Neon Visions: The Comics of Howard Chaykin, by Brannon Costello (LSU Press) Picturing Childhood: Youth in Transnational Comics, edited by Mark Heimermann and Brittany Tullis (University of Texas Press)

Best Publication Design

Akira 35th Anniversary Edition, designed by Phil Balsman, Akira Saito (Veia), NORMA Editorial, and MASH•ROOM (Kodansha) Celebrating Snoopy, designed by Spencer Williams and Julie Phillips (Andrews McMeel) Monograph, designed by Chris Ware (Rizzoli) My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, designed by Jacob Covey (Fantagraphics) Will Eisner: The Centennial Celebration, 1917-2017, designed by John Lind (Kitchen Sink/Dark Horse)

Best Digital Comic

Bandette, by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover (Monkeybrain/comiXology) Barrier, by Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin (Panel Syndicate) The Carpet Merchant of Konstaniniyya, by Reimena Yee (reimenayee.com/the-carpet-merchant) Contact High, by James F. Wright and Josh Eckert (gumroad.com/l/YnxSm) Harvey Kurtzman’s Marley’s Ghost, by Harvey Kurtzman, Josh O’Neill, Shannon Wheeler, and Gideon Kendall (comiXology Originals/Kitchen, Lind & Associates) Quince, by Sebastian Kadlecik, Kit Steinkellner, and Emma Steinkellner, translated by Valeria Tranier (Fanbase Press/comiXology)

Best Webcomic

Awaiting a Wave, by Dale Carpenter and Nate Powell, features.weather.com/us-climate-change/arkansas (The Weather Channel Digital) Brothers Bond, by Kevin Grevioux and Ryan Benjamin, www.webtoons.com/en/action/brothers-bond/list?title_no=1191 (LINE Webtoon) Dispatch from a Sanctuary City, by Mike Dawson, https://thenib.com/dispatch-from-a-sanctuary-city (The Nib) The Tea Dragon Society, by Katie O’Neill, teadragonsociety.com (Oni Press) Welcome to the New World, by Jake Halpern and Michael Sloan, www.michaelsloan.net/welcome-to-the-new-world/ (New York Times Sunday Review)

[starwarsnewsit]

Eisner Awards 2018: poco "Star Wars" tra le nomination

New Post has been published on http://www.starwarsnews.it/2018/04/27/eisner-awards-2018-star-wars/

Eisner Awards 2018: poco "Star Wars" tra le nomination

Eisner Awards 2018. Verrà assegnato a breve uno dei premi più importanti del panorama fumettistico. Quest’anno tra le varie nomination c’è anche qualcosa legata a Star Wars, ma veramente poco…

Eisner Awards 2018 – Tutte le nomination

Best Short Story

“Ethel Byrne,” by Cecil Castelluci and Scott Chantler, in Mine: A Celebration of Liberty and Freedom for All Benefiting Planned Parenthood (ComicMix)

“Forgotten Princess,” by Phillip Kennedy Johnson and Antonio Sandoval, in Adventure Time Comics #13 (kaboom!)

”A Life in Comics: The Graphic Adventures of Karen Green,” by Nick Sousanis, in Columbia Magazine (Summer 2017), http://magazine.columbia.edu/features/summer-2017/life-comics?page=0,0

“Small Mistakes Make Big Problems,” by Sophia Foster-Dimino, in Comics for Choice (Hazel Newlevant)

“Trans Plant,” by Megan Rose Gedris, in Enough Space for Everyone Else (Bedside Press)

Best Single Issue/One-Shot

Barbara, by Nicole Miles (ShortBox)

Hellboy: Krampusnacht, by Mike Mignola and Adam Hughes (Dark Horse)

Pope Hats #5, by Ethan Rilly (AdHouse Books)

The Spotted Stone, by Rick Veitch (Sun Comics)

What Is Left, by Rosemary Valero-O’Connell (ShortBox)

Best Continuing Series

Black Hammer, by Jeff Lemire, Dean Ormston, and David Rubín (Dark Horse)

Giant Days, by John Allison, Max Sarin, and Liz Fleming (BOOM! Box)

Hawkeye, by Kelly Thompson, Leonardo Romero, and Mike Walsh (Marvel)

Monstress, by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda (Image)

The Wicked + The Divine, by Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie (Image)

Best Limited Series

Black Panther: World of Wakanda, by Roxane Gay, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Alitha E. Martinez (Marvel)

Extremity, by Daniel Warren Johnson (Image/Skybound)

The Flintstones, by Mark Russell, Steve Pugh, Rick Leonardi, and Scott Hanna (DC)

Mister Miracle, by Tom King and Mitch Gerads (DC)

X-Men: Grand Design, by Ed Piskor (Marvel)

Best New Series

Black Bolt, by Saladin Ahmed and Christian Ward (Marvel)

Grass Kings, by Matt Kindt and Tyler Jenkins (BOOM! Studios)

Maestros, by Steve Skroce (Image)

Redlands, by Jordie Belaire and Vanesa Del Rey (Image)

Royal City, by Jeff Lemire (Image)

Best Publication for Early Readers (up to age 8)

Adele in Sand Land, by Claude Ponti, translated by Skeeter Grant and Françoise Mouly (Toon Books)

Arthur and the Golden Rope, by Joe Todd-Stanton (Flying Eye/Nobrow)

Egg, by Kevin Henkes (Greenwillow Books)

Good Night, Planet, by Liniers (Toon Books)

Little Tails in the Savannah, by Frederic Brrémaud and Federico Bertolucci, translated by Mike Kennedy (Lion Forge/Magnetic)

Best Publication for Kids (ages 9–12)

Bolivar, by Sean Rubin (Archaia)

Home Time (Book One): Under the River, by Campbell Whyte (Top Shelf)

Nightlights, by Lorena Alvarez (Nobrow)

The Tea Dragon Society, by Katie O’Neill (Oni)

Wallace the Brave, by Will Henry (Andrews McMeel)

Best Publication for Teens (ages 13-17)

The Dam Keeper, by Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi (First Second/Tonko House)

Jane, by Aline Brosh McKenna and Ramón K. Pérez (Archaia)

Louis Undercover, by Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault, translated by Christelle Morelli and Susan Ouriou (Groundwood Books/House of Anansi)

Monstress, by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda (Image)

Spinning, by Tillie Walden (First Second)

Best Humor Publication

Baking with Kafka, by Tom Gauld (Drawn & Quarterly)

Batman/Elmer Fudd Special #1, by Tom King, Lee Weeks, and Byron Vaughn (DC)

The Flintstones, by Mark Russell, Steve Pugh, Rick Leonardi, and Scott Hanna (DC)

Rock Candy Mountain, by Kyle Starks (Image)

Wallace the Brave, by Will Henry (Andrews McMeel)

Best Anthology

A Bunch of Jews (and Other Stuff): A Minyen Yidn, by Max B. Perlson, Trina Robbins et al. (Bedside Press)

A Castle in England, by Jamie Rhodes et al. (Nobrow)

Elements: Fire, A Comic Anthology by Creators of Color, edited by Taneka Stotts (Beyond Press)

Now #1, edited by Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics)

The Spirit Anthology, edited by Sean Phillips (Lakes International Comic Art Festival)

Best Reality-Based Work

Audubon: On the Wings of the World, by Fabien Grolleau and Jerémie Royer, translated by Etienne Gilfillan (Nobrow)

The Best We Could Do, by Thi Bui (Abrams ComicArts)

Calamity Jane: The Calamitous Life of Martha Jane Cannary, 1852–1903, by Christian Perrissin and Matthieu Blanchin, translated by Diana Schutz and Brandon Kander (IDW)

Lennon: The New York Years, by David Foenkinos, Corbeyran, and Horne, translated by Ivanka Hahnenberger (IDW)

Spinning, by Tillie Walden (First Second)

Best Graphic Album—New

Crawl Space, by Jesse Jacobs (Koyama Press)

Eartha, by Cathy Malkasian (Fantagraphics)

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, by Emil Ferris (Fantagraphics)

Stages of Rot, by Linnea Sterte (Peow)

The Story of Jezebel, by Elijah Brubaker (Uncivilized Books)

Best Graphic Album—Reprint

Boundless, by Jillian Tamaki (Drawn & Quarterly)

Fantagraphics Studio Edition: Black Hole by Charles Burns, edited by Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics)

Small Favors: The Definitive Girly Porno Collection, by Colleen Coover (Oni/Limerence)

Sticks Angelica, Folk Hero, by Michael DeForge (Drawn & Quarterly)

Unreal City, by D. J. Bryant (Fantagraphics)

Best Adaptation from Another Medium

Beowulf, adapted by Santiago García and David Rubín (Image)

H. P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories, adapted by Gou Tanabe, translated by Zack Davisson (Dark Horse)

Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, adapted by Christophe Chabouté, translated by Laure Dupont (Dark Horse)

Kindred, by Octavia Butler, adapted by Damian Duffy and John Jennings (Abrams ComicArts)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material

Audubon: On the Wings of the World, by Fabien Grolleau and Jerémie Royer, translated by Etienne Gilfillan (Nobrow)

Flight of the Raven, by Jean-Pierre Gibrat, translated by Diana Schutz and Brandon Kander (EuroComics/IDW)

FUN, by Paolo Bacilieri, translated by Jamie Richards (SelfMadeHero)

Ghost of Gaudi, by El Torres and Jesús Alonso Iglesias, translated by Esther Villardón Grande (Lion Forge/Magnetic)

The Ladies-in-Waiting, by Santiago García and Javier Olivares, translated by Erica Mena (Fantagraphics)

Run for It: Stories of Slaves Who Fought for the Freedom, by Marcelo D’Salete, translated by Andrea Rosenberg (Fantagraphics)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia

Furari, by Jiro Taniguchi, translated by Kumar Sivasubramanian (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)

Golden Kamuy, by Satoru Noda, translated by Eiji Yasuda (VIZ Media)

My Brother’s Husband, vol. 1, by Gengoroh Tagame, translated by Anne Ishii (Pantheon)

Otherworld Barbara, vol. 2, by Moto Hagio, translated by Matt Thorn (Fantagraphics)

Shiver: Junji Ito Selected Stories, by Junji Itotranslated by Jocelyne Allen (VIZ Media)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Strips

Celebrating Snoopy, by Charles M. Shulz, edited by Alexis E. Fajardo and Dorothy O’Brien (Andrews McMeel)

Crazy Quilt: Scraps and Panels on the Way to Gasoline Alley, by Frank King, edited by Peter Maresca (Sunday Press)

Foolish Questions and Other Odd Observations, by Rube Goldberg, edited by Peter Maresca and Paul C. Tumey (Sunday Press Books)

Sky Masters of the Space Force: The Complete Dailies, by Jack Kirby, Wally Wood et al., edited by Daniel Herman (Hermes Press)

Star Wars: The Classic Newspaper Strips, vol. 1, by Russ Manning et al., edited by Dean Mullaney (LOAC/IDW)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Books

Akira 35th Anniversary Edition, by Katsuhiro Otomo, edited by Haruko Hashimoto, Ajani Oloye, and Lauren Scanlan (Kodansha)

Behaving MADly, edited by Craig Yoe (Yoe Books/IDW)

The Collected Neil the Horse, by Arn Saba/Katherine Collins, edited by Andy Brown (Conundrum)

Fantagraphics Studio Edition: Jaime Hernandez, edited by Gary Groth (Fantagraphics)

Will Eisner: The Centennial Celebration, 1917-2017, by Paul Gravett, Denis Kitchen, and John Lind (Kitchen Sink/Dark Horse)

Best Writer

Tom King, Batman, Batman Annual #2, Batman/Elmer Fudd Special #1, Mister Miracle (DC)

Matt Kindt, Grass Kings (BOOM! Studios); Ether (Dark Horse); Eternity, X-O Manowar (Valiant)

Jeff Lemire, Black Hammer (Dark Horse); Descender (Image)

Marjorie Liu, Monstress (Image)

Mark Russell, The Flintstones (DC)

Best Writer/Artist

Lorena Alvarez, Night Lights (Nobrow)

Chabouté, Moby Dick (Dark Horse); Alone, The Park Bench (Gallery 13/Simon & Schuster)

Emil Ferris, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters (Fantagraphics)

Cathy Malkasian, Eartha (Fantagraphics)

Jiro Taniguchi, Furari, Louis Vuitton Travel Guide: Venice (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)

Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team

Isabelle Arsenault, Louis Undercover (Groundwood Books/House of Anansi)

Mitch Gerads, Mister Miracle (DC)

Gary Gianni, Hellboy: Into the Silent Sea (Dark Horse)

Ramón K. Perez, Jane (Archaia)

David Rubín, Black Hammer #9 & #12, Ether, Sherlock Frankenstein #1–3 (Dark Horse); Beowulf (Image)

Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art)

Federico Bertolucci, Love: The Dinosaur, Little Tails (Lion Forge/Magnetic)

EFA, Monet: Itinerant of Light (NBM)

Jean-Pierre Gibrat, Flight of the Raven (EuroComics/IDW)

Cyril Pedrosa, Portugal (NBM)

Sana Takeda, Monstress (Image)

Best Cover Artist

Jorge Corona, No. 1 with a Bullet (Image)

Nick Derington, Mister Miracle (DC); Doom Patrol (DC Young Animal)

Brian Stelfreeze, Black Panther (Marvel)

Sana Takeda, Monstress (Image)

Julian Totino Tedesco, Hawkeye (Marvel)

Best Coloring

Emil Ferris, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters (Fantagraphics)

Mitch Gerads, Mister Miracle (DC)

Ed Piskor, X-Men: Grand Design (Marvel)

David Rubín, Ether, Black Hammer, Sherlock Frankenstein (Dark Horse); Beowulf (Image)

Dave Stewart, Black Hammer, BPRD: Devil You Know, Hellboy: Into the Silent Sea, Sherlock Frankenstein, Shaolin Cowboy (Dark Horse); Maestros (Image)

Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, What Is Left (ShortBox)

Best Lettering

Isabelle Arsenault, Louis Undercover (Groundwood Books/House of Anansi)

Clayton Cowles, Bitch Planet: Triple Feature, Redlands, The Wicked + The Divine (Image); Black Bolt, Spider-Gwen, Astonishing X-Men, Star Wars (Marvel)

Emil Ferris, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters (Fantagraphics)

Stan Sakai, Usagi Yojimbo, Groo: Slay of the Gods (Dark Horse)

John Workman, Mother Panic (DC Young Animal); Ragnorak (IDW)

Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism

Alter Ego, edited by Roy Thomas (TwoMorrows)

The Comics Journal, edited by Dan Nadel, Timothy Hodler, and Tucker Stone, tcj.com (Fantagraphics)

Hogan’s Alley, edited by Tom Heintjes

Jack Kirby Collector, edited by John Morrow (TwoMorrows)

PanelXPanel magazine, edited by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, panelxpanel.com

Best Comics-Related Book

Deconstructing the Incal by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius, by Jean Annestay and Christophe Quillien (Humanoids)

How Comics Work, by Dave Gibbons and Tim Pilcher (Wellfleet Press/Quarto Group)

How to Read Nancy: The Elements of Comics in Three Easy Panels, by Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden (Fantagraphics)

Line of Beauty: The Art of Wendy Pini, by Richard Pini (Flesk)

Monograph, by Chris Ware (Rizzoli)

To Laugh That We May Not Weep: The Life and Times of Art Young, by Glenn Bray and Frank M. Young (Fantagraphics)

Best Academic/Scholarly Work

The Comics of Charles Schulz: The Good Grief of Modern Life, edited by Jared Gardner and Ian Gordon (University Press of Mississippi)

Ethics in the Gutter: Empathy and Historical Fiction in Comics, by Kate Polak (Ohio State University Press)

Latinx Superheroes in Mainstream Comics, by Frederick Luis Aldama (University of Arizona Press)

Neon Visions: The Comics of Howard Chaykin, by Brannon Costello (LSU Press)

Picturing Childhood: Youth in Transnational Comics, edited by Mark Heimermann and Brittany Tullis (University of Texas Press)

Best Publication Design

Akira 35th Anniversary Edition, designed by Phil Balsman, Akira Saito (Veia), NORMA Editorial, and MASH•ROOM (Kodansha)

Celebrating Snoopy, designed by Spencer Williams and Julie Phillips (Andrews McMeel)

Monograph, designed by Chris Ware (Rizzoli)

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, designed by Jacob Covey (Fantagraphics)

Will Eisner: The Centennial Celebration, 1917-2017, designed by John Lind (Kitchen Sink/Dark Horse)

Best Digital Comic

Bandette, by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover (Monkeybrain/comiXology)

Barrier, by Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin (Panel Syndicate)

The Carpet Merchant of Konstaniniyya, by Reimena Yee (reimenayee.com/the-carpet-merchant)

Contact High, by James F. Wright and Josh Eckert (gumroad.com/l/YnxSm)

Harvey Kurtzman’s Marley’s Ghost, by Harvey Kurtzman, Josh O’Neill, Shannon Wheeler, and Gideo Kendall (comiXology Originals/Kitchen, Lind & Associates)

Quince, by Sebastian Kadlecik, Kit Steinkellner, and Emma Steinkellner, translated by Valeria Tranier (Fanbase Press/comiXology)

Best Webcomic

Awaiting a Wave, by Dale Carpenter and Nate Powell, features.weather.com/us-climate-change/arkansas (The Weather Channel Digital)

Brothers Bond, by Kevin Grevioux and Ryan Benjamin, www.webtoons.com/en/action/brothers-bond/list?title_no=1191 (LINE Webtoon)

Dispatch from a Sanctuary City, by Mike Dawson, https://thenib.com/dispatch-from-a-sanctuary-city (The Nib)

The Tea Dragon Society, by Katie O’Neill, teadragonsociety.com

Welcome to the New World, by Jake Halpern and Michael Sloan, www.michaelsloan.net/welcome-to-the-new-world/ (New York Times Sunday Review)

[alpaca1]

人工肉のNuggsがSimulateにリブランド、資金とCTOを得てチキンナゲット代替品のみから製品ライン拡大へ シリアルアントレプレナーでソーシャルメディアアプリ「Monkey」の共同創業者（THE NEW YORKER記事）であるBen Pasternak（ベン・パステルナーク）氏が創業した人工肉企業のNuggsが、410万ドル（約4億4000万円）を調達した。また社名を変更し新たなCTOを迎えて、チキンナゲット以外の製品に手を広げようとしている。 Simulateという社名に変更したこの企業は、スパイシーナゲット、チキンバーガー製品、そしてゆくゆくはホットドッグを発売する予定だ。肉を食べたいという消費者の衝動を変えるために競争の激烈な業界で目標を広げ、それにふさわしいブランドに変更する必要があった。 1年ちょっと前にパステルナーク氏がチキンナゲットの代替品を消費者に届け始めて以来、約450トンのナゲットを販売した。7月13日の週に、Simulateの冷凍ナゲットはカリフォルニアの約30店舗のGelson’s Marketに登場する。同社は今後数カ月のうちにチキンパティを、第4四半期にはホットドッグ代替品のDOGGSを発売する計画だ。 同社は6月にナゲットを新しくし、それに合わせてパステルナーク氏はリブランドを開始した。 新しくなった同社に、Lerer Hippeau、AgFunder、Reddit共同創業者のAlexis Ohanian（アレクシス・オハニアン）氏、ホールフーズのCEOだったWalter Robb（ウォルター・ロブ）氏、モデルのJasmine Tookes（ジャスミン・トゥークス）氏が新たに投資した。さらにパステルナーク氏は、新しいCTOを迎えた。 ダノンのリサーチ＆イノベーション担当シニアディレクターだったThierry Saint-Denis（ティエリー・サン＝ドニ）氏をCTOに迎えたのは、同社にとっては素晴らしいやり方だ。Nuggsという企業は、急成長する人工肉市場を獲得しようとするやり手の創業者と冷凍食品大手のマーケティング活動のように見えていた。新たにCTOになったサン＝ドニ氏は10億ドル（約1070億円）近くを売り上げた食品開発者で、機能性成分、プロバイオティクス、酵素に関連する少なくとも14の特許を持つ人物だ。 新しいエグゼクティブを迎えて、McCain Foods、Rainfall Ventures、Maven Ventures、NOMO Ventures、MTV創業者のBob Pittman（ボブ・ピットマン）氏、Casper創業者のNeil Parikh（ニール・パリク）氏といった新規および既存の投資家たちにとっては、これまでよりもやや技術面の充実した企業を支援することになった。 Nuggsがこの1年間、製品ラインを改善してこなかったということではない。パステルナーク氏は製品をイテレーションで開発する同社のアプローチを誇示しており、さまざまな製法を試して「リリースノート」に記している。 このようなソフトウェアドリブンのアプローチによって、サブスクリプションサービスのような販売のオプションも生まれるかもしれないとパステルナーク氏は述べた。「コアなコミュニティの人々は新しいバージョンを買うのに夢中だ。我々は間もなくサブスクリプションのベータテストのようなことを始めようとしている」。 画像：Simulate [原文へ] （翻訳：Kaori Koyama） Source: テッククランチ・ジャパン

[an-ephemeral-blog]

Linkspam #7

Top Links

Debunking the Capitalist Cowboy by Nan Estad at Boston Review:

Business schools fetishize entrepreneurial innovation, but their most prominent heroes succeeded because they manipulated corporate law, not because of personal brilliance.

Capitalism, like the United States itself, has a mythology, and for five decades one of its central characters has been the nineteenth-century maverick cigarette entrepreneur, James B. Duke. Duke’s risk-taking investment in the newfangled machine-made cigarette, so the story goes, displaced the pricey, hand-rolled variety offered by his stodgy competitors. This, in turn, won Duke control of the national, and soon global, cigarette market. Repeated ad nauseam in business and history journals, high school and university curricula, popular magazines, and websites, the story has taught that disruptive innovation drives capitalist progress.

The problem? The Duke story is false: mid-century business historians fabricated it to accord with the theory of creative destruction, developed by libertarian economist Joseph Schumpeter. For generations, we have learned from this myth to fetishize entrepreneurial innovation as the engine of capitalism, while missing Duke’s instrumental role in rampant corporate empowerment.

Air Pods Are a Tragedy by Caroline Haskins at Vice:

Even if you only own AirPods for a few years, the earth owns them forever. When you die, your bones will decompose in less than a century, but the plastic shell of AirPods won’t decompose for at least a millennium. Thousands of years in the future, if human life or sentient beings exist on earth, maybe archaeologists will find AirPods in the forgotten corners of homes. They’ll probably wonder why they were ever made, and why so many people bought them. But we can also ask ourselves those same questions right now.

The Cis White Gay Man at a Crossroads by Tim Murphy at Into:

To ally oneself with power and privilege after historically having one’s own inherent gender and racial privilege compromised because of one’s sexuality is extremely seductive. It’s also uncomfortable, to say the least, to know that your new bros are perpetuating cruelties that you know in your gut to be real because, especially if you are an older gay man, you remember such cruelties to the point that your voice rises and breaks when you allude to them.

It can be so uncomfortable that, in the next breath, you deny their authenticity. People who feel vulnerable and unsafe, you say, enjoy playing the victim. Your new status in the world depends on not connecting your own former, or fleeting, suffering to theirs.

Privileged by Kyle Korver at the Player’s Tribune:

When the police break your teammate’s leg, you’d think it would wake you up a little.

When they arrest him on a New York street, throw him in jail for the night, and leave him with a season-ending injury, you’d think it would sink in. You’d think you’d know there was more to the story.

You’d think.

But nope.

Women suffer needless pain because almost everything is designed for men by Sigal Samuel, interviewing Caroline Criado Perez, for Vox:

Sigal Samuel: Can you give an example of a drug that’s been found to be less effective for women?

Caroline Criado Perez:  The most shocking one was a heart medication that was meant to prevent heart attacks but at a certain point in a woman’s menstrual cycle is actually more likely to trigger a heart attack. That has to do with the problem of not testing the drug on women at different stages of their menstrual cycle, because you [the researcher] say, “Oh, that’s too complicated and too expensive.” You’re basically saying, “I would rather let women die than have to do a complicated test.”

It Wasn’t Just the Trolls: Early Internet Culture, “Fun,” and the Fires of Exclusionary Laughter by Whitney Philips in Social Media + Society:

Very quickly, I realized that many of the young reporters who initially helped amplify the white nationalist “alt right” by pointing and laughing at them, had all come up in and around internet culture-type circles. They may not have been trolls themselves, but their familiarity with trolling subculture, and experience with precisely the kind of discordant swirl featured in the aforementioned early-2000s image dump, perfectly prepped them for pro-Trump shitposting. They knew what this was. This was just trolls being trolls. This was just 4chan being 4chan. This was just the internet. Those Swastikas didn’t mean anything. They recognized the clothes the wolf was wearing, I argued, and so they didn’t recognize the wolf.

This was how the wolf operated: by exploiting the fact that so many (white) people have been trained not to take the things that happen on the internet very seriously. They operated by laundering hate into the mainstream through “ironically” racist memes, then using all that laughter as a radicalization and recruitment tool.

Other Favorites

Science

Going Critical by Kevin Simler at Melting Asphalt - cool interactive post about criticality in networks

I Got Tenure, But Science is Still Broken by Ryan Abernathey at Medium

From sick role to practices of health and illness by Arthur W Frank in the journal Medical Education

Technology

Google Is Eating Our Mail by Tomaž Šolc at Avian’s Blog - what happens when a private company gets to decide what email is worth receiving

Coding Is For Everyone - As Long As You Speak English by Gretchen McCullough at Wired

YouTube Disabled Comments On Livestreams Of A Congressional Hearing On White Nationalism Because They Were Too Hateful by Ryan Broderick at Buzzfeed News - “Tuesday's hearing was meant to examine the rise of white nationalism and white supremacy and the role social media plays in its spread. Then the comments got hijacked.”

Thinking through ACL-aware data processing by Lea Kissner at the The International Association of Privacy Professionals “Privacy Tech” blog

A Conspiracy To Kill IE6 by Chris Zacharias at their personal blog

History

Liberalism and Jewish Emancipation by Mark Koyama at Liberal Currents - how Jews became full citizens of England

Politics

Is Josh Hawley For Real? by Alexander Zaitchik at the New Republic - A terrifying analysis of the “post-liberal” movement.  “Stated simply, the post-liberals reject universal reason as a basis for laws and government. They mourn the institutions, values, and hierarchies that secular rationalism has laid to waste in the name of progress.”

The families funding the 2016 presidential election by the New York Times

Identity politics strengthens democracy by Stacy Abrams in Foreign Affairs

Misc

How to Draw a Horse by Emma Hunsinger in the New Yorker

My Cousin Was My Hero. Until the Day He Tried to Kill Me. by Wil S Hylton at the New York Times

The Untold Story of the Ermahgerd Girl by Darryn King at Vanity Fair

Stoicism’s Appeal to the Rich and Powerful by Ada Palmer at Ex Urbe

What If A City Decides It Can Live Without A Freeway? by Nathanael Johnson - “Inside the push to tear down an Oakland freeway”

Put down the self-help books. Resilience is not a DIY endeavour by Michael Ungar at the Globe and Mail

What Could Have Been by Sophia Steinert-Evoy at Jewish Currents - “I realized: I was watching two Jewish American millennials sing about the crisis of Jewish identity created by the State of Israel on a nationally syndicated television show. But in its subtlety, the performance doesn’t make a statement so much as it opens a line of questioning—starting with What could have been? and leading, perhaps, to: How do we move forward?”

[herochan]

Here are the 2017 Eisner Award Winners

Named for the pioneering comics creator and graphic novelist Will Eisner, The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, considered the “Oscars” of the comic book industry, were given out in 31 categories for works published in 2016.

Below is the full list of the nominees and winners (highlighted in bold).

Best Short Story

“The Comics Wedding of the Century,” by Simon Hanselmann, in We Told You So: Comics as Art (Fantagraphics)

“The Dark Nothing,” by Jordan Crane, in Uptight #5 (Fantagraphics)

“Good Boy,” by Tom King & David Finch, Batman Annual #1 (DC)

“Monday,” by W. Maxwell Prince and John Amor, in One Week in the Library (Image)  

“Mostly Saturn,” by Michael DeForge, in Island Magazine #8 (Image)

“Shrine of the Monkey God!” by Kim Deitch, in Kramers Ergot 9 (Fantagraphics)

Best Single Issue/One-Shot

Babybel Wax Bodysuit, by Eric Kostiuk Williams (Retrofit/Big Planet)

Beasts of Burden: What the Cat Dragged In, by Evan Dorkin, Sarah Dyer, and Jill Thompson (Dark Horse)

Blammo #9, by Noah Van Sciver (Kilgore Books)

Criminal 10th Anniversary Special, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (Image)

Sir Alfred #3, by Tim Hensley (Pigeon Press)

Your Black Friend, by Ben Passmore (Silver Sprocket)

Best Continuing Series

Astro City, by Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson (Vertigo/DC)

Kill or Be Killed, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (Image)

The Mighty Thor, by Jason Aaron and Russell Dauterman (Marvel)

Paper Girls, by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang (Image)

Saga, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples (Image)

Best Limited Series

Archangel, by William Gibson, Michael St. John Smith, Butch Guice, and Tom Palmer (IDW)

Briggs Land, by Brian Wood and Mack Chater (Dark Horse)

Han Solo, by Marjorie Liu and Mark Brooks (Marvel)

Kim and Kim, by Magdalene Visaggio and Eva Cabrera (Black Mask)

The Vision, by Tom King and Gabriel Walta (Marvel)

Best New Series

Black Hammer, by Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston (Dark Horse)

Clean Room, by Gail Simone and Jon Davis-Hunt (Vertigo/DC)

Deathstroke: Rebirth, by Christopher Priest, Carlo Pagulayan, et al. (DC)

Faith, by Jody Houser, Pere Pérez, and Marguerite Sauvage (Valiant)

Mockingbird, by Chelsea Cain and Kate Niemczyk (Marvel)

Best Publication for Early Readers (up to age 8)

Ape and Armadillo Take Over the World, by James Sturm (Toon)

Burt’s Way Home, by John Martz (Koyama)

The Creeps, Book 2: The Trolls Will Feast! by Chris Schweizer (Abrams)

I’m Grumpy (My First Comics), by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm (Random House Books for Young Readers)

Narwhal: Unicorn of the Sea, by Ben Clanton (Tundra)

Best Publication for Kids (ages 9-12)

The Drawing Lesson, by Mark Crilley (Watson-Guptill)

Ghosts, by Raina Telgemeier (Scholastic)

Hilda and the Stone Forest, by Luke Pearson (Flying Eye Books)

Rikki, adapted by Norm Harper and Matthew Foltz-Gray (Karate Petshop)

Science Comics: Dinosaurs, by MK Reed and Joe Flood (First Second)

Best Publication for Teens (ages 13-17)

Bad Machinery, vol. 5: The Case of the Fire Inside, by John Allison (Oni)

Batgirl, by Hope Larson and Rafael Albuquerque (DC)

Jughead, by Chip Zdarsky, Ryan North, Erica Henderson, and Derek Charm (Archie)

Monstress, by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda (Image)

Trish Trash: Roller Girl of Mars, by Jessica Abel (Papercutz/Super Genius)

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl by Ryan North & Erica Henderson (Marvel)

Best Humor Publication

The Further Fattening Adventures of Pudge, Girl Blimp, by Lee Marrs (Marrs Books)

Hot Dog Taste Test, by Lisa Hanawalt (Drawn & Quarterly)

Jughead, by Chip Zdarsky, Ryan North, Erica Henderson, and Derek Charm (Archie)

Man, I Hate Cursive, by Jim Benton (Andrews McMeel)

Yuge! 30 Years of Doonesbury on Trump, by G. B. Trudeau (Andrews McMeel)

Best Anthology

Baltic Comics Anthology š! #26: dADa, edited by David Schilter and Sanita Muizniece (kuš!)

Island Magazine, edited by Brandon Graham and Emma Rios (Image)

Kramers Ergot 9, edited by Sammy Harkham (Fantagraphics)

Love Is Love, edited by Sarah Gaydos and Jamie S. Rich (IDW/DC)

Spanish Fever: Stories by the New Spanish Cartoonists, edited by Santiago Garcia (Fantagraphics)

Best Reality-Based Work

Dark Night: A True Batman Story, by Paul Dini and Eduardo Risso (Vertigo/DC)

Glenn Gould: A Life Off Tempo, by Sandrine Revel (NBM)

March (Book Three), by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell (Top Shelf)

Rosalie Lightning: A Graphic Memoir, by Tom Hart (St. Martin’s)

Tetris: The Games People Play, by Box Brown (First Second)

Best Graphic Album—New

The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye, by Sonny Liew (Pantheon)

Black Dog: The Dreams of Paul Nash, by Dave McKean (Dark Horse)

Exits, by Daryl Seitchik (Koyama)

Mooncop, by Tom Gauld (Drawn & Quarterly)

Patience, by Daniel Clowes (Fantagraphics)

Wonder Woman: The True Amazon, by Jill Thompson (DC Comics)

Best Graphic Album—Reprint

Demon, by Jason Shiga (First Second)

Incomplete Works, by Dylan Horrocks (Alternative)

Last Look, by Charles Burns (Pantheon)

Meat Cake Bible, by Dame Darcy (Fantagraphics)

Megg and Mogg in Amsterdam and Other Stories, by Simon Hanselmann (Fantagraphics)

She’s Not into Poetry, by Tom Hart (Alternative)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material

Equinoxes, by Cyril Pedrosa, translated by Joe Johnson (NBM)

Irmina, by Barbara Yelin, translated by Michael Waaler (SelfMadeHero)

Love: The Lion, by Frédéric Brémaud and Federico Bertolucci (Magnetic)

Moebius Library: The World of Edena, by Jean “Moebius” Giraud et al. (Dark Horse)

Wrinkles, by Paco Roca, translated by Erica Mena (Fantagraphics)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia

The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye, by Sonny Liew (Pantheon)

Goodnight Punpun, vols. 1–4, by Inio Asano, translated by JN PRoductions (VIZ Media)

orange: The Complete Collection, vols. 1–2, by Ichigo Takano, translated by Amber Tamosaitis, adaptation by Shannon Fay (Seven Seas)

The Osamu Tezuka Story: A Life in Manga and Anime, by Toshio Ban and Tezuka Productions, translated by Frederik L. Schodt (Stone Bridge Press)

Princess Jellyfish, vols. 1–3, by Akiko Higashimura, translated by Sarah Alys Lindholm (Kodansha)

Wandering Island, vol. 1, by Kenji Tsuruta, translated by Dana Lewis (Dark Horse)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Strips (at least 20 years old)

Almost Completely Baxter: New and Selected Blurtings, by Glen Baxter (NYR Comics)

Barnaby, vol. 3, by Crockett Johnson, edited by Philip Nel and Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics)

Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy, Colorful Cases of the 1930s, edited by Peter Maresca (Sunday Press)

The Realist Cartoons, edited by Paul Krassner and Ethan Persoff (Fantagraphics)

Walt & Skeezix 1931–1932, by Frank King, edited by Jeet Heer and Chris Ware (Drawn & Quarterly)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Books (at least 20 Years Old)

The Complete Neat Stuff, by Peter Bagge, edited by Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics)

The Complete Wimmen’s Comix, edited by Trina Robbins, Gary Groth, and J. Michael Catron (Fantagraphics)

Fables and Funnies, by Walt Kelly, compiled by David W. Tosh (Dark Horse)

Trump: The Complete Collection, by Harvey Kurtzman et al., edited by Denis Kitchen and John Lind (Dark Horse)

U.S.S. Stevens: The Collected Stories, by Sam Glanzman, edited by Drew Ford (Dover)

Best Writer

Ed Brubaker, Criminal 10th Anniversary Special, Kill or Be Killed, Velvet (Image)

Kurt Busiek, Astro City (Vertigo/DC)

Chelsea Cain, Mockingbird (Marvel)

Max Landis, Green Valley (Image/Skybound); Superman: American Alien (DC)

Jeff Lemire, Black Hammer (Dark Horse); Descender, Plutona (Image); Bloodshot Reborn (Valiant)

Brian K. Vaughan, Paper Girls, Saga (Image)

Best Writer/Artist

Jessica Abel, Trish Trash: Roller Girl of Mars (Papercutz/Super Genius)

Box Brown, Tetris: The Games People Play (First Second)

Tom Gauld, Mooncop (Drawn & Quarterly)

Tom Hart, Rosalie Lightning: A Graphic Memoir (St. Martin’s)

Sonny Liew, The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye (Pantheon)

Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team

Mark Brooks, Han Solo (Marvel)

Dan Mora, Klaus (BOOM! Studios)

Greg Ruth, Indeh (Grand Central Publishing)

Francois Schuiten, The Theory of the Grain of Sand (IDW)

Fiona Staples, Saga (Image)

Brian Stelfreeze, Black Panther (Marvel)

Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art)

Federico Bertolucci, Love: The Lion (Magnetic)

Brecht Evens, Panther (Drawn & Quarterly)

Manuele Fior, 5,000 km per Second (Fantagraphics)

Dave McKean, Black Dog (Dark Horse)

Sana Takeda, Monstress (Image)

Jill Thompson, Wonder Woman: The True Amazon (DC); Beasts of Burden: What the Cat Dragged In (Dark Horse)

Best Cover Artist (for multiple covers)

Mike Del Mundo, Avengers, Carnage, Mosaic, The Vision (Marvel)

David Mack, Abe Sapien, BPRD Hell on Earth, Fight Club 2, Hellboy and the BPRD 1953 (Dark Horse)

Sean Phillips, Criminal 10th Anniversary Special, Kill or Be Killed (Image)

Fiona Staples, Saga (Image)

Sana Takeda, Monstress (Image)

Best Coloring

Jean-Francois Beaulieu, Green Valley (Image/Skybound)

Elizabeth Breitweiser, Criminal 10th Anniversary Special, Kill or Be Killed, Velvet (Image); Outcast by Kirkman & Azaceta (Image/Skybound)

Sonny Liew, The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye (Pantheon)

Laura Martin, Wonder Woman (DC); Ragnorak (IDW); Black Panther (Marvel)

Matt Wilson, Cry Havoc, Paper Girls, The Wicked + The Divine (Image); Black Widow, The Mighty Thor, Star-Lord (Marvel)

Best Lettering

Dan Clowes, Patience (Fantagraphics)

Brecht Evens, Panther (Drawn & Quarterly)

Tom Gauld, Mooncop (Drawn & Quarterly)

Nick Hayes, Woody Guthrie (Abrams)

Todd Klein, Clean Room, Dark Night, Lucifer (Vertigo/DC); Black Hammer (Dark Horse)

Sonny Liew, The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye (Pantheon)

Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism

The A.V. Club comics coverage, including Comics Panel, Back Issues, and Big Issues, by Oliver Sava et al., www.avclub.com

Comic Riffs blog, by Michael Cavna and David Betancourt, www.washingtonpost.com/new/comic-riffs/

Critical Chips, edited by Zainab Akhtar (Comics & Cola)

PanelPatter.com, edited by Rob McMonigal

WomenWriteAboutComics.com, edited by Megan Purdy and Claire Napier

Best Comics-Related Book

blanc et noir: takeshi obata illustrations, by Takeshi Obata (VIZ Media)

Ditko Unleashed: An American Hero, by Florentino Flórez and Frédéric Manzano (IDW/Editions Déesse)

Krazy: George Herriman, A Life in Black and White, by Michael Tisserand (Harper)

The Life and Legend of Wallace Wood, vol. 1, edited by Bhob Stewart and J. Michael Catron (Fantagraphics)

More Heroes of the Comics, by Drew Friedman (Fantagraphics)

Best Academic/Scholarly Work

Brighter Than You Think: Ten Short Works by Alan Moore, with essays by Marc Sobel (Uncivilized)

Forging the Past: Set and the Art of Memory, by Daniel Marrone (University Press of Mississippi)

Frank Miller’s Daredevil and the Ends of Heroism, by Paul Young (Rutgers University Press)

Pioneering Cartoonists of Color, by Tim Jackson (University Press of Mississippi)

Superwomen: Gender, Power, and Representation, by Carolyn Cocca (Bloomsbury)

Best Publication Design

The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye, designed by Sonny Liew (Pantheon)

The Complete Wimmen’s Comix, designed by Keeli McCarthy (Fantagraphics)

Frank in the Third Dimension, designed by Jacob Covey, 3D conversions by Charles Barnard (Fantagraphics)

The Realist Cartoons, designed by Jacob Covey (Fantagraphics)

Si Lewen’s Parade: An Artist’s Odyssey, designed by Art Spiegelman (Abrams)

Best Webcomic

Bird Boy, by Anne Szabla, http://bird-boy.com

Deja Brew, by Taneka Stotts and Sara DuVall (Stela.com)

Jaeger, by Ibrahim Moustafa (Stela.com)

The Middle Age, by Steve Conley, steveconley.com/the-middle-age

On Beauty, by Christina Tran,  sodelightful.com/comics/beauty/

Best Digital Comic

Bandette - Paul Tobin & Colleen Coover (Monkeybrain/comiXology)

Edison Rex, by Chris Roberson and Dennis Culver (Monkeybrain/comiXology)

Helm, by Jehanzeb Hasan and Mauricio Caballero, www.crookshaw.com/helm/

On a Sunbeam, by Tillie Walden, www.onasunbeam.com

Universe!, by Albert Monteys (Panel Syndicate)

Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award

Comicazi, Robert Howard, David Lockwood, Michael Burke. Somerville, MA

[junjunfinale]

Visual research (Week 1)

I also did find some visual inspirations for the project during the research.

Listening to the sound of flowers blooming -  Yuko Someya

A painting that showcased in Tomio Koyama Gallery, Shibuya Hikarie 8F, Japan. This visual reference is to see flowers being conveyed in fine arts.

(Link: http://tomiokoyamagallery.com/en/news/2017yukosomeya/)

Batik Flower Mural - Daphne Siaw

Batik flower are normally seen being illustrated in batik cloth, but here the artist takes the batik flowers to be illustrated on the black walls using white ink giving a new contemporary look.

(Link: https://www.behance.net/gallery/17371455/Batik-Flower-Mural?tracking_source=search%7Cflower)

santa - Rana Kim

Taking inspiration from Christmas, Rana illustrated the plants in much more expressive way.

(Link: https://www.behance.net/gallery/46240345/santa?tracking_source=search%7Cflower)

Growing Season - Denis Cre

What I loved about this work is the use of shadow and photography of flowers composed with typography arrangement, which makes the outcome looks more dynamic.

(Link: https://www.behance.net/gallery/80537303/Growing-Season?tracking_source=search%7Cflower)

B L O O M ° - Kerstin Kuntze

A strong graphic expression using flowers and a hand, the whole composition are balanced despite there’s a lot of elements in it.

(Link: https://www.behance.net/gallery/79532503/B-L-O-O-M-)