Metadelight re: WisCon, Starships, and Benjamin Alison Wilgus' Comics

[jesse_the_k]

[update: Dec 2024 corrected name and gender: the comic creator is Benjamin Alison Wilgus. He wrote an excellent comic about coming out later in life at The Nib]

ben_wilgus's four-comic WisCon diary is up at The Comics Journal.

The second day captures the vid party singalong

panel 1: Ben looking at door sign reading "Vid Party"
Speech bubble from his mouth: Oh I'm definitely going to this!

Narration: do you know what vids are? When you take footage from a movie or show and edit it to songs? A sort of homemade music videos for nerds. They're wonderful and Wiscon has a viewing party every year.

panel 2: Backs of heads in a full room.

Narration: I understand that vidding culture can seem weird to outsiders, but the good ones reach right into my rib cage.

panel 3: Seated Ben looks up

Narration: watching vids on a big screen with a room full of people –

panel 4: Close-up on Ben, eyes filling with tears

Narration: – The kind of vids that have self-selected into a "feminist SFF convention" –

panel 5: Closer-up of Ben wiping tears away.
Speech bubble: …how dare they make me cry about Star Wars…

Narration: –was powerful.

panel 6: Full auditorium watching vid of women in space suit. Speech bubble connects to on-screen woman and many audience members:
Starships were meant to flyyyyyy!
Hands up and touch the skyyyyy!
Can't stop 'cause we're so hiiiiigh!
Let's do this one more time!

panel 7: Ben and friend sing along, their voices connecting to previous speech bubble.

Narration: I think that's when I knew I was going to have to come back.

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The vid everyone is singing along to is, of course, bironic’s Starships the archetype of shared delight in fandom. Read up on its origin, execution, and inclusion in a museum exhibit about transformative works. jetpack_monkey’s black&white remix is also delightful

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Of the many projects Benjamin juggles, the podcast "Graphic Novel TK" is particularly enlightening. He drills down into the nitty-gritty of comics creation, design, printing, publishing, publicity and more.

https://soundcloud.com/graphicnoveltk

Comments

[laurashapiro]

::SQUEE::

[boxofdelights]

Singing along to Starships is one of my favorite moments at Wiscpn.

[cynthia1960]

More comics, squeee!