Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Sam Benc 🐟

@nonvieta.bsky.social

1.8K followers 410 following 1.8K posts

Cartoonist. Adult Teenage Dirtbag 🌱 Friend of shrimp 🦐 She/her 🏳️‍🌈 Philadelphia Making a GN, LAST SHIP TO MARS (Henry Holt, 2026) 💌 [email protected] Rep'd by @draper-claire.bsky.social

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Sam Benc 🐟 @nonvieta.bsky.social · Nov 26

I feel like I forget to talk about it but here's a reminder that I have a comic coming next year called Last Ship to Mars 🚀 that is not even a little concerned about Mars and is instead a love letter to the Earth and the huge importance of staying and doing the work. It's also gay. ✨

6 16 96

Reposted by Sam Benc 🐟

Zoe TunnHELL ➡️ NYCC (Friday only!) @zoewithasword.bsky.social · 3h

Genuinely thrilled to see an executive in comics come out with this hard of a stance about it

Heidi MacDonald @comixace.bsky.social · 6h

"That's the point – the smudge, the rough line, the hesitation - that's what makes my work come alive." - Jim Lee talking about why DC will never use AI storytelling. "AI doesn't dream, feel or make art, it aggregates it."

@jimlee.bsky.social speaking very passionately at Retailer Day. #nycc

1 28 160

Reposted by Sam Benc 🐟

Kyla Aiko @ Foxlight @aikosmith.com · 15h

Kody is one of the coolest people I know, & he and his partner are going through some tough times. You can help him out by sending some funds through ko-fi/patreon below, but if you cannot, sharing this post would also mean a lot

ko-fi.com/M4M1AS76 (link is not a typo)
www.patreon.com/kodyisover

1 24 26

Sam Benc 🐟 @nonvieta.bsky.social · 6h

This is cool as hell and I would read it in a second

josh mckenzie @amonns.bsky.social · 7h

#DVPit #GN #A #LGBT

Going undercover as a race car mechanic, a young mobster makes the mistake of falling in love with his target. Unable to quit his mission or his new romance, he is forced to choose between which truth he wants to live. Either could cost him his life.

Reposted by Sam Benc 🐟

Supervising Animation Wizard @brendering.bsky.social · 17h

Miyazaki survived the bombing of Utsunomiya as a child. His family escaped in a car, but left a neighbor and her daughter behind to save themselves. Miyazaki regrets this, and said this has stayed with him and shaped his film making. He hopes his audience will learn the courage he lacked in 1945.

5 300 690

Reposted by Sam Benc 🐟

Cris @crisvector.com · 10h

Chat GPT

7 250 710

Reposted by Sam Benc 🐟

Matthew Lewis is ready for progressive federalism @mateosfo.bsky.social · 20h

$11 billion to raise and widen a highway, through a wetland, during a climate crisis.

Imagine spending $11 billion on workforce housing in Marin/Sonoma/Napa/San Francisco so the people driving across 37 every day to get to work ... could just live where they work.

California is a climate pariah.

Alfred Twu @alfredtwu.com · 22h

The entire proposed Highway 37 Solano-Marin super bridge is estimated to cost $11 billion, all to replace an existing road between a couple of suburbs. And it's proposed at 114 feet wide.

For comparison, the Golden Gate Bridge is 90 feet wide.

Warren Wells, AICP @warrenjwells.bsky.social · 1d

Caltrans has released a cross section for the ultimate (raised viaduct) version of SR-37.

Now maybe I'm just being paranoid, but if you were building a road that you planned to keep at 4 lanes wide, I don't think it would look like this.

3 52 320

Reposted by Sam Benc 🐟

Sen ⚢ @dresdencodak.com · 18h

Home, home again.

A young Kim Ross returning to her childhood home (from Dark Science #175)

8 35 240

Reposted by Sam Benc 🐟

jordan @jordantyranny.bsky.social · 1d

"Ballerina Aesha Ash wandering around inner city Rochester breaking the stereotypes about women of color and to inspire young kids."

its a picture of a ballerina teaching future young ballerinas!!!

31 450 2.4K

Reposted by Sam Benc 🐟

chira 🎋 @artofchira.bsky.social · 1d

to add: it speaks also to how the aesthetics of fascism are always stolen or appropriated. the swastika is from euroasian religions like hinduism or buddhism. the fedora was originally women's fashion. gAI being popular among fascists makes sense when its entire function is to steal aesthetics

chira 🎋 @artofchira.bsky.social · 1d

idk if it's overly reductive but I'm convinced fascism is born out of creative envy. every far right character is a failed or obsolete writer/comedian/actor/artist/etc

which is so annoying since these are losers who made their rainbow drawing not being good enough for the fridge society's problem

1 65 210

Sam Benc 🐟 @nonvieta.bsky.social · 1d

I think coffee shops should let artists work for free in their shops. Give me a latte and I'll let all your customers ask if I "drew that from my imagination". A win-win.

2 8

Reposted by Sam Benc 🐟

Fantômas, Le contrebandier de DEI @theefantomas.bsky.social · 1d

28 1.3K 4K

Sam Benc 🐟 @nonvieta.bsky.social · 1d

You're so real for this cover ✨

1 1

Sam Benc 🐟 @nonvieta.bsky.social · 1d

Okay I really think you're on to something here

Sam Benc 🐟 @nonvieta.bsky.social · 1d

I don't trust a comic shop if it doesn't have That Smell. You know the one.

Sam Benc 🐟 @nonvieta.bsky.social · 1d

Yes, but you should also get an exact replica of that bag if you don’t still have it

Reposted by Sam Benc 🐟

Tiffany Babb @explodingarrow.bsky.social · 1d

What do The Yellow Kid, the Moomins, and the Fantastic Four have in common? They're all featured in the next issue of The Comics Courier.

Make sure you get your copy by pledging today at comicscourier.com.

Yellow graphic with a black border that features the Yellow Kid, Moominmamma, and the Fantastic Four

2 5

Sam Benc 🐟 @nonvieta.bsky.social · 1d

And I don’t think I provided any broadly prescriptive answers! But I think where I landed is good for this book. Ultimately, it’s a book about doing the work, and about how the right choices are not always perfectly cathartic and they’re very often not easy. In fact they’re often harder.

Sam Benc 🐟 @nonvieta.bsky.social · 1d

I don’t know if everyone who reads it will like it! I know there are a lot of people out there who reject sympathizing with the bad guy, no matter how nuanced the conversation. There are a lot of people out there who reject the notion of working through, if not forgiveness, acceptance.

1 1

Sam Benc 🐟 @nonvieta.bsky.social · 1d

This was some of the hardest content to write and feel good about; the “what now” of how do we deal with someone who has hurt us…but is part of our community. The easy catharsis of your villain Going to Jail or Falling off a Cliff was not what I wanted to reach for.

Sam Benc 🐟 @nonvieta.bsky.social · 1d

I struggled with early drafts feeling too punitive in their solutions, even leaning into using the same systems that the rest of the book was so against.

Sam Benc 🐟 @nonvieta.bsky.social · 1d

I literally added an entire new scene into my book, just this past month, 80% done with art, because this is so important to me. Not just because I love to make more work or add more pages into my massive book. But because how we “deal” with our villains is just as important as their motivations.

Sam Benc 🐟 @nonvieta.bsky.social · 1d

What I find most compelling is the people who prop up the systems, even as they too are ground under that wheel. The through line of Last Ship to Mars isn’t about individual heroism, but about the ways the cynicism of capitalist individualism isolates us. And how we can heal from or resist that.

Sam Benc 🐟 @nonvieta.bsky.social · 1d

OH I GOT SOME THOUGHTS. Because I set Last Ship to Mars in a world where capitalism is the great antagonistic force, including your classic Big Corpo and presumably there exists an Elon Bezos sort of figure in the universe. But the direct villain of the story is a regular person, who buys into it.

Kelsi Jo @kelsijosilva.bsky.social · 2d

We've got to stop writing stories about defeating villains without also examining the systems that create them.

Villains aren't reacting to nothing, and they aren't upset at a world that works.

I'm looking at you:
-Supetheroes
-Fantasy books
-SO much of the romantasy sphere
-dark academia
-ETC

1 6

Sam Benc 🐟 @nonvieta.bsky.social · 1d

The Grip of It by Jac Jemc is an incredible novella if you want a short read but it’s VERY playful and experimental with its prose. Plays a lot with perception and is great if you like “haunted house” stories that are less literal ghosts and more the ghosts of our ourselves and what home even is.

Reposted by Sam Benc 🐟

Kody Okamoto @kodyisover.com · 1d

KEEPING TIME returns, as promised!!

#KeepingTime is a bittersweet bummer of a gay band romance that just started its 4th chapter, which means there's already 106 pages for you to dive into. #webcomics

🎸 keepingtimecomic.com

Full page spread of a close-up of a bulletin board. A flyer that reads, "Chapter 4: My Father's Dreams" takes front and center of the spread. Around it, numerous flyers and business cards are pinned to it with colored thumbtacks.

9 70 160