Fanlore:Featured Article Archives/2020: Week 25
A Big Bang (or "Bang" for short) is a specific type of challenge usually involving long fics and accompanying artwork. This type of challenge is a reprise of the old zine tradition of collaboration between artists and writers for internet fandoms.
Most Big Bangs have a similar format: Writers sign up to take part in the challenge and begin writing stories. When the early drafts of the stories are available, each one is assigned one or more artists, or artists might claim stories from posted summaries. Artists create fanart to go along with the story. This art can take the form of illustrations, manips, photo collages, vids, icon sets, etc.
In 2008, the Bandom Big Bang provided each story with a soundtrack, rather than artwork, since it seemed more appropriate for a music-based fandom and because fanart is not as common in bandom. There was some fanart produced for the challenge as well.
Some Big Bangs have specific prompts for the authors to work from, or general themes, while others leave everything but the minimum word count up to the individual authors.