#symbolia

[sinceyousawvienna]

[counterintuitivecomics]

Thought I’d share a bit of my behind the scenes work for my scifi story Suspension, now published in Symbolia magazine!  In the story, we follow new hire Josefina through an exceptionally windy day of work installing solar gum panels on a luxury skyscraper.  Character design is by far one of my favorite yet also most frustrating steps of creating a comic, and I put a lot of work into putting together this quartet of skilled construction laborers.

In this story, I wanted to give you a birds-eye view of the 'green' infrastructure of our future cities and explore the influence today's systems of class and corporate culture may hold over our day-to-day lives.  To me that meant that each of the four characters needed to be immediately alive, and to have a lot of personality in their faces, since their uniforms and working environment doesn’t give them a lot of opportunities to express themselves.  I tried to think a lot about their personalities and where they were in their lives as I drew them, and to bring those details into the script.  For the record, Josefina and Mike are both chicanos, Em is biracially white and Cape Verdean and identifies as mixed, and Theo is black!

I knew I needed to nail down a harness design for the team that felt physically real and made sense to the reader, but that also incorporated sci-fi elements of where I think textiles/materials could go in the future.  That meant a lot of research sketches of jumpsuits, safety harnesses, helmets, wind protection, etc, before I refined all these shapes and ideas into the final outfits Theo and Mike are wearing in the last image.  And somewhere in there I had to design some kinda logo too!  Some might call all this procrastination but I think it’s very rewarding information gathering and refining process that helps me get my head on straight about the world of the story I’m writing and penciling.   

You can read a sneak peak of Suspension here or on symboliamag , and download the full PDF of Symbolia: The Future right here!

[comicsbeat]

Surveying the tablet comics world: Symbolia, Wormworld, Sequential, Madefire

Surveying the tablet comics world: Symbolia, Wormworld, Sequential, Madefire

NOTE: the below is me spitballing at 3 in the morning just to get some dialog going. I invite your comments and corrections.

I’ve had this news item floating around for ages and kept meaning to write it up: Symbolia, the journalistic comics magazine for tablets, has wrapped up its final issue. Founded by Erin Polgreen and Joyce Ricetwo years ago, this was an ambitious attempt at putting out non…

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[soundtype]

'Symbolia' in comicsMany illustrations, comics and graphic novels make use of so-called 'symbolia' or 'emanata': little lines, curls, clouds, stars, dots etc. These signs can have many different meanings, they evoke movements, sounds, emotions etc. Mort Walker tried to categorize and name many of them, in his 'lexicon of comicana'. Some pages of this book show his inventiveness and humouristic style (from: Mort Walker, The Lexicon of Comicana, Museum of Cartoon Art, 1980).

[symboliamag]

We have some exciting news to share! Creative Director Joyce Rice has been selected as a Journalism Leadership Transformation (JoLT) Fellow at American University. 

This fellowship will help Symbolia continue to grow. We wouldn’t be here without the support of our community. Thank you! You’ve helped us launch incredible experiments in non-fiction, visual storytelling.

JoLT will give us access to new tools to expand our work. As a JoLT fellow, Joyce will be designing journalism summits, attending leadership workshops, and creating immersive media projects with two other fellows in Washington D.C. She’ll also work towards an MA in Game Design. Joyce is especially excited about applying “gamification” principles to comics journalism. 

Learn more about the program and the other fellows.

In the meantime, Symbolia has lots of big projects in the pipeline. We’ll be releasing our 13th issue, THE FUTURE, in January. Stay tuned to hear about more exciting plans for the new year!

[thetwopagespread]

Review: Symbola #11: Deep Trouble

Overview: This issue of the comics magazine focuses on how people deal with their fears, or when things generally go bad.

Pros: All five of the stories in this issue are excellent. Symbolia continues to impress me by getting better with each issue.

Cons: Few, if any. There were some problems I had with the lettering choices in one of the stories, but that's about it.

Good for: People who like to learn.

Symbolia #11: Deep Trouble Various 2014, Symbolia 4.5/5

[thetwopagespread]

Review: Symbolia #10: The Food Chain

Overview: This issue of the digital comics/journalism magazine focuses on food - how it gets to our tables and alternative ways to get the nutrition we need.

Pros: Every issue I read of Symbolia is better than the last. The Food Chain includes a very interesting piece on the practicality of eating insects that made me want to try it, and every story kept me engaged throughout.

Cons: Like every magazine, I would like a little more information. It would be super awesome if each story contained links for further study.

Good for: People who enjoy learning about new things.

Symbolia #10: The Food Chain Various 2014, Symbolia 4/5

[thetwopagespread]

Review: Symbola #9: Tall Tales

Overview: This issue of the comics/journalism mash up magazine focuses on fiction, presenting several fictional stories from a variety of comics creators.

Pros: The stories are all excellent. Drawn well and intriguing.

Cons: Many of the stories are excerpts from larger works.

Good for: People who enjoy comics.

Symbolia #9: Tall Tales Various 2014, Symbolia 4/5