Sikoryak's comedic treatment is complete with exaggerated actions and punch lines, and it utilizes the various symbolia that have come to define Little Lulu and other classic comics, such as the emanata, agitrons, squeans, and hites as defined by Mort Walker.
In it he defines the various "symbolia," graphic symbols that cartoonists used to represent a host of physical and psychological conditions, such as shock and surprise (emanate, or lines drawn around the head), shakiness (agitrons, squiggly lines suggesting instability), dizziness or sickness (squeans, small circles or starbursts around the head), and fast movement (hites, horizontal lines trailing after someone).
Her story was one of a handful of initial offerings available in the first issue of Symbolia, a new iPad magazine taking a unique approach to journalism--telling stories exclusively through the use of sequential art.
"There's an immersive element to comics that makes it easy for a reader to identify with the subject at hand," said Erin Polgreen, founding editor and publisher of Symbolia. "When you simplify an image and render it to its essentials, you make it a lot easier for people to draw parallels to their own lives and experiences."
Symbolia has embraced the Web from the start, publishing stories that mix audio, visual, and interactive elements to create a unique form of storytelling.
So with a $20,000 grant from the International Women's Media Fund, and $14,000 from Chicago-based Robert McCormick Foundation and J-Lab, she debuted Symbolia at last year's SXSW Interactive.
Symbolia is currently available on the iPad and in PDF, and Polgreen plans to publish six issues per year for $2.99 per issue, or $11.99 for an annual subscription.
Symbolia's conversion rate of securing subscribers has been impressive.
