"Polgreen has said that at least 50 percent of contributors for each issue [of Symbolia] will be women. “The lack of women is an ongoing issue in both the journo and comics worlds, and this is a way to address it,” says Polgreen, who also runs a Tumblr called Graphic Ladies!?, a showcase of women’s work."

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“Immersive” is the word [Polgreen] reaches for when asked what illustrative journalism does better than, say, a story like this one, mostly made of words. “Illustrated journalism draws you in. It’s accessible in a way 5,000 words of text isn’t. Regardless of age, gender or anything, you grasp it faster than most journalism.”

I flipped through Symbolia.

Cartoonist-journalist Sarah Glidden has a piece about rollerblading in Iraq; there’s a nice primer on psych rock in Zambia; a fun story about scientists and new species; and, best, Bay Area journalist Susie Cagle (who refers to herself as a “former words-only reporter”) presents a story about the future of the Salton Sea, rooted in interviews with people who live in California’s Imperial Valley and have watched the Salton dissolve. It condenses environmental degradation and class differences, history and anxiety, empathy and anger into about two dozen bright, smartly illustrated pages, painting a literal, graspable narrative of a complex subject.

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