Entry 2 - The Arrival

From the moment I saw it at the school bookstore I was really drawn to Shaun Tan's The Arrival even the cover was beautiful. As I read through it I feel in love with how immersed you can become in the environment that Tan creates with his wonderful renderings. This comic really transports you to a different place. Interestingly enough I suppose thats the whole point of the story. Being in a place that is mysterious and foreign to you. Every illustration though mostly monochromatic was so in depth and rich.
I think the aspect that makes this story communicate so well without words has to be the facial expressions and the body language of the characters. Tan seems like a master at making his drawings portray believable expressions that anyone could understand. The feature that this comic could be read by anyone in any language also ties into its overall theme quite nicely.
It actually took me a while in the story to understand what exactly was going on. Something about the images made me thing of World War II. I'm not sure if that was intentional or not. Eventually I did understand however that this man who is the main character is an immigrant to a strange new world he doesn't quite seem to understand. Some of my favorite characters were the little monster things they seemed to keep as pets. The one that lives with the main character was especially cute in its own right.
The fact that this comic is void of any written language really helps you focus on how the art can communicate so well. It almost immerses you more not having to read anything. Instead of knowing what's exactly being said you kind of make it up yourself. You start to become the main character and the world becomes tangible. Suddenly you too are an immigrant in a very surreal version of some reality you are not used to.
Something I felt was refreshing was the art style of the comic itself. It was more realistic than the average comic. Not that being unrealistic is bad, its just cool to see the comic told with images that probably took a very long time to produce. I am pretty sure I read in the back of the book that it took four years to make this graphic novel. And I believe it with such high quality production.
Overall, The Arrival became a pretty instant favorite of mine. I am really glad I bought it so I can add it to my collection of books. I think it'd even make a pretty cool book for my coffee table.