The Arrival has arrived. YEH!

         I’ve seen this comic before but I’ve never had the chance to read it thru. I think The Arrival really shows how you can get a story across without any words.  We forget how much we rely on language to get thru our daily lives.  But the comic still makes sense, you understand what is going on through gestures, patterns, and shape recognition.  I mean, I didn’t even have to read this twice to understand what was going on.  You just really had to pay attention to the information the characters were relaying back and forth to each other.  Everything was important so you really couldn’t skim the pages because you might miss an important gesture.    

I think Shaun Tan really did a great job on this plot-wise.  I mean he’s created a whole new world with different stories interwoven.  And it makes sense.  I mean, the pacing was slow, but I think it worked because of the high amount of detailed information you had to take in from certain panels.  It kind of worked as a breather, and it helped flow into the next segment of panels.  I mean there was an entire double page of 60 clouds.  You don’t usually see something like that in popular comics.  But the clouds were lovely to look at and they did give a feeling of time passing and repetition.  Plus, Tan used similar imagery later for when the husband woke up and saw his new creature-pet on his bed.

         This comic really reminded me of immigration to the Americas and Ellis Island.  It was interesting how each of the characters the husband met had similar stories about some form of oppression or evil entity that drove them to assimilate in this new location.  Also, I liked it how the story ended up going full circle.  The husband started out not understanding the language of the new land but he learned where to sleep, how to get food, he got a job, made friends, and it ends with him reuniting with his family.  His daughter passes on this knowledge to someone new that has to go on a similar path.  It’s like the circle of life, but with language (and no Simba).

         I really love the panels for this comic.  They look like photographs or little worn out postcards.  Each of the images in the strip are so highly detailed and his sweeping environments are breathtaking.  He really knows how to use light and shadow in his work to make a place seem scary or inviting.  And the panels really flowed together well.  Some of them read almost like an animation to me, like the old man’s story about being in the war and losing his leg.