The Arrival (Revision)

Everyday people are bombarded with pictures, advertisements, artwork, etc. These images are noticed because they attract the eye; create interest, essentially they are mesmerizing to look at.  This tool of using visual language is so powerful, especially when it is done from a great mind and visionary like Shaun Tan. Tan created the graphic novel The Arrival, a book that is not of the norm when you think of a comic. I say this because the book is only filled with pictures, no words to tell the story, you must figure out the visual language behind each image to understand the story.

The story is very powerful which I thought was very difficult to achieve since all Tan had were drawings to tell it. Now for the images themselves, the amount of images that are in this story is mind-boggling. Each panel is executed with such precision to keep the story riding smoothly. The images alone are gorgeous, the soft touch of the graphite reminds me of looking at clouds on a windy day. The styles of the images are what I feel made the emotion so prevalent while reading the whole story. When I finished viewing The Arrival, I had to take a look back at all the images and view the complexity that went into creating this story.