The essential way to narrate the story in the graphic comics usually considered with the combination of nice drawings and the words. In this way, the characters think and communicate each other. This is how the author develops the story in the comics. In Shaun Tan's work, The Arrival, however, he shows only drawings could effectively tell the story without the any words. Personally I got shock on the quality of the each drawing with no words in there. It feels like watching movie without the sound. Automatically this music played in my head.
The comic I have read through
my whole life is a basically Japanese comic, manga, which has the so many
techniques on it. Compare to the manga, this work is very simple; mostly equal
mount of space for each drawing, no bubbles for the words, no sound effects, no
tones etc. Literally it was continuous nice drawings. This is why I had trouble
to get the idea what Shaun Tan exactly tried to show. I was confused until the ending
came out that the daughter helped other immigrants in the town. To read the
real story, I needed to go back and forth to get the Shaun Tan’s idea. At the
beginning, when his wife reaches out the hand over the husband’s hands, I
thought her hand is husband’s. It would be clearer if the drawing were with the
sound effect. On the recalling scene of the old man who shared the food with
the husband, it seemed currently happening in there.
However, without the other
techniques, he did amazing job through smart way. In the scene of the days passing by on the ship, he only drew the clouds and it works really well!
Also when the husband confused with the new world, language people, it visually shows the character's strange and weird feeling about the new things.
