The Arrival

This post may be a bit late in coming, but I found this book extremely interesting. So let's talk about Shaun Tan's The Arrival.

A wordless comic, one might think, would need to be a relatively simple story in order to get the message clearly across, like those panels they give kids on standardized tests in elementary school to see if their capable of putting events in order. The Arrival, however, challenges that--not just challenges, it breaks that thought into a million pieces. The story is deep and relatable, the images are complicated and well-rendered, the story never once loses it's reader (quite a feat!), and the final result is something that the average, comic-less person may not even count it among other comics.

Furthermore, who is the intended audience? The typical stereotype puts any kind of picture books (including comics, but increasingly less so)  squarely in the category of a children's book, especially when it lacks words. But of course, this story is one that would require a certain level of maturity to fully understand the meaning of it. Coming to a new country/culture by oneself, attempting to learn new ways, is a problem that just about anyone can understand, even if they've never immigrated before. However, I don't see toddlers looking through the book on their own and understanding it.

Personally, I found the side stories to be the best part. That Tan could go off on a short tangent to get across someone else's life story in a way that was both clear and moving was amazing to me. In the end, the story is such a good one, but the medium really makes it shine.