#1 The Arrival

[eccentricweft.livejournal.com]

The Arrival was published in 2006 and I just stumbled on it recently. It's a wordless graphic novel. The medium is (I think) charcoal pencil drawings.

The artist is Shaun Tan, from Australia. His father was Chinese and came to Australia as an adult. The project was inspired by the father's experiences: it's about leaving home, coming to a completely unfamiliar place, and gradually figuring out the strangeness of the new culture.

The story uses fantastical elements to convey the bizarreness of everything to the new arrival (the cover illustration is an example, so I don't think this spoils anything). It's not meant as science fiction but rather as a way of making the 'reader' feel as baffled by the new surroundings as the main character.

The fact that this complex story is told completely without words is amazing to me. It's incredibly absorbing and the absence of words makes you have to pay attention as intently as the main character.

I'd love to talk about this with folks if anyone else has read it.