Week 1-The Arrival
The Arrival by Shaun Tan is a masterclass in how to tell a story without using any words. In the comic, Tan uses simple yet effective panel layouts to make the actions easy to read. Tan frequently uses 9-12 panel grids so he can show many important images at once, making it easier for the reader to see what is happening in any given moment. When Tan wants to convey that an image or idea is important, he will either use a full page spread or a double page spread. In addition to the page layouts, Tan’s clean and realistic art makes it very easy for the reader to understand what is happening. Every character is expressive without being too stylized, grounding the art in a way that makes it more readable without the necessity of words. Tan’s detailed rendering makes it easy to tell when a character is in a new place or when it’s a certain time of day, even with (or partly because of) the limited color palette. One of Tan’s greatest tools in this story is his use of surrealist a