The Arrival

The Arrival depends on body language, shape language, perspective and visual icons to communicate a universal story. By using images that are decipherable by almost any human in any country and by taking a story that is very relatable he is able to tell a story and create emotion in the reader without using words. While we don't often realize it because it is so ingrained in us we are all conditioned in a way to be able to read certain shapes, body movements, and even specific objects as carrying a specific meaning. These can be very subtle or extremely obvious, but most comics and other media use them, though Shawn Tan uses them as his primary means to communicate in Arrival.

From the very beginning Tan uses icon by showing items that are typically in a household and we already learn just from seeing these that this is a family of three, there is a young child, and that a suitcase is being packed. He then quickly establishes the threat by using the visual language of long snake-like tentacles with sharp points on them. Immediately we know there is danger without anyone screaming or saying a word because of this universally known threatening shape language. Later he uses icons, such as having the protagonist draw a bed, which is a rather literal use of icon. The map he uses is also a sort of icon, showing that he is lost and trying to find his way. This is not only recognized by the reader, but also by the woman who sees he is using it and comes to aid him.

Tan brings us to a very foreign world, as well as the character, but he establishes this world not with words, but with sweeping, wide establishing images of the new land. If you really look into one of these images they each have pages of information hidden in them for the reader to learn more about this strange land. These images are quite beautiful and inspire a kind of awe in the reader similar to what the character must have felt. It is very rare to have this kind of suggested first person perspective in a comic. The most significant use of this perspective is likely in a set of panels when the character wakes up. Tan makes these panels transition from a cloud-like dream to blurred vision to looking straight at the protagonist's pet. This series captures what it is like to feel to wake up, from the first person perspective, and in this way Tan is able to make the reader experience and feel what his character is feeling. 

Arrival is a universal story of coming to a foreign place and learning new customs, so Tan certainly has this on his side that it is a known story that many of us have lived through. However, I think in a way that communicating without words in this story is often much clearer than some texts that uses words. By using the kind of physical and iconic language which has been ingrained in us since birth reading this and understanding it is almost instinctual.