Everyone's heard the phrase, "a picture can tell a thousand words." The comic, The Arrival, by Shaun Tan truly takes this sentiment to heart.

The Arrival tells the story of a man leaving his home country and immigrating to a foreign world in search of better prospects for his family. Clumsily wandering through bizarre new experiences, he does his best to try to settle into a new life, find a job, and establish a sense of normalcy. Strangers met along the way, all with their own stories of struggling to survive, give him a helping hand in understanding this world bit by bit. Until eventually, the immigrant can finally call this land home.

Shaun Tan tells the story entirely through beautifully rendered graphite illustrations with a very cinematographic feel to them. Unfolding frame by frame, Tan expertly makes the narrative universal. 

In the beginning, the reader is introduced to a setting that closely mirrors the real world. Traveling across the ocean, on a boat filled with people who look alike in state, to a marvelous new land, to many, this is a familiar depiction of immigration.

Tan has created a fantastical setting unlike anything in the real world, a contrast from where the story began. This effectively puts the reader in the same state the immigrant is in: lost. From then on, the reader and the immigrant walk hand in hand through the narrative.

To me, I boil down what makes this comic so powerful to one thing: it captures empathy. In a narrative that fails to create empathy, the audience has no reason to invest in the story or its characters because there is nothing to relate to. 

Take the story of Wall-E or Nemo. They focus on the story of some very non-human characters, but why do people still love these films? Because even if the characters aren't human, they act in very human ways that we can relate. The feeling of breaking the everyday routine, falling in love, losing a loved one, protecting family, et cetera, these are experiences we can understand and relate to on some level. 

Without any words, The Arrival is able to tell such a compelling story through empathy. Perhaps it is through personal experience as an immigrant, or heard experience from relatives or close ones. Perhaps the feeling of visiting a foreign country where you don't know the language. Or even just the feeling of being uncomfortable in a new environment. Everyone has experienced the feeling of being lost, something Tan draws upon to make a story that can be universally understood.