Week 1 - "The Arrival" by Shaun Tan : How A Story Is Conveyed Without Words
The sequencing of unrelated imagery functions similarly to the Kuleshov effect. The individual panels of imagery don’t connote a meaning unless read in a sequence. It is up to the viewer to understand its implied meaning. How the viewer familiarizes the scenario is based on experience or what the viewer has seen or heard. The beginning of the story demonstrates this function; the hat hanging on the wall, the dinnerware, and the boiling liquid implies that the setting takes place in an inhabited home. The addition of the child’s drawing implies that a family of three lives inside the home. The suitcase suggests that someone has either arrived or is leaving. What the imagery doesn’t express is the importance of this sequence. The reader must piece the scenario together in order to realize that it was to establish the backstory for this man and his family. The author has established a rule that has been used to convey different meanings. He uses three tones of sepia, which