There
are many different types of comics or styles of how a comic could be set up. A
type of comic that can be found is one that has no words but just has images. I
was asked to "read" The Arrival by Shaun Tan. The story line of the
comic is that it tells of a man and his family and all the hard ships and
problems the man had to go through to bring his family to a new world in a fun
and creative way. In other comics with no words it can be hard to figure
out what is going on in the story. The
Arrival on the other hand, it is easy to follow what is happening.
One reason that supports my
idea is how The Arrival is set up its
images and out each image flows together. For an example in the first chapter
at the start of the book on page one there are nine simple images. The images
are of simple day-to-day things that you could find in anyone’s house. Also the
belongings that the artist shows in each image sets up a time period and helps
you to be apart of the story.
From there the last image on
the first page sets up the next page for an easy transition. It goes to page
two were there are nine images again but this time they are in sequence. The sequence
starts off an image of a picture frame of a family, a man, woman and a little
girl. Then you see a hand going in to the image and taking the frame and
putting it in a box. With this set up you are getting an action that spend up
the story, yet also being shown that something important is happening.
Like before the last image on
the page sets up the next page, but for this page there is a twist. Instead of
having nine small images there is one large one that fills the page. With this
one image it finalizes the smaller images before it. Which helps you confirm what
is happening in the story line. Like for this image it is a scene of a man and
a woman together at a dinner table with a fireplace in the background. They
both have a hand on the box with the woman’s hand on top of the man’s. You can
get the feeling of sadness and you can tell the man is going to leave. All the little images before this one has been
setting up for this one image, so that you can have more information
Through out the comic the
artist goes back and forth with all these kinds of layouts in different orders.
It helps the flow of the story so you do not get bored or confused as you go
through the comic. I believe that this really
helps move the story along and makes it fun to “read”. Also with simple but
detailed images that read well with this set up that the artist used it really
makes the comic an enjoyable “read” and story.
