Wordless Comics
The Arrival is not the first
wordless comic I’ve seen but it is the first one I have ‘read’ so to speak…
How can you tell a story without words? As an
artist/illustrator we are faced with this question every time we sit down to
create an illustration. For the viewer to be pulled in its got to have some
sort of emotion emitting from it… right? With books, most of the time, you
don’t have pictures unless it is a children’s book, in which the pictures help
keep their mind focused on the story. Books have juicy words to pull you in and
help you create a world out of those words, Comics with words have the best of
both worlds but there is definitely something to say for Wordless Comics.
Wordless Comics have the same sort
of charm that silent movies have, but unlike the silent movies that were left
behind, wordless comics seem to still have a 21st century feel about
it, or at least I feel that way. Its still hip- to put it in ‘hipper’ terms
haha.
The Arrival is successful because
of the skill of the artist, he is able to convey various different emotions
with facial expression, spacing and light vs. dark. I actually enjoyed the
comic more than I thought I would and was able to follow it somewhat
successfully. A man gets separated from his family in a strange new world and
misses them- as far as I could ‘read’ into the story. But you can see threw is
actions what type of man he is and that he is missing his family, without the
words you as a viewer have to become personal and invested in this mans life in
which you are merely an observer. It was almost like spying on someone’s life
events in a world I know nothing about! If you are craving a ‘silent’ brain
turning ‘read’ I would recommend The Arrival to you 100 times over.
An experience for everyone.
