When they arrive, the skyline is recognisably that of post-war, monumentalist America, land of the immigrant.

It is emphatically not a pleasure cruise, his fellow travellers huddling under blankets up on deck, but there are moments of wonder as shoals of white flying fish soar in the sky. A second double-page spread of multiple panels looking up into the varied cloud formations indicates the many long days and nights that pass, their fluctuating tones reflecting the mans shifting moods. He sits alone in a tiny cabin amongst so many within the giant iron ocean which is in turn dwarfed by the vast, open seas it crosses. Whatever the affliction, our husband and father must bid his loved ones a tearful but dignified, final farewell, their hands slipping painfully from his grasp, along with all that is familiar to him.

Now, you could take that to be fantastical or metaphorical, the monstrous yet relatively anonymous intrusion into the peoples lives cleverly signifying anything from the oppression of tyrants to disease, famine or war. A serpents tail, sharp with spines, snakes through the narrow streets between dilapidated, tall, terraced housing, casting its shadow across windows, blotting out the light. It's a voyage of discovery both for the book's reader and its protagonist, who must reluctantly leave behind his sparsely decorated home, his soft-handed wife and their quietly anxious daughter, for there is something gravely wrong with their homeland. Truly a book of wonders, this is a silent tale rendered in subtle but telling tones from the cold grey of loneliness, bewilderment and despair, through period-piece sepia to a bright, burnished bronze which will lift your heart and make your soul sing! However, heres a substantial rewrite of what I came up with a lifetime ago. Teaching this in-depth in schools is one of my favourite things in the world!

This isnt quite how I now sell this book on our shop floor, partly because THE ARRIVAL is a treasure trove of narrative devices unique to this medium, and exploring those requires either the book in front of you or more precise interior art than I could find online. New, easily hand-held edition, roughly the same size as a standard American comic, although we do still have the album-sized hardcover, should you prefer.

The arrival shaun tan online