The Arrival
The Arrival by Shaun Tan is a very visual medium of story telling, relying solely on art panels to tell the story without any text or dialogue. From my perspective the story is similar to the stories of immigrants from Ellis Island. It tells the story of an immigrant without any knowledge of the culture or language coming to a foreign place in order to either escape persecution or to help provide his family with resources/income.
It achieves this without any use of text or written narrative and instead conveys the story through "shared" assumptions/experiences. It makes good use of context to drive forward the story of the characters. Context is the key here as most of the panels by themselves aren't anything special as without context they become meaningless.
Additionally the comic makes use of share or assumed experiences. These shared experiences help in creating the context for the reader. From a man not knowing how to read the language of the new country to struggling to hold a job, to having conversations with people. For example the comic is colored in a sepia like hue that would be found in old photos drawings and newspapers at the time. This would convey the feeling of age and antiquity to those that have ever looked at anything old. Like this panel for example of a family having dinner together. To a majority of people this scenes conveys a sense of familiarity/connection to the readers that have experienced this/ watched this play out in other mediums. (Scene from the Godfather echoes the same feelings of a family dinner)
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