The Birdmen

1. Coming from the market, a women is attacked by a bird.

2. At the mortition, the raven finds itself looming over a women's body.

3. More of the birds continue to appear, another women storming in to keep them away from the body. Fearful, but dedicated to keeping the women perserved and unscathed in her tomb.

4. Backlash insues from the birdmen, as the fearless women who came to protect the other now lays on the floor- wounded and tied to a board. The birds huddle in discussion of what's to come.

5. The birdmen search the holy home further, bursting through the upstairs bedroom door only to find another one of the women already dead on the ground beside her. The chickens already had gotten to her. Heathens-- bested again, they caw'd.

6. Moving on, the birdmen peer into another room to what seems to have a women staring longingly at a man whose body is propped up and pinned to a board as if he were a scare crow like them.

7. Meanwhile, two women from a place farther away weep in mourning of the news. Two more women dead to the birdmen. Scoundrels. Absolutely. The cab driver, who happened to be a beefy rooster- rolls his eyes at the comotion.

8. Later that night, the two women after reaching their home discover in the late of night that they are not alone. Dropping her lantern, the women gasp then press their backs against the wall as they wait for their home's invader to pass. The bird sounded heavy and his talons tapped the wooden boards.

Week 1: The Arrival by Shaun Tan

The Arrival by Shaun Tan showcases a deep story without the use of any dialogue. The wordless comic provided me with both entertainment and imagined speeches. I believe this was done by using clear body language and other forms of non-verbal communication to express a point to the reader. This may be a demand, like pinching your fingers together in asking for money- or showing the reader a sequence of images that flow and are easily readable to the eye. The main character also displays different reactions to things in a very physical fashion that combine both facial expressions and hands.

Tan also utilizes transitions to tell the story. For example, the beginning of the book shows our protagonist sitting aboard a ship as he is leaving his family. This is suggested by him sitting alone in a room in front of a portrait of his family before he turns to look out the window, where it's shown he is traveling on an enormous boat. We then see the other passengers on the ship, those on top crowded and wrapped in blankets, huddling beside their luggage. This tells the reader that our protagonist is possibly migrating to someplace far and foreign.  

Another way the story is told/progresses is by utilizing flashbacks of minor characters while also seeing their different interactions with the protagonist and each other, as well as their different responsibilities. They serve as a compare and contrast- to what I believe the story to be about immigration and the (possibly idealized) concept of leaving behind your homeland to reach something safer and better for yourself and your family. We can infer that the family's move may have been incited by this eerie, pointed tail stretched all about their city. You as the reader can tell that this is meant to be something feared by the way other characters interact with its image- such as the protagonist panicking at the sight of the little boy's animal whose tail resembled the one from his homeland. All these are what help to make The Arrival a dynamic but wordless story.