[Palmer-san]

I'm having a bit of a romance with Shaun Tan's books at the moment, wanted to take a chance to share the joy and see if any other sweaties are or have been similarly enamoured...



The way he presents and explores emotional processes in his storytelling is so inspiring to me, whether it is dealing with terrifying and painful colonialism in The Rabbits, acknowledging the darkness of depression in The Red Tree, or beautifully exploring immigration and alienation in The Arrival.

Here are some of his books if you feel intrigued to explore...

http://www.shauntan.net/books.html

I'd be interested to hear if other people have enjoyed his books, or if they feel they have taken any inspiration or lessons in graphic/sequential storytelling from his work. Reading his stuff recently, it has really made me think about the balance of storytelling via images or words in my work, and the integrated/separated process of writing and drawing that creating a graphic story entails.

This reminds me of an interview I heard with Craig Thompson in which he described his process of writing and storyboarding, at the same time, which really surprised me as I've always gone along with the norm of doing them separately.

http://www.orbitalcomics.com/blog/20...son-interview/
(I think this was the one, apologies if I lead you down a bogus rabbit hole...)

I am endeavouring to find a method that allows me to tell each part of a story using the appropriate means of delivery, words, pictures or both, trying to steer away from the literary cultural ingrain that privileges words as a means to convey complexity.

Any thoughts?

[Emma]

Oh he is utterly amazing ^_^
I was speaking at the Edinburgh festival last year and was gutted that my talk was the same time as his ;_; I did however sit and have breakfast a table away from him, and sat there not having the guts to go and say hi, haha XD

[bex]

I'm a fan of Shaun Tan too, he's a fantastic artist and storyteller. Artistically his delicate attention to detail astounds me, but also in general I like his gentle approach to narrative
I really agree with your thoughts on his seamless weaving of the relationship between images and story, in this way he's a great example of how comics can be best executed I think, he's very good at making image absolutely necessary to telling the story, rather then creating a story that could be told in some other way ^^

And Emma, how lucky you are, I'm jealous! 0_0

[Emma]

haha, but I didn't talk to him! I just sat there, hiding behind my eggs like an idiot!