The Arrival doesn't look like your average comic. Aside from the soft, rendered style of the drawings, the boxes that make each storytelling image range from series of tiny squares to one that takes up the full page with a single illustration.
For the most part, the story is told in the squares. Open to a page, and you will see it perfectly fit and filled with tiny square images. However, it is this choice to compose the images like so that I believe makes the communication of this wordless narrative the most successful. The squares give a consistency, one less thing to be distracted by. Furthermore, the small scale of the squares push your focus into the image. Like a cinematic camera, Tan controlled the reader's eye and focused it on key props or changes in movement.
Another aspect that makes the narrative so clear is the body language of the characters. We have all felt emotions such as confusion, frustration, fear, sadness, and happiness. Tan beautifully chose key poses for his main character to express what he was feeling panel to panel.
Finally, what I felt Tan did to help readers follow the story was set a nice pace at which he transitioned action to action. For example, in the first two panels above, only his right arm makes a big movement, while the rest of his body leans in. You can clearly deduce the movement that transitioned him from upright and holding his hat, to leaning in with a hand moved up to his ear. The whole narrative is excellently done in this way, and never once did I feel lost from wondering what happened from one panel to another.
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