20 Years of Graphic Novels About Belonging

Shaun Tan is a bestselling and Academy Award-winning author-artist of The Arrival, among many others. His newest graphic novel is Hometown, out tomorrow from Levine Querido Books. Below, he discusses 20 years of his career creating art about belonging. Twenty years have passed between creating The Arrival and Hometown, and, as in real life, some things are different, and some are the same. Since 2006, I’ve gotten married, become a parent, moved house several times, worked on various unusual art projects, all with the usual ups and downs, joys, anxieties, and challenges. Where The Arrival is about a character venturing forth into an unknown world to begin a new life, Hometown is about someone very much at peace already: a teenage girl with a loving family, a comfortable home, and a secure sense of meaning. Where The Arrival presents a search for humanist sanctuary, Hometown presents a humanist sanctuary taken for granted. Well, not really, because there are no humans in this sanctuary. Except for the girl, of course, blissfully unaware of her genetic identity and unbothered by its implications, at least until another human arrives one day to turn her world upside down. You don’t bel...