Here is an article I wrote last year for a local magazine.
What if it doesn’t have any words?
The wordless picture book
by Christopher Malapitan
THE wordless picture book format fundamentally rises above the boundaries of language and literacy. In the words of US Woodcut Historian, David Berona, it represents “not only our different cultures but also our shared humanity”. Without words we’re forced to look closely, concentrate and interpret the image.
In 2009, as part of their research into human trafficking for sexual exploitation, sociologists Yiouli Taki and David Officer contacted me and proposed a comic book that would tell the story of a trafficked woman. It was an innovative idea but faced a significant problem; there are three spoken languages in Cyprus – Greek, English and Turkish. Our budget was unable to cover a trilingual print run. Half-jokingly I suggested, “what if it doesn’t have any words?” Problem solved. My challenge as a visual artist was then to tell a story without words.
Like many other arts fields, such as music, pantomime, ballet and silent film, the wordless picture book has a close relationship with its audience. The absence of words forces a reader to focus on the images. Through pictures, the artist applies the use of icons, stereotypes, symbolism and metaphors to create a language entirely bereft of words. Believe it or not, this form of storytelling has been around as far back as the first cave paintings in 35,000BC.
Fig.1 – The tomb of Menna in Luxor, Egypt
The earliest use of the format is believed to be the work of an ancient Egyptian scribe 3,200 years ago on the tomb of Menna in Luxor. The imagery depicts farmers harvesting wheat to pay their taxes (Fig.1). Fast forward to Mexico in 1049AD you’ll find an 11-metre, accordion-folded deerskin filled with images depicting the story of great military and political hero, Lord Eight-Deer ‘Jaguar Claw’. Across the Atlantic in 1066AD, the French produced the grandiose Bayeux tapestry, a 70-metre masterpiece portraying the events of England’s conquest by the Normans.
Arguably the largest and best known wordless story was painted by created by Michelangelo in 1511 and can be found on the Sistine Chapel. In the same period in Europe, various religious and political stories were produced from woodcuts (an image carved into a block of wood, from which a print can be made). The woodcut is the earliest and simplest of the printmaking techniques. It has been in use for centuries as an artistic and commercial medium for spreading ideas to a wide audience.
At the turn of the 20th century in Europe, wordless picture books were pushed into prominence due in part to the Belgian artist Frans Masereel. Like many artists engaged in political and moral issues, Masereel’s woodcut novels depict the human condition and social upheaval of the time. Masereel produced over 50 wordless books in his lifetime but his most popular book is the 1919 Passionate Journey. It is the simple story of one man’s life, love and adventures. With the use of bold, black and white imagery Masereel captured a wide range of emotion and social comment which readers of today are still able to relate to. A novel told in 165 woodcuts, it is considered to be the first graphic novel of its kind and is still in print today.
A book I always return to for inspiration is Shaun Tan’s silent tale The Arrival (Fig.2).
Fig.2 – The Arrival, Sahun Tan, 2006
It’s the story of a man who leaves his family to find work in a foreign land. The ingenuity of this migration story lies in the method with which the artist engages the reader — giving them the immediate “point-of-view”. The reader joins the protagonist as he tries to make sense of the surrealist world Tan has created. Tan’s beautifully penciled artwork and talent for facial expressions, body language and sense of rhythm creates a pictorial language that communicates various themes such as food, work, communication, loneliness, companionship and happiness. It was this silent masterpiece that influenced me while creating the wordless book I illustrated and co-authored with Yiouli Taki and David Officer The Tunnel (Fig.3).
The unique strength of the wordless picture book is its ability to slip across international boundaries, regardless of language, age and even reading ability. The absence of words liberates creative inhibitions and allows for a plethora of opportunities. The format lets pictures “talk” to an audience and perhaps creates a closer relationship between artist and reader. US psychologist, James J. Gibson, says the pictorial language “gives us a kind of grasp on the rich complexities of the natural environment that words could never do”.
Fig.3 – The Tunnel, Taki, Officer, Malapitan, 2010
Thanks to video and wireless technology, we’ve become cultured into becoming more visually thirsty and have acquired the capacity to translate a pictorial language where wordless picture books are to be discovered, not explained.
Christopher Malapitan lives and works in Cyprus. The Tunnel features his first illustrations in a wordless graphic novel. The book was published in 2010 by “INDEX: Research & Dialogue” a non-partisan, non-profit NGO based in Cyprus which conducts quality research and promotes public dialogue.
For more information you can visit https://heruntoldstory.wordpress.com
or e-mail Christopher Malapitan at cmalapitan@yahoo.com
The Tunnel is available for free from
ANT COMICS book store in Nicosia,
tel. 22-660384.
10 recommended wordless books
• Frans Masereel. Passionate Journey, 1919
• Lynard Ward. God’s Man, 1929
• Milt Gross. He Done Her Wrong, 1930
• Hendrik Dorgathen. Space Dog, 1993
• Eric Drooker. Ballad Song, 2002
• Thomas Ott. Dead End, 2002
• Peter Kuper. Sticks and Stones, 2004
• Andy Runton. Owly, (3 volumes) 2004-6
• Shaun Tan. The Arrival, 2006
• Jason. Sshhhh!, 2008
By Zoe Christodoulides Published in 
European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) of failing on multiple accounts to protect 20-year-old Russian dancer Oxana Rantseva, who fell to her death in March 2001 while trying to escape from a fifth-floor Limassol flat owned by a cabaret-owner’s employee. “The failures of the police authorities were multiple,” said the ECHR ruling, published yesterday. The ECHR said the circumstances under which Rantseva had fled the cabaret in which she worked, and had gone to the police in the first place, had been such as to give rise to a credible suspicion that she might have been trafficked. “In the Court’s opinion, there were sufficient indicators available to the police authorities, against the general backdrop of trafficking issues in Cyprus, for them to have been aware of circumstances giving rise to a credible suspicion that Ms Rantseva was, or was at real and immediate risk of being, a victim of trafficking or exploitation,” it added. “However, in the present case, it appears that the police did not even question Ms Rantseva when she arrived at the police station. No statement was taken from her. The police made no further inquiries into the background facts. They simply checked whether Ms Rantseva’s name was on a list of persons wanted by the police and, on finding that it was not, called her employer and asked him to return and collect her.” Hours later she was dead. Rantseva arrived in Cyprus on March 5, 2001 on a temporary visa, having been tricked by a “recruiter” into coming to work in Cyprus as a translator. She found herself employed at Zigos Cabaret in Limassol. A week later she fled the flat she shared with other young women working at the cabaret, leaving behind a note that read: “I’m tired. I’m leaving for Russia.” The cabaret-owner, who was well-known locally, informed the Immigration Office in Limassol that Rantseva had abandoned her place of work and residence. On March 28 – nine days later – she was spotted in the early hours at a local disco by another cabaret artiste, who tipped off Rantseva’s employer. The cabaret-owner, accompanied by a security guard from the cabaret, picked up the young woman and took her to the police. Officers then contacted the duty passport officer at his home and asked him to look into whether Rantseva was in Cyprus illegally. After investigating, he told them that her name was not in the database of wanted persons, but also that there was no record of the cabaret-owner’s complaint and that, in any case, a person did not become illegal until 15 days after a complaint was made. The passport officer contacted Aliens and Immigration, who gave instructions that Rantseva was not to be detained and that her employer, who was responsible for her, was to pick her up and take her to their Limassol Office for further investigation at 7.00am that day. The police officers contacted the cabaret-owner to ask him to collect Rantseva, saying that their instructions were that if he did not take her they were to allow her to leave. The station duty officer released her into the custody of her employer, who was told to come back with her the next day to clear the issue up with immigration. She was taken to a fifth-floor apartment belonging to another of the cabaret-owner’s employees at around 6.00am and locked in. At 6.30am Rantseva was found dead on the street below the apartment. It is thought she slipped and fell while trying to escape from a window. A first-floor neighbour told police that he was smoking on his balcony. “I saw something resembling a shadow fall from above and pass directly in front of me. Immediately afterwards I heard a noise like something was breaking … I told my wife to call the police … I had heard nothing before the fall and immediately afterwards I did not hear any voices. She did not scream during the fall. She just fell as if she were unconscious.” After undergoing an autopsy in Cyprus, Rantseva’s body was transferred to Russia in April 2001, and a second autopsy was carried out, resulting in alleged inconsistencies in the forensic evidence. The ECHR ruling said there were “a number of elements of the Cyprus investigation which were unsatisfactory”. Investigators appeared not to have taken steps to resolve the “conflicting testimony from those present in the apartment” from which Rantseva fell, or other “anomalies” such as the alleged inconsistencies in forensic evidence, or the fact Rantseva made no noise as she fell from the balcony. Also, “despite the lack of clarity surrounding the circumstances of her death, no effort was made by the Cypriot police to question those who lived with Rantseva or worked with her in the cabaret. Further no attempt was made to establish why she was trying to escape or to clarify whether she had been detained in the apartment against her will.” “The authorities were under an obligation to investigate whether there was any indication of corruption within the police force in respect of the events leading to Ms Rantseva’s death,” the Court said in reference to past allegations of corruption in the Cyprus police force. It also said regarding the alleged inconsistencies in the forensic evidence, the Cypriot forensic examiner who had carried out the autopsy had responded that his own conclusions were sufficient and that no supplementary information was required. The ECHR ruling followed a complaint lodged by Rantseva’s father, Nikolai Mikhailovich Rantsev, on 26 May 2004. Cyprus must now pay Rantsev €40,000 in damages and €3,150 for costs and expenses, plus any tax he may have to pay on these amounts. Russia – which was the subject of the complaint jointly with Cyprus – was also found guilty of not carrying out its procedural obligations to investigate the allegation that Rantseva was the victim of sexual trafficking, and was ordered to pay €2,000 in damages.
use to confine their victims:
According to 
the tunnel 