Hackpacker

Between words and images, illustrator/writer Shaun Tan has found a place for himself and scored some serious awards. George Dunford traces his rise. It’s crowded and hot in a small chamber of Newcastle Town Hall for Shaun Tan’s illustration workshop at the National Young Writer’s Festival. The audience spills out the door listening to his thin dry voice: a napping pair of emo kids leaning on each other twitch with dreams fuelled by the writer/illustrator sketch of a Donnie Darko-esque bunny. The two-hour workshop has run an hour over but Tan keeps scratching at the sweet-yet-menacing rabbit on the flipchart. Every eye is still on him and every ear is listening and every face smiling – even as they doze. This crowd has grown up with Tan from studying The Rabbits (his colonisation collaboration with John Marsden) to his recent wordless graphic novel, The Arrival. “That’s the disturbing thing,” Tan chuckles as the small crowd disperses in search of water, “when people come up to me an