The Chinese artist Xu Bing (*1955) whose practice revolves around language, words and text is renowned for his Book from the Sky, a collection of 4000 invented seemingly Chinese characters printed in classical Chinese woodcuts. In 2012 he published the BOOK FROM THE GROUND, a story told only with icons, symbols and pictograms that he collected for about 10 years. The graphic novel renounces any use of text and is therefore universally comprehensible, assuming the audience has a similar visual literacy.
