The Vietnamese refugee experience comes to vivid, harrowing life in The Boat, an interactive online graphic novel based on Nam Le's short story about a 16-year-old refugee sent off alone by her parents after the fall of Saigon. As she moves from boat to camp, readers scroll through ink panels – Mai on a sun-starched deck; seagulls stalking the top of the ocean for fish – to sounds designed by Animal Kingdom's Sam Petty. Click an image and you may be treated to archival imagery as the story dives into a character's memory.

Illustrated by New York-based Sydney artist Matt Huynh​ – whose parents, like Le's, fled Vietnam after the war – The Boat forms part of SBS's commemoration of 40 years of Vietnamese resettlement in Australia. For Huynh, 29, adapting Le's Prime Minister's Literary Award-winning story was familiar territory: one of his previous comics, Ma, tells the story of his parents' time in Pulau Bidong refugee camp in Malaysia. But it was also a challenge.

"What I wanted to do was create an entry point into the conversation about refugees and asylum seekers today," Huynh says. "When I talk casually to friends and younger people about these issues, I notice a reticence to enter the debate. I feel they're afraid to enter into the issue because it feels overwhelming, that they need to be an expert to get into it. This is an entry point: 'Hey, did you see that comic? What is it about ... '"

That The Boat, which Huynh worked on for a year, arrives as a slick, multimedia package might be enough to engage young people used to swiping and clicking through stories, but the artist was keen for the central appeal to be the narrative – "not just the flash". "It was about making these characters strong enough for readers to empathise with ... these people who are completely vulnerable."

Bringing a human element to the art was also crucial. The images themselves have been created using an ancient technique: a bamboo calligraphy brush, paper and Sumi​ ink made with animal glue, incense and carbon from burnt wood. "I wanted to keep the materials honest and the communication direct," Huynh says. "You can always see the hand behind all of the coding on screen."

The human touch in comics is something that has appealed to Huynh since his days as a seven year old in Canley Vale, rifling through the bottom rack of the paper stand at his local grocery store for the latest Hulk comic. "Even with superhero comics, the way in for me was always the brush strokes – you could follow the line of the artist. It felt human."

The Boat, an interactive graphic novel, launches on Wednesday at sbs.com.au/theboat.