Lesson 1
Pops Week
This was the Theme Week that really kicked off my descent into Heathcliff Mania. Let's learn why:
This engages with so many ideas just by using the symbols of Cats, Cops, Criminals, and all of the incidental Americana in Heathcliff to make me FEEL shit.
Consider the layers of Cat:
There's the layer of Heathcliff where the world has a legal system that persecutes cats.
There's the way we, as people, think of cats ("doing crimes" "getting into trouble" etc).
There's the way stray cats in real life are impounded.
With just this, we can start actually finding our own personal commentary in these panels. And that's from examining one element in different angles.
When the VERY FIRST panel in this series did not have a present Heathcliff or Pops, I was locked in. Think about what that says! We are being presented only with their criminal status, not who they are. But we already know Heathcliff. I didn't know Pops at the time so I am comparing the two inherently. I am automatically sympathetic to Pops because I know his son and he is being put in the same context as his son. I know Him through this. The dots are connecting, right?
We see Pops hanging out casually with Heathcliff and meeting his son's family and doing activities. And it is heartbreaking because Pops is having trouble adapting outside of prison! He is bringing his prison behaviors out into the free world but also, that's what his life has been. We are seeing his past hardships through the construction of the comic. It's also dignifying. We are seeing Pops exhibiting a lifestyle. He is allowed the space to perform his routine, he is given the attention without the judgement. He even gets to prefer some of the prison activities. He gets to be a cat and a person without the pressures of the criminal justice system until that final strip of the week brings back the cops.
I was TENSE about this all week! I was excited to see how it ended! AND IT DIDN'T! WE LEAVE THE STORY IN MEDIA RES. I know how this saga ends for me. Think about how it ends for you. This interpretation is not "What Gallagher was trying to say" with this comic. This is one of like 30 interpretations I have for the various symbols being employed here. This is what Symbols ARE in story telling. This is how we employ tropes and metaphors and themes. It is how we get interpretations of a story without having the writer directly tell them. You don't have to Intentionally Plan something because if you use enough Big Symbols, the ideas just fall out naturally. This is how we will study and learn from Heathcliff by Peter Gallagher.
PS: In the process of researching Heathcliff, I came across this early Gallagher specimen.
Every time there's a comic with pops, every single time it is crazy how much the presence of a carceral justice system affects the reading.It absolutely is beautiful that Heathcliff and his father are able to maintain and perform their role as father and son and sustain that specific relationship. It is also so painfully tragic because we also see the system that is preventing them from just hanging out together normally.
It's crazy that the cop gets to say it! Are you kidding me! You specifically have the ability to stop enforcing the system that even creates this the situation in the first place! Like obviously you can't bring it down yourself but, my god, you aren't doing anything to improve the situation by enforcing it.
I mean, very seriously, we do not even see his father on the panel. The only reason we get to experience any of this is because he's telling us it is a father-son moment. We aren't even getting to see his father!
This is the same "justice" system that keeps saying things like "The Apple doesn't fall far from the tree" and "Like father like son" and "Here comes trouble" yet still has the nerve to call the father-son relationship beautiful. It's just so juicy, there's so much to nibble on
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