Lesson 4
Why is Heathcliff sculpting a porta-john?
Consider Iggy: "Can I have my tools back?" or phrased another way "Are you done yet?" as he impatiently waits his turn.
What other situation does this call to mind? Of course: the man standing outside a single stall bathroom waiting impatiently. This is an excellent example of adapting a joke or concept or whatever into a different medium.
We also have the cat vector. Why is Heathcliff sculpting a porta-john? Because cats go into boxes of sand to... "exorcise their demons," so to speak. Cats also tend to paw the litter around before going "boom boom," as parents call it. They sculpt the place where they leave their offerings.
Heathcliff is connecting humans to cats in the way that both of us walk into plastic bins to pee on pellets. by the way real life porta potties tend to have some sort of absorbent beads somewhere in the hole. sometimes anyway.
This of course gives us the other angle on Iggy, his place in the more literal narrative of the comic, requesting the return of his toys BEFORE Heathcliff uses them to scoopa poopum.
I'd also like to point out how the artist Gallagher took the time to draw the indented panels on the side of the Porta John which signals to us that Heathcliff also took the time to represent the indented panels on his sculpture facsimile. he is putting care and attention into his sculpture work which also signals to us that he's been working on this for a while which is why Iggy is impatiently asking. Like oh my God dude are you done yet. It's a small little bit but it adds that extra touch of salt to the seasoning mix
And oh of course we can't mention the choice of a colorless landscape so the first thing the viewer latches onto is the high reaching phallic shape of the porta-john. It even has a glans. It stands as an obelisk to the phallus.
We are in the Americana lens with Heathcliff. That means that very often Dick = Dude, unfortunately. But that means we can view this comic and note the absolute lack of women. There are two men and the cock obelisk. Iggy is constructing a TRADITIONAL castle. The symbol of land holding and kingdoms and imperial control. He builds the trappings of a history steeped in violence and patriarchy as his casual funtime play exploration. He does not know the blood seeped into the sand he sculpts. Meanwhile Heathcliff expands upon that patriarchal exploration with a giant cock. It is a porta-JOHN. John, the term used to euphemize penis. Also the name of a Man. Heathcliff literally erected a penis and it casts a shadow over the history of the castle beneath it. Patriarchy.
And Heathcliff is about to open it up and take a big shit in it.
It brings a tear to my eye.
Also i like that the waves in da warter are the same shapes as da birdies in da sky but inverted :3
This illustrates a long-running heathcliff behavior. He hates authority. He hates cops. I mean, his dad is in prison and they are always working to bust him out.
For Heathcliff, the structures of society are simply a scaffolding upon which he works to make his art. We've seen him elevate trash to the status of Art Object in defiance of societal expectation. He destroys and defaces signage that directs the reader to obey. He institutes his own organizations that operate under the same structures as society to demontrate how odd they are. He's a fucking person and the world treats him like a mindless animal and he utilizes that core premise to express himself.
"lol cats poop in sand boxes" okay wise guy. So do people, look. And i can make the same abstract conceptual connections you all can.
The examination of patriarchy, his rendering of the structures of society into no more than a place to defecate...
And this was an edition of semiotics that a fan re-evaluated and caused me to flip my assessment of! Here is the analysis from large-picard:
sometimes i try to guess what the semiotics are going to be before i read them and this is the first time i've had a really different guess so, hopefully that's okay and this addition make sense?
the choice to make the sand grey also stands out to me. not only does it more closely resemble kitty litter, it gives it a similar appearance to concrete. in the colorless sky, it brings to mind for me the industrial americana of the beaches of new york and the east coast. porta johns are commonly seen at beaches, but they're also a symbol of construction sites.
iggy sees this sand and sees a building material, and makes a fantastical idealistic building. iggy, like the average american, will likely never set foot inside a real castle. heathcliff, in the same way, does not use human toilets. heathcliff sees a building material, but he also sees a toilet. he erects this porta john, comically, as his fantasy, his idealist construction, contradicting the way we humans view them as filthy and undesirable even in the context of public toilets. heathcliff's public toilet is pristine, it shines -- and it has no handle, no lock, no occupied/available sign.
this isn't merely art style, gallagher's past porta johns include handles. this is a choice.
"and heathcliff is about to open it up and take a big shit in it" is he? iggy's question implies that heathcliff is unfinished, is the handle and lock what he is saving for last? is it about to be made? i don't think it is. he's taken the time to smooth down and compact the sand, making it shine, why would he not construct the handle before doing that? if heathcliff plans to use it as it is, handle-less, he will have to break in the door or destroy it entirely; again calling to mind the way cats move around litter while using a litter box, their destructive nature, and heathcliff's disrespect of human societal expectations and rules. he will dream of a porta john, but refuses to obey human cultural norms and use one in an acceptable way. or maybe he feels shame over his desire, and won't allow himself to indulge in the fantasy enough to use it as expected, but i think that's more out of character.
i think, in the same way iggy's castle stands as a permanently inaccessible dream, heathcliff's porta john is a statue glorifying his desires, out of reach because he is a cat. it's possible that it's entirely solid, filled with sand on the inside. this is heathcliff's castle, and nobody can use it, not even him. it will be washed away by the waves or destroyed by its creator before it ever sees practical, functional use; in the same way heathcliff has made garbage into art, this porta john can ONLY be art, and nothing else, as it has no practical function. getting to this interpretation, it calls to mind another iconic artwork:
"fountain", a readymade from 1917, (presumably) created by marcel duchamp (although some recent speculation attributes it to elsa von freytag-loringhoven). it's a famous dadaist sculpture, a rebellion against how and what we view as art. like heathcliff's, this toilet is forever unusable; it has no plumbing and it is rotated so the drain is not functional. "r. mutt" here is in reference to both the urinal's manufacturer, mott works, and the american newspaper comic strip mutt and jeff (although mutt and jeff ran until 1983, and heathcliff began in 1973, and i'm certain both appeared on the same newspapers during that period, i don't think there is any stronger connection here). it is also, of course, the name of an animal, who cannot use urinals and only view them as art; when we view "fountain", we are put in that perspective, analogous to a filthy animal, a mutt. iggy, too, must see heathcliff's porta john as heathcliff sees it; it is not a toilet, it is not for iggy, in the way he must naturally expect every porta john to be. the r in r. mutt is for richard, referencing wealth, but it's cut off, unfinished, inaccessible -- we wouldn't know it was richard, if he had not told us. in duchamp's own words, "the opposite of poverty. but not even that much, just r. mutt." it's class status that prevents iggy from having a real castle; which makes comical the idea of a urinal being an object of wealth. filth is for animals, and wealth and opulence is for only the luckiest humans. heathcliff is symbolically showing iggy here how similar they are, and how opressed they are, through his art. he is defying all societal rules and expectations, questioning the ideas of what art can be, to force iggy to understand his perspective.
"he's a fucking person and the world treats him like a mindless animal" i see it a little differently -- heathcliff isn't showing us that he is a person. he will not use this toilet. he is showing us (and iggy) that we, too, are animals. we shit in boxes, we are filthy, but unlike heathcliff we are not brave enough to question it. we make sand castles and we indulge in fantasy and we accept silently that it's impossible, but also that it's the right thing to desire. why a castle? why not a toilet?
iggy submits to the systems that tell him a castle is the ideal he should want, that kingdoms and imperial control and towering architecture are the most virtuous symbols of humanity. heathcliff's art towers over that, overpowers it, and forces us to rethink as readers. iggy can't see the full picture that we do. he is so convinced, so willing to accept anything, that he does not consider heathcliff's sculpture and only asks for his possessions back -- only waits, unthinking, for heathcliff's art to be finished and destroyed, so he no longer has to see it or be challenged by it. he is, in some ways, an analogue to the average heathcliff reader, who sees it and absorbs the surface level interpretation before going along with his day. he is not challenged by symbolism or absurdism in art because he refuses to be.
And my response to large-picard:
What you are saying about Heathcliff bringing people down to the level of the animal, you're exactly right. All of the times that I've talked about the way Heathcliff handles garbage and what is considered good and bad and high class and dive bar level food. Heathcliff shows us the world rendered down to his level. This trash is what you are eating.
Even from a physical standpoint, all of heathcliff's artwork, (or at least a lot of it if you go look at the size of canvas he uses and the size of the statues he carves) even a human beholding it has to look up. I see I'm going to have to intensify my analysis if I'm going to keep up with my loyal followers