#oh my god did gallagher just discover the term dank this is so exciting #does he know it's a weed thing?? there's no way right
Of course Peter Gallagher knows that "dank" is a weed thing. He also knows that "in heat" is a sex thing and that when aliens "probe" someone it's in the anus.
These are words, not things. Heathcliff is a comic about symbols.
You're never going to get a comic where an alien actually probes someone any more than you're going to get a comic where the Man-Eating Giant eats a man. You're just going to get a dozen comics where aliens like the word "probe".
Heathcliff wears the ham helmet because it's the helmet you wear when you eat a ham. You can tell it's that helmet because it says "ham" on it. The helmet's function is determined not by its form but by its label.
summer = beach = sand = desert = mummy and thus there is the Summer Mummy. Because of symbolic associations that do not otherwise cohere.
Robots don't wear clothes but the mere act of labeling them "nude" makes them nude. And once a painting is a nude painting there has to be a fig leaf because a "nude" without a "figleaf" is "indecent".
A "ham" is a ham even when it's a car. A yam can be a ham can be a car because "yam" sounds like "ham". Symbols have overtaken things.
Jimmy is Heathcliff's attempt to manipulate these symbols.
popularity = billboards, popularity = charity fundraising, popularity = influencers. But standing underneath the word "influencer" has failed to make Jimmy popular. Why is this?
