It’s definitely a trademark Heathcliff thing. It’s a way of showing night without having a sea of black. Especially important for a comic (the only comicstrip?) where a lot of the scenes are at night.
I didn’t interpret it as night time. To me it looks like it’s becoming night and the black will keep spreading to eventually cover the whole sky. If anybody wants to use that in an animation please do, I am releasing that idea to creative commons.
I don’t understand the point of these “Heathcliff without Heathcliff” comics. It just feels like a discount Garfield Minus Garfield.
Garfield Minus Garfield exposed the raw and damaged psyche of a lonely and depressed man (Jon Arbuckle), trying to cope with his existential existence. It was a brilliant exploration into the mind of a disturbed individual, and even earned high praise from Jim Davis, Garfield’s creator.
Heathcliff without Heathcliff is just… removing Heathcliff from comics, without regard to whether the strip still makes sense. I haven’t seen one of these that really promotes a new understanding or direction for the strip by removing Heathcliff. I just don’t think his comics work in this format.
If you are comparing it to Garfield minus Garfield then you’re not seeing what’s going on here. The presence of heathcliffe is, most of the time, irrelevant to the “joke”. Add to that the absurdism of the situations and it is also different from the often psychotic or existential experience of Garfield minus Garfield. This is about amplifying absurdism and removing the title character and seeing if it works at least as well as the unedited version.
I’ll give you credit for that. I was expecting Heathcliff without Heathcliff to expose some deeper quality to its comics by subtracting the titular character, but I see the objective here is actually pointing out the absurdity of the strip itself. That makes much more sense.
Tbh, most of Heathcliff with Heathcliff is just as absurd and actually really funny as they are. I have to thank you for making me realise just how good the strip is these days though. But I’d rather just read the original.
In the original there are three open mouths that could be doing the talking. I’ve reduced it to just one. I decided to give the line to the witch because the birds always talk.
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