#compelling cast

The Garbage Ape

5.30.2013 That was the beginning of the Garbage Ape Saga. It's very simple: Heathcliff loves it when the Garbage Ape visits and Ole Gee Ayy drops off a can-a-the Good Shit. We know Heathcliff loves garbage and here is the primal form of the garbage man. Instead of taking it away to rot in a landfill, the garbage ape delivers it. Instead of operating in the daylight, he comes at night. He doesn't drive a truck, he carries it on hand and foot. He never has undue commentary for our cat unlike Trash Men. These opposing forces make the character of the GA a potent symbol to call upon in later comics but before we do that, let's take a brief detour on trash.

Heathcliff x Garbage:

It's one of his absolute favorite things in the world. It causes him to stray from his girl, he and his father bond over it during his escapes, he has a reputation about it. He wishes for it, he begs for even a slight change to bring it closer to him, he dreams about it so hard that other people can feel the psychic trash. He has traveled the globe seeing every scrap of info he can get on the ideas of garbage. It's not just food to him, there's a real philosophy and lifestyle Heathcliff follows in this pursuit. So how does tGA fit in to all this?

Material Garbage:

Consider what tGA physically does again. For a cat that is constantly on the lookout for more garbage and bargaining with mystical forces for it, there's someone out there who will bring you what you desire, at any time for any reason and under any circumstance. It has to feel like a prayer being answered directly by god. Something that is nearly universal in tGA appearances is that everyone is fucking hyped.

Maybe a little too hyped?

Hey guys, what's uh. What's all this then?

That's right. The impact of tGA is so powerful that the local cat colony has literally started a religion. Because tGA does something that very few others can: Materially Deliver on the Deepest Prayers of the congregants. We want trash and here now it comes, bounding down the road just for me. tGA can convert the immaterial wish into material fulfillment. That's a miracle, baby

"The Garbage Ape makes me nervous."

As such, tGA challenges authority in the human world of Heathcliff. I have spoken on this Guru comic already over here and how Heathcliff approaches society and food here so I won't go into too much detail but we are constantly seeing the order of society questioned and resisted by the lifestyles of those living among garbage. Cats have to struggle to gain access to the dump, they find answers to life's deepest questions out here. Take note of how Heathcliff positions himself on the trash mountain and offers more answers than the Human Guru on a Rock Mountain. The Garbage Ape stands at the intersection of these ideas. tGA created a system, a supply chain, to deliver trash to cats. To take from the human offal and give to the feline needy. To challenge the ideas of primitivity and animal intelligence and animal altruism. Why does the Garbage Ape make people nervous? It's because their beliefs about the world are being challenged in a way that threatens the order of society. The cats are worshipping an ape like a god and tGA is living up to the ideals of that god. Humans are supposed to be the smart ones, the intelligent world shapers who build followings and provide for our pets and create cities with trash infrastructure so we can live cleanly.

But there is another simian, what many consider a lesser form of the human, the Ape, which has done all this and more. tGA has military force, ideological bearing, populist support and infrastructure. When people try to recycle which would make it harder for the cats to scavenge, The Garbage Ape fights back. A direct counter force to the expansion of human order yet one that is not built on violence or coercion or imperialism. This is grassroots. This is the revering of the filth, the trash, the chaos. But it is also love. It is a constructive force.

The Garbage Ape is Love.