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Articles

The Heideggerian Disruptions of Zippy The Pinhead

Ellen Grabiner ponders the bearable lightness of being a Pinhead.

In the recently-surfaced spate of anthologies, books, and magazine articles which have spotlighted the phenomenon of the superhero, there has been one egregious omission. There is nary a mention of Z-Man, alter ego of Zippy the Pinhead, creation of Bill Griffith, who has pledged to “appear comprehensible to only a select group of sophisticated, enlightened individuals.” To rectify this perhaps understandable omission, I would like to put Zippy front and center. Paying homage to the Z-man’s super ability, I risk offering a super juxtaposition of my own: Martin Heidegger and Zippy the Pinhead. These thinkers both question our habitual approaches to everyday life and suggest we abandon gestellen – the ways in which we tend to ‘enframe’, and consequently diminish, our experience.

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