Falling Men

The Falling Men series is based on copyright-free comic book figures from Western comics published in the United States and Canada in the 1940s and 50s.

Cutting these figures from their comic book stories—stories always of the lawless Western frontier—they are in free fall: falling through time and space, and falling through the history that brought them here. Just as they are physically falling, flailing, they are morally falling. Originally created in a time when the cowboy was the uncomplicated hero of white settler stories, I see them as relics of the myths settlers told and tell themselves to rewrite their history. Free of context, free of the mythology that holds them up, though, they are just white men, falling. 

Each figure has been lifted from its comic book story, scanned, line-work redone, colours corrected, wear and tear unworn and untorn, their partial bodies often made whole by stitching them together with scraps. Where known, the original artists (pencillers, inkers and colourists) have been noted. 

Limited edition prints from this series, printed on birch plywood or clear acrylic with UV flexo ink and then laser cut, are available for purchase Here. If you are interested in another figure that you see here, Contact Me.

For the website, the images you see below are low resolution; the original digital files are of a much higher resolution and bigger.

Here is a video showing the process I used to make Falling Men, including some cool footage of a laser cutter!