Welcome to On Verticality. This blog explores the innate human need to escape the surface of the earth, and our struggles to do so throughout history. If you’re new here, a good place to start is the Theory of Verticality section or the Introduction to Verticality. If you want to receive updates on what’s new with the blog, you can use the Subscribe page to sign up. Thanks for visiting!
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Leonardo da Vinci : 500 Years Too Soon
I see now that man needs something more than strength to propel himself through the air.
Nothing can stop a flying man!
In many ways, comic books function as folk tales for modern society. They tell stories of the eternal conflict of good and evil, with super-human characters who can do things common people can’t. Of these abilities, the most common is flight. The ability to fly is something every person understands, and it gives any character an immediate and excessive advantage over anyone who can’t. Pictured above is a page from a Spider-Man comic from 1973, showing the villain testing out his newly-acquired flying power.
Parachutes : A Fantastic Dream of the Ancients Come True
Pictured above is a page from a War Heroes comic book from 1943. It features a few examples of parachutes and a flying suit called the Batwing Glider. At the center of the page is a modern parachute, complete with its canopy, vent, shroud lines, risers and harness. Flanking this drawing are two historical examples of parachutes. The first is a sketch from Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks circa 1495, and the second is the world’s first successful parachute descent by André-Jacques Garnerin in 1797. This triad presents a concise, albeit incomplete history of parachute design, but it does do a good job of visually connecting a modern parachute to its ancestors.
The Flying Machine by Ray Bradbury
With great power comes great responsibility. This is the major theme of Ray Bradbury’s short story from 1953, titled The Flying Machine. It was adapted into a comic in 1954 by Al Feldstein, and the full piece is pictured here. It tells the story of a meeting between an emperor and an inventor who has built a flying machine. The inventor is an optimist who experiences the full delights of flying, while the emperor is a pessimist who fears the technology will fall into the wrong hands. It’s a theme that runs much deeper than human flight, but Bradbury’s choice to feature the flying machine demonstrates the power of flight for humanity.
The Black Condor : The Man Who Can Fly Like A Bird
The first failure only sharpens his desire to fly, and during the following years, he puts his keen mind to the task of studying the movements of wings, the body motions, air currents, balance and levitation.