Visualizations

The archive's data is built to be queried visually. Two interactive views surface different dimensions of the same material: the map shows where badman heroism happens in Detroit, and the network shows how figures connect to one another and to the broader cultural ecosystem.

Map

An interactive geographic map of Detroit showing the locations associated with each figure — birthplaces, sites of action, territorial domains, and recurrent landmarks. Filter by modality and click any marker to open the figure's detail panel.

Open the map →

Network

A force-directed graph of the relationships between figures. Nodes scale with influence at the selected year; edges show creator–creation, person-to-character, organizational, and continuity connections, distinguished by line style and color.

Open the network →

When to use which

The map is the right entry point when you want to understand Detroit as a setting — how badman figures cluster in the Linwood corridor, how revolutionary politics map onto specific neighborhoods, or how fictional and historical figures occupy the same geography.

The network is the right entry point when you want to understand Detroit as a cultural ecosystem — how an author connects to a character connects to an organization connects to a successor figure. The timeline filter at the bottom of the network lets you move through decades and watch the field of relationships grow.

Both visualizations draw from the same underlying archive data, so any figure you encounter in one view can be explored in full on its dedicated entry page.