If you’re looking for paper dolls of David Bowie’s musical characters, I have good news for you. There are about a billion of them.
Bowie is known not simply for having an alter ego, but for having a parade of them throughout his 50-year career. From Ziggy Stardust to Aladdin Sane to the Thin White Duke to Pierrot, Bowie used characters to write three-dimensional music—to extend it from sound to sight, to allow him to move out of the imagination and into the real world, including onto the stage.
Despite being a cousin to Dorian Gray, Bowie is old enough now to trail four or five generations of fans in his wake. So, whether you’re a wee one, or are frozen in a protracted adolescence, you can now turn your doll universe into Mars or Berlin. The old-fashioned tech of paper dolls and the new-fangled tech of the Internet meet at your printer.
(What? You don’t have a printer? Borrow your mom’s printer.)
Described by Open Culture as his “most comprehensive career representation,” the Thin White Paper Doll Cutout collection was designed by Heather Collett for the CBC.
Vodka Caramel
Vodka Caramel’s ’70s Bowie dolls have a surfeit of heads but take the androgyny to an extreme.
CBC
Claudia Varosio’s Boys Keep Swinging shows Bowie as a crossdresser with a fixation on that moment between when your mom lights her first Parliament and pops Annie Hall in the VCR.
Mel Elliot’s Ziggy Paperboy Bowie paper doll booklet is the only one to offer earrings as well.
Of course, if your interests range more toward the characters of Quentin Tarantino or famous scientists, well, the Internet’s got you covered too. Also, you should get out, take a walk.
Photo via CBC