As it does to many, the West called out to Hunt with a strength that’s hard to explain . As a boy, Hunt developed a relentless curiosity for the West during long, hot summers riding shotgun through cowboy country in his father’s semi-truck. When the opportunity finally came to leave his city life behind and move to rural Idaho, nine-year-old Hunt only had one question: Will there be mountains?

With a yearning for self-discovery and a higher purpose, Hunt held a vivid image in his mind of the West as a crucible, a furnace to enter and discover which form he might take. It doesn't make any sense, but in my kid brain, it felt like I had to go West to find out what I could be, Hunt recalls.

The West turned out to be all he had hoped for—My mind was just blown. I remember in that very first month, I went into the mountains, and for the first time, I saw bald eagles in person. At that moment, with a nine-year-old's framework, with however much depth can be there, I thought— this is it. This is where everything begins.

Decades after his move to cowboy country, Hunt had built a successful career as a professional writer and graphic artist. Though he had swapped wide plains for concrete-clad city life, the West held onto Hunt. He felt an instant kinship with anyone who shared his background, people who knew the bleary-eyed exhaustion of a 4 a.m. animal feed, or who knew the rough feel of sandpaper against fresh shiplap.

As time went on, Hunt felt he had lost his way. As he sought escape in a world of his own making, one comic illustration at a time, Hunt observed a problem out in the real world—a growing divisiveness and disconnection. Society seemed fractured, complaining a lot about life without taking much action to change it.

People didn't quite say that they knew something was wrong, but they’d complain a lot, Hunt says. People complain all the time, and that's just not something you do if you grow up the way that I grew up. You don't complain. You don't see that the sky's falling, then go about your day. You say, how do I keep the sky from falling? So, I asked myself, what could I do to fight this drift?

Through Code of the West, the cowboy helps America remember a time when actions had real consequences. I felt we didn’t have a shared identity, or a shared moral framework, Hunt explains. That was the whole idea behind the code. It exists in a place and time when there wasn't structured law. If you didn’t watch your mouth, you might get punched in the face at the bar. You needed a colloquial code of conduct to keep the peace and avoid getting into it with your neighbor. This seemed eerily appropriate in the modern era.

Hunt’s cowboys live and die by their code: they respect the land, protect the innocent, and live with unbridled courage. The cowboy’s grit and humility exist in sharp contrast to modern superficiality. They never cease to be driven by purpose, honoring their collective responsibilities without expecting gratitude. Hunt sees the cowboy’s innate sense of self-direction as enviable, and a timeless inspiration to all.

There’s something ancient about wanting to feel secure in yourself and knowing that if something unpredictable happens, you'll be able to weather the storm, Hunt says. The cowboy is one of the only approachable and achievable real-life archetypes that embodies that. He innately has that self-sufficient capability most people want.

It’s no surprise that Hunt uses comic art to depict the virtues of the cowboy, given that he sees the cowboy as an American hero. To me, the most universal, romanticized image of a cowboy is the first superhero. He’s a myth, Hunt shares. Unlike Superman though, the cowboy is a myth that says to us—if you want to try, you can come out West, and you can make the effort to find out who you are. But it's not a guarantee—it requires humility, effort, perseverance, and self-reliance to achieve.

into a written manual. 200 pages later, it occurred to him that others might benefit from reading it, and so he turned it into a print book titled Code of the West Manual: A Frontier Guide to Modern Living.