Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
“I wanted to smash all the existing myths evolving Israeliness. As opposed to the muscular and well-built heroes, I drew a chubby hero with a big potbelly. My hero has red hair, freckles, and big blue eyes. He has a big smile that reveals his white teeth. Such a person is not intimidating; on the contrary, he invokes the desire to hug or pinch him in the cheek like any good Jewish grandmother might do. I did not want his expression to even vaguely resemble that of the stubborn soldier.” --Dorit Maya Gur
Interview with Dorit Maya Gur
Dorit Maya Gur, a young Israeli comic book artist and illustrator living in Tel Aviv, is the creator of Falafel Man, a superhero who is fat and shoots falafel balls with hot oil at his enemies. Dorit chose falafel because “a boiling falafel ball can at the most burn the skin, nothing more. Plus, falafel stands abound in Israel, and it is most certainly my favorite food.” Falafel Man can’t fly, and he would never kill anyone. Actually his obesity restricts his movements. He succeeds in combatting evil and doing good by having a kind heart, a commitment to helping others, and an agile mind which he uses as Odysseus, the mortal, did to strategize and trick in order to bring justice to the world. Dorit tried to create an Israeli hero who is not the soldier image so familiar in the international press: young, buff, gun-toting. Her Falafel Man has a pot belly, red hair, freckles and a big grin. For Dorit , Israel in the 21st century should be more well-known for its “new technological inventions, Nobel prizes, award winning literature, music, film, and the contributions to medicine and science.”
Falafel Man does not have the superpowers Americans associate with such superheroes as Spiderman, Superman, or the Hulk. In Jewish culture only God possesses divine attributes. Humans may not possess them. Her hero reflects Israeli cultural values such as “pioneership, initiative, vision, and decisive intelligence employed for the protection of Israel.”
If you want to learn more about Dorit Maya Gur and her comic book creations, watch the video of my interview with her and of course, read her comics.
Interview with Dorit Maya Gur