From Batman to the Holy Land, the draftsman sees heroes from all sides

OFRA, West Bank (Reuters) – An American cartoon illustrator who loved a wallet including the Batman and Wonder Woman covers has found a new calling in the Holy Land: attracting the good guys and the bad guys he sees every day.

Michael Netzer's life is loaded with dramas: born Mike Nbader of American-Lebanese druze parents, he discovered in the art a release of infant polio, worked for franchises such as Marvel and DC Comics, learned that he had Jewish roots and then settled in Israel. in a colony in the occupied West Bank.

Fluent in Arabic, English and Hebrew, Netzer, 63, paints custom portraits or reproductions of superheroes from a clientele that he says includes Palestinians – an unusual interaction for a settler. religious.

He also takes the road every few weeks, drawing free pbaders of all walks of life.

"I saw … it seems to me that nine million heroes and villains are in Israel. I see them all the time, "he told Reuters in his studio in Ofra.

"It's like people are the most interesting thing. And I look at the face and I see, you know, that God is looking at me. "

One of her subjects, Endy Jber, a 24-year-old Muslim conservative from the Israeli Arab village of Abu Ghosh, seemed to agree. After sitting for him on a pedestrian street in Jerusalem, she evaluated the result of the pencil sketch and said, "It's amazing. He expresses his soul through the image. "

Netzer says he's no stranger to sectarian strife, having lived in Lebanon after the 1970s. He recognizes tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, regressing again as US President Donald Trump intervenes in a long-standing peace-building initiative.

Trump himself has elements of an archetype of comics, suggests Netzer. "He is waging a war with China that could be considered a just war. So there is something about him that is very heroic for those who support him. On the other side, look how he became the antithesis of a hero, a good guy, it seems. "

Although he left his mark on the canon of comics – claiming to be a 1981 comic book, he's inspired from a famous scene from the movie Spider Man where the super -heros kisses his girlfriend backwards – Netzer does not seem to be missing the commercial form.

In the 1980s, he created a super-hero of the Israeli comic – "Uri Ohn" or "Virility Uri" – whose main characters tend to be made by villains rather than representations of the real enemies of Israel .

"I became sensitive to the use of propaganda, my art being used to advance an idea to which I can be attached or not," he said. "And that's probably one of the reasons that has caused me to slow down … I'm trying not to upset people."