In the previous text pages, I gave a lot of attention to Fischerspooner, who inspired me deeply, and even though at many points I felt genuine frustration of the brilliancy of their act (or more accurately, of the banality of my life compared to it), the greatest gift they gave me was to feel a great need of finding that inner flame of ambition that they so clearly have, and give birth to my own private creation.

I am not a performer and will probably never be one, despite the fact that performers have also fascinated me and I envy them terribly. I lack the extroversion needed to display yourself so openly in front of the whole world, even through the performers mask. I'm afraid I'm rather timid when it comes to being on stage, even as a solo singer, which I had the opportunity to be while I was in a choir.

So my creation would have to come from a field I feel confident in, without having to expose too much of myself. From the field of graphic design and illustration. That's how KC was born.

The idea behind KC is to reveal my inner feelings and sensations through his character, in a format, not entirely clear yet, of something between comics and two dimensional art that will include photography and maybe typography or manual non computerized illustrations. I don't know yet. We'll see.

The idea of using comics was a new one for me, since I was never a comics reader or fan, and I am familiar with the comics format just by browsing through them. I have comics at home, but I only bought it because it was so beautiful looking, and have never actually bothered reading it. But I could tell the character's story through comics. That would be the only 2D format to do something like that.
The problem is, I don't have a story yet. And I don't know if I could manufacture one that would be good enough. So right now I just have those images in my head of KC hanging around town feeling miserable, without a good narrative that would tell he's story. I mean, I know who KC is, and what's his background and how he feels and all, but I have no idea what will happen to him, or what adventures he'll be a part of.
So for the time being, I think I will just start by trying to convey an atmosphere, or catch KC in a situation, sort of to capture a second in his life. It would be an atmospheric comics for the time being, one that relays more on feeling and connotation than on a written narrative. Kind of like art.

I felt right about deciding this, about my baby KC being conceived (whose name, by the way, was a homage to his spiritual father, the lovely and hypnotizing Mr. Casey Spooner), but while this idea was slowly developing in me, other things, in the world outside of me, were giving me small hints that this is the right thing to do. In other words, I came across some other, more common, inspirations.

Spider-Man

So it's a movie, and not even a very brilliant one, a very big studio movie, and not very original. But it is, undoubtedly, very exciting.

Why?
I don't know why exactly, I guess the director did his job right, and you could really believe that Peter Parker, that geeky boy, is discovering in himself weird physical changes, that would force him to change himself entirely. And not only is the transformation itself believable, but the character is highly likable and convincing. Played by Tobey Maguire, you can't help but liking that blessed and cursed boy, who without much of a choice, becomes spider-man. The scenes in which he discovers his new powers are very amusing and even touching, and strong enough to hold the movie when later on it walks in the more predictable path of other movies from the same genre. When I walked out of the movie theater I was so excited & thrilled, I wished he could be real, I wished I could just see him crawling away on some wall, waving goodby. The possibility of such a creature being alive & real was so tempting, I really wanted to believe in it, and I was really happy to be living in this place where it all takes place.

Most of all however, more than with the movie itself, I was impressed with the ability to make this whole concept so believable and with the tremendous innovation and energy that was put to this movie. I mean, you can probably see it in every movie, but because it was a comics movie, supposedly silly and infantile, its seemed more impressive that a group of grown men and women would put so much effort into bringing that silly comics character to life and with such vividness and verve. It made me want to be a part of this creation, not in that particular creation, but in the bringing to life of a character, a fantastic, fictional character, that is a reflection of my imagination.

The amazing adventures of Kavalier & Clay

I bought this book by chance, replacing it with another book I got as a birthday gift. I never heard of it, but a couple of young salespeople from B&N recommenced it to me.
It didn't take very long for me to become totally captivated by the almost flash and blood characters of Joe Kavalier and Sammy Clay, two young Jewish kids in NY of WWII.

There are many reasons to why I became so attached to the book: Joe escaped from Europe in the last minute leaving his entire family there to suffer the horrors of the nazi regime, and I felt like I'm closer to him than other readers for having a family that survived, although in pieces, the holocaust. When he becomes friends with Sammy, they start doing comics, becoming somewhat pioneers in the genre of super-heroes comics, starting to make money and in some way living the American dream. Since there's nothing I want more right now than finding my niche and doing what I like to do and what I do best, I found that aspect of the novel quite irresistible. So those characters, who are written so brilliantly that I would find myself losing sleep over them, warring what would happen to them, sort of took over my life in the 2 weeks period that was needed for me to finish the book. Since it's a hopeful story, despite the drama and even tragedy in the center of it, it left me inspired, deeply touched and hopeful myself. It made me look at the city differently, associating buildings and streets with things that happened to the book's protagonists in them. But more than ever, it made me aware of the existence of the American dram, not just as a concept.

Oh, and another silly little thing about it:
Kavalier & Clay, as it turns out, is actually the initials of KC. Strange coincidence considering that the character was born before reading the book, isn't it?

The American dream

I was always familiar with that term, or figure of speech, without really knowing what it is. It appears in every Hollywood movie, in every stupid television series.
I only understood fully what it means after reading this book while living in this city. It's so simple; its the dream of turning from a nobody, to a very big somebody, making lots of money in the process. That simple. When living in Israel, that dream does exist too, but its hidden behind many social relations, family relations, and working relations. Life offer you a lot more consolation prizes when you live in a small place, and you are less focused on growing professionally, life passes you in a more relaxed manner, time has meaning, friends have meaning, family has meaning. But being an emigrant in an unfamiliar country, this country, in which everything is bigger, richer, brighter and phonier, living with no friends of family, and with no professional ties or career, you begin to understand that longing, that dream for the American dream. And that book, which presents perfectly that hunger for it, that hunger of two immigrant Jewish kids, finding the American dream, living it, than losing it and surviving it, and learning to get over it, grow up, and try to live happily after it, hit me just in that spot, of the artist starving for recognition, for finding he's spot in the big world. My identification with those guys, made it even clearer to me that I need to create, I need to try, because this is the only place in the world where there's room for every fart that everyone makes. So I don't know quite how to make it, and my first intention is not becoming a millionaire, but rather trying to make things come out of me, trying to make them good and appealing to me and other people,and than if they're good, figuring out what to do with them, or to move forward from them.
So off to work I go, hoping that this time I could make it, and find enough energy in myself to sustain it, not to give up when it gets harder like I usually do ,and most of all, enjoy it, and enjoy the process of making it.