The ILC Favourite Characters Of All Time

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4VUCZ3TK

it's not copyrighted material, so I don't think I'm violating any ilx rules by posting this link.

I think this should actually do it.

NOTE: contains spoiler if you gave up on Cerebus at a sane point.

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To list exactly why I love Cerebus so much, or believe he's the greatest character ever created in comics, would dominate proceedings so I'll try and keep it short.

Cerebus is all of us. Well, not exactly. Cerebus is all the bits we don't like or don't/can't acknowledge about ourselves and we hate. He's every bit of petty jealousy. Every ounce of manipulation. Our lack of backbone. Our drinking. Our intolerance. Our stupidity. Self aggrandisement. Wanking. Insanity.

As Tom said during the nominations phase, "I'm not voting for Cerbeus because he's a cockfarmer." And that's exactly right. He's boorish, arrogant and frequently entirely wrong-headed. He decides he wants a woman in his life and gets her by painstakingly destroying her husband. When things go wrong, it's never his fault. People can exploit him, but he just leaves.

His finest moment? Easy. At the end of 'Form & Void', having been plagued for some time with an urge to visit his parents but held up with ridiculous behaviour from Jaka. When they get to Sand Hills Creek nobody will speak to him. Cerebus realises they have died.

He is inconsolable. He tears his hair out, rubs mud in his face and, seeing Jaka, vents his frustration with the prophesied words "Go on. Beat it. Scram." She leaves, and he is alone in grief.

He is us, and we are him.

(192 points)

http://www.marsimport.com/images/LOVRH22.JPG

I forgot this when Hopey came up, so everyone should go read Mark S's piece on punk, starring Hopey and Maggie.

maggie is great becaus she,s competent but insecure at the same time - she is pretty but worried about her weight , she loves this guy who loves back, only she doesn't know if he does. she's funny and yet concerned about what people think of her. we can all relate to her coolness slash dorkiness (Mark Co)

(195 points)

http://claudia.weblog.com.pt/arquivo/haddock.jpg

Entire remainder of entry by 'Captain' Chuck Tatum!

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When I was young, I wanted to be Tintin when I grew up. These days, I'd much rather be Captain Haddock. Haddock gets to have all the fun -- the drinking, the schmoozing, the fancy hotels -- while rarely having to bother with the time-wasting (and potentially dangerous) detecting and adventuring side of things. There are downsides to being the comic relief, of course. Once every book or so, you will need to fall off the wagon and almost kill yourself ( Explorers on the Moon, Red Rackham's Treasure). In every single adventure, you will clumsily trip down some sort of mountain ravine or desert hill ( The Crab With The Golden Claws, Flight 714, The Red Sea Sharks, etc.). And nature is always your enemy. If a llama is present, he will spit in your face (Prisoners of the Sun ) -- repeatedly. If you see a cow -- especially a sacred one -- he will not hesitate to bowl you over and ride you over town. (Tintin in Tibet). And here's one important piece of advice: always, without exception, keep your nose away from wasps ( The Castafiore Emerald). It's not your fault your nose is so unfathomably large -- but really, do try to be more careful.

There's more to Haddock than his pratfalls, of course -- there's also his love of drinking. His massive ego. His social climbing. His hatred of dithering. His awesomely extended vocabulary of insults ( http://www.angelfire.com/super2/animorphs/insult.html). His lunatic care for his friends. Haddock might only be the comic relief, but it's hard to think of other comic relief characters, outside of Dickens, with such an satisfyingly well-developed interior life. Rather than becoming subordinate to Tintin, Tintin effectively becomes Haddock's sidekick after Red Rackham's Treasure, not the other way around. And Herge never ran out of interesting things for Haddock to do: apparently in Alph-Art, Herge considered having Haddock grow marijuana plants in the basement at Marlinkspike.

Top Ten Insults

10. "Son of a sea-gherkin" (Flight 714).
9. "Antediluvian bulldozer" ( Tintin in Tibet ).
8. "Technocrat" (The Crab with the Golden Claws).
7. "Fancy-dress Fatima" (The Red Sea Sharks).
6. "Addle-pated lumps of anthracite" ( The Red Sea Sharks).
5. "Macrocephalic baboon" (Tintin in Tibet).
4. "Second-rate son of a sword-swallower" ( The Seven Crystal Balls).
3. "Ectoplasmic byproduct" (The Calculus Affair).
2. "Fresh-water-spaceman" (Explorers on the Moon ).
1. "Miserable blundering barbecued blister" (Tintin and the Picaros).

Best Moment: The temptation is to go for the genuinely moving scene in Tintin in Tibet, where Haddock tries to cut his climbing rope and kill himself (to save Tintin, of course.) But for sheer sustained Haddock-ness, one has to go for the whole of The Calculus Affair. There are pratfalls aplenty: the electrocution, the Mosquito spray, the Cutts the Butcher dialogues. But also tons of great character moments: the first meeting with Jolyon Wagg, the desperate cadging for a drink while interviewing a suspect, Haddock's wonderful moment of joy after realizing Colonel Sponsz has the band-aid attached to his ear ("Szplug! What is this?"). In no other book is the Captain so simultaneously comic and heroic.

I would pick Castafiore Emerald as my favourite Haddock, though - it's the one where he's most central, and its delight is in seeing the entire fictional universe set up for the purpose of irritating him.

xpost - you've got the wrong guy there, DV.

Never read Tintin.

I don't follow you.

(204 points)

http://static.flickr.com/24/54500175_c70dd357fa.jpg

IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE IT'S TRUE. Hate the comic is so great because its terrific laffs hide some pretty harsh stories (is there a more shocking comics death than…but some of you might not have read it yet). Similarly Buddy Bradley is a great character because unlike most 'comedy' comics figures - and even most TV sitcom ones - he ages and grows and makes familiar compromises, and while he still makes some really stupid decisions, over the course of the comic he gradually learns to be less of an asshole. The core readership who hit on the comic when it was basically a grunge-era Freak Brothers ( i.e. fucking hilarious) grumbled about this but there are golden Buddy scenes in almost every issue - the episode with the "U2 tickets" and the internet chatroom, for instance. I've not caught up on any of Bagge's stories since the main Hate comic ended, so I don't know how he's evolved Buddy further, but certainly in my 20s he was the most recognisable - and ultimately, sympathetic - character I'd ever read. (Tom)

greatest moment: Good God. If I had to pick one, possibly the time he attacks Val's dinner party. Either that or the 'date' issue. (Vic Fluro)

Just as well too, since they're stripping the colour for the bok.

(276 points)

http://www.rabittooth.com/13_calvin/faces.jpg

All the characters in Peanuts had simple, well-defined
personalities, which they were unlikely to stray from
(except for Snoopy), but Bill Watterson's Calvin has
some of the weird contradictions of a real person:
he's at once precocious and bratty, a complete cynic
and a total innocent, a gleeful would-be scam artist
and a solitary, sensitive kid who worries about global
warming. (Justyn)

The only regularly funny strip cartoon (Pete)

Calvin ruined me. Rereading Watterson's oeuvre, I am constantly reminded that damn near each and every one of my character flaws and antisocial tendencies can be put down to me trying to cop Calvin's style. This goes from inventing superhero scenarios in my struggles not to shower as a kid to more current concerns such as grumpiness, flippancy and an obscene pride in forsaking any sort of social and/or physical activity in favour of vegetating in front of the TV. At this stage it's impossible to determine how much of it was personality overlap and how much conscious emulation, of course – either way, Calvin remains the most relatable kid character of all time to me. (Daniel Reifferscheid)

Worship Maggie
Adore Captain H
Love Buddy
Like Calvin
and the No.1 is a bit meh.

http://wiw.org/~jess/weblog/marmaduke.jpg

I just changed my name, or I'd switch up to "Marmaduke is Being Cock-Blocked." (Austin Still)

1. Batman (Batman etc.)

(294 points)

http://www.readyourselfraw.com/recommended/rec_reading/essential_06mar/pope_batman100_small.jpg

Special extended "what were we thinking?" edition!

Dude, it's Batman. From the benevolent father-figure who foils Joker's boners and Adam West's paunch to Frank Miller's obsessive fascist and Kelley Jones's gothic demon, Batman is all bat-things to all bat-people. (Huk-L)

I think Batman is a character that no one creator or creative team has ever gotten completely right since the first few Bob Kane stories. (Until the Nolan movie, maybe.) Kane started introducing costumed villains almost immediately, and DC settled the character into a comfy routine of superheroics — a little goofier goofier in the 50s, more serious in the 70s. Even Miller's Dark Knight carried "angry dad" baggage that undercut the character's basis in guilt and terror as the ultimate motivators. Cumulatively, 65+ years of failed mentorships, failed friendships, failed romantic relationships and thousands of small victories against Joe-Chill-substitutes have created comics' greatest somewhat-heroic protagonist. (Rock Hardy)

WHY? HE'S BATMAN! (Leeeee)

Batman's a bit overplayed at the moment, let's face it. And the current iteration is one of the most boring, unloveable and pretentious characters to be found in comics. But there was a time when he was exciting and fun and he did manage to enslave the entire world with a TV show in the sixties so his current nauseating self is propped up somewhat. (Vic Fluro)

Greatest moments:

From DKR, where he reveals to the Mutant 'banger that he's not in any position to negotiate. (Leeeee)

"Criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot" (David A Simpson)

Batman used to give whodunnit speeches – "Here's how I deduced the real culprit!" His first meeting with Ra's Al Ghul has perhaps the definitive one of these – Batman paces the floor of a himalayan hideout with a wonderfully smug irritation, hands gesticulating operatically as he delivers a bravura speech, belittling the assorted henchmen, chiding Ra's and shooting off the occasional dry quip. Finally, he says "I'm tired of talking! Ready, Robin?" And the two of them quickly mop the floor with the lot of them in a swashbuckling fight. Classic stuff from the days when Batman behaved a bit more like Sherlock Holmes crossed with Zorro and a bit less like Mr Furious with Asperger's. (Vic Fluro)

"Stephen Hawking!" (me)