We’ve all got our favorite books and movies and TV shows. They inspire us, terrify us, make us weepy and bring a little sunshine to a crap day. And why ? It’s the characters. Something in them that makes you relate, excites or compels you to keep on with their story. But some of the best characters are not people you could hang out with. For example, how do you hang out with Batman ? Batman doesn’t hang out, there’s work to be done and cold hard justice to dole out. The same could be said for Ford Prefect. He's a hoopy frood and you could make the argument that all he does is hang out, but that would be underestimating him.

We posed the question to the editors of FTTW and here's what we came up with.

Michele does the meet and greet first:

Jesse Custer -

Jesse is a bad ass preacher (created by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon) who set out on a journey to find God. Not in the usual way of "find God" though. See, God had abandoned his post. And he was on a mission to track God down and hold him accountable for that. Custer was possessed by a part angelic/part demonic being that gave him some quality powers. Custer just might be the most powerful thing in all of creation. I want to drink with this guy. Or just talk about religion and stuff.

Spider Jerusalem

Spider (created by Warren Ellis for Transmetropolitan) is a journalist in some future world. Spider is a hateful sort of guy, but most of his hate is warranted. Spider is violent, hot tempered and a stickler for the truth and an enemy of corruption. That's what I love about him. Raw honesty. Plus, he's got some bitchin' weapons. I'd like to hang out with him and talk about politics and the state of the world and maybe I'd get to play with his two headed cat.

Princess Leia.

Of all the Star Wars characters I'd love to meet (Vader, Boba Fett, Greedo...) I have to reserve my wish here for the princess. Because I need to ask her a few things. Like, what is up with that reaction after Alderaan was blown up? Yea, she was a little shocked and awed by the whole thing but, dude. Her family was killed. Her entire fucking planet was blown up. Gone. Just like that. And she not only watched it, but had a hand in it. Everything she ever knew, everyone she ever loved, gone in an instant. Asploded. Poof. Done. So much space dust. Is it me or does her reaction seem kind of...limited?

So I want to spend some time with her. Find out exactly how she felt when she saw the planet burst into flames. Did she feel guilty? Because she should. Did she feel horrified? Sad? I mean, a couple of scenes later she was playing the flirting game with Han Solo and making wise cracks to Luke. Doesn't seem like the normal reaction of someone who just lost their entire family. She doesn't even seem chagrined. More like...inconvenienced. Maybe a little pissed that her dinner plans were fucked up by the whole exploding planet thing. HER PARENTS (or whom she thought were her parents) JUST GOT BLOWN UP IN FRONT OF HER EYES. She's either emotionally stunted or just a cold hearted bitch. I'm thinking a little heart-to-heart session with miss "aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper" might clear the air here.

Yes, I know. I put way too much thought into that.

You don't know the half of it. That's been on my mind since 1977. It feels good to finally let go of it. Now all I need is an answer. -M

Turtle says “Hi”:

Egg Shen - Victor Wong's role in Big Trouble in Little China. For being a damn hippy, Victor Wong was a pretty cool dude. But team him up with John Carpenter and give him a bag of magic tricks, he becomes Master Egg. Egg was cool cause he had the ability to listen to you while ignoring you at the same time. Trust me. This is a hard feat to learn, and Victor Wong did it perfectly. Plus, he gets the nod cause he would always be in the Safeway parking lot at 1:50 in the morning when we ran in to get beer before 2. I don't know why he shopped that late, but he was always a cool guy. Never asked him to do Egg Shen for us, but he played along.

Strong Bad - I just like him. I don't go to HSR that much anymore, but when I did, Strong Bad was the coolest. I mean hell, he made Trogdar and anyone who can make a dragon using consummate "V"s must be cool. Plus he has the Cheat. More coolness points. Many a slow working days were passed watching those over and over on my bosses time.

Travis Bickle - This was hard. I mean Bickle is cool up to a point, but then he gets kind of annoying. So if there was a category for "someone I would like to hang out with for about 10 minutes" he would definitely make it. I mean he has a warped sense of right and wrong, which is cool cause in the end we define our own limits on what is right and what is wrong by the limitations our society has put on us. And yes, this is another rant on me getting arrested for indecent exposure to children last week. Just who defines "indecent" anyways? I was making a political statement about my testicles being Iraq, full of oil and my penis being the Bush war machine. See. Right there. Political statement. Maybe even modern art. First Amendment rights, dammit. Just because children below the age of 16 took an interest in my socio-political statement I was playing out with my testicles, as defined in the First Amendment, does not mean I should be booked as a felon.

Special Mention - Those bears from the Charmin toilet paper ads. You know the ones shitting in the woods. They look so happy when they crap. So happy, they want other bears to not only watch them take a dump, but also give them advice on who much shitter paper to use. See, that is a cool set of bears. I can only imagine how much better my life would have been if only my friends all came with me to watch and criticize the way I dropped a load. We would all have experiments that eventually would turn into some kind of scat porn and nowadays I would be the world famous shit eating turtle porn star. If only my mother would have loved me enough to to watch me every time I crapped as a kid.

Oh well. As they say. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.

Have a nice weekend everyone. -T

thefinn sticks out his hand and says "Howdy":

John Constantine –

A chain smoking, hard drinking, foul mouthed magician who uses his head more often than the craft.
John Constantine is reckless and careless; the kind of guy who gets his friends killed. He’s dangerous and beat up and world weary and not the sort to walk out of any major encounter unscathed. This is the kind of guy you meet at a pub at two in the morning and you’re not sure which of his stories are real and which one’s are a result of the drink.

The Lone Gunmen –

I’m a nerd. I accepted that a long time ago. And I like to hang out with other nerds. These guys are the epitome. Melvin Frohike the hardware guy, Richard Langly the hacker, and John Byers the conspiracy theorist. I loved these guys and just sitting around a table in a diner with them would be an experience. I just know that I couldn’t invite them home, as the wife has had a thing for Byers since ’01.

John Crichton –

John Crichton was a perfectly normal Theoretical Physicist until the spaceship he was piloting fell into a wormhole and he was flung to the far side of the universe, cut off from everything and everyone he knew. Not only does he discover intelligent life, but he finds out quite quickly that they don’t like him and would prefer him dead. So, he does what any sane, rational person would do. He makes the best of a bad situation and goes a little crazy in the process. John Crichton isn’t the kind of guy you wanna go on a road trip with, but he’s one I’d want at my back in a bar brawl.

So, the question becomes, if given the choice, what fictional character would you like to meet and hang out with ?

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