The Halls of Infamy

The finale!  After weeks of plotting, scheming, and desperate clattering of the QWERTY board, I finally come to the last of Hannah 'LikesSheepBaa' Newcombe's twenty questions.  I've saved this one for last because in some ways, it's the hardest.  It's Question 8: "What is your favourite character that you’ve created so far?"


Shouldn't that be, "Who is your favourite character that you’ve created so far?"

Grammatical nit-picking aside, this is going to be tricky.  I've never had any children, so I can't really draw a comparison to "having to choose between my children", but I'm pretty sure this is what it would feel like if I did have any children and someone was forcing me to choose between them.

In fact, never mind mere 'tricky': picking a single favourite is going to be impossible.  There are too many of them that I'm too fond of.  The best I can do would be to present an alphabetically-ordered shortlist, with various facts, figures and claims to fame, and maybe illustrations.  And I'm going to put something cool on the speakers.  Bear with me while I fire up WinMP...


Not quite my all-time favourites, but Honourable Mentions:

• The 18th Everything Shopkeeper (from Cylinder and Miserable) - because he can say the most outlandish things and be absolutely accurate about it.
• Brother Threadmoose (from Cylinder and Miserable) - an itinerant monk affiliated with no known religion, prone to speaking with a mediaeval dialect, and in possession of a 'Parakamellama' - whatever the heck of of those is.
• Forkley (from Universe XGT, also appears in Fort Paradox) - encapsulates all the most amusing aspects of UXGT, and would probably be very, very bad for a lot of other people's heads if they knew all there is to know about him.
• Lulu the Ship's Cactus (from A Salesman Beneath) - because it amuses me to have a spaceship controlled by a prickly plant instead of a computer.
• Tom Thomason (from Grace and Caffeine and Goin' Teapotty) - old friend.  Probably been in my head longer than anyone else mentioned here except Forkley.

And now, the Front-Runners:

Cylinder the Cylinder (from Cylinder and Miserable, also appears in Fort Paradox and other media)

• Entered my brain: 2006
• First published appearance: 2006
• Official age: unknown (depends whether he had existed before the events of C&M Episode 0001, which is a question I've never bothered to work out an answer for)
• Race/Species: Geometrant
• Claim(s) to Fame: breaks the fourth wall; owns a Metaphysical Violation Drive ship and a 50-foot Norwegian custard jacuzzi; has a sentient sprig of broccoli as a butler; revels in the title of "the World's Most Notorious Travel Writer" and likes to hang out and eat pizza with his self-confessedly rabid fan club; claims to have sold the Sistine Chapel; also managed to parachute a lawnmower into a tree in Vietnam and get it stuck there while being chased by some very angry communists.

Edwin Hall (best known for his part in Grace and Caffeine, also appears in Fort Paradox and other media)

• Entered my brain: 2003
• First published appearance: 2006
• Official age: late 70s
• Race/Species: Human
• Claim(s) to Fame: has white hair and uber gardening skills; inherited my pragmatic/grumpy streak.
• Other remarks: I think I like Edwin because he reflects the part of me that gets upset when things don't make sense.  On that level, he balances out the other front-runners, who are all pretty much unfazed by pretty much anything.

Meebrick the Misnomer (from A Salesman Beneath)

• Entered my brain: 2010
• First published appearance: 2011
  
• Official age: late 50s, approximately
• Race/Species: Human
• Claim(s) to Fame: manages to be impossibly happy even when freefalling into a near-infinite void, almost getting eaten by giant bats, being put to work washing hundreds of sticky eggs, battling mechanical spacefaring turtles, or voyaging inside a miniature planet made of jelly.
  

Ron Haggard (from Megastropulodon)

• Entered my brain: 2009
• First published appearance: 2010
  
• Official age: 33
• Race/Species: Human
• Claim(s) to Fame: breaks the fourth wall (Cylinder isn't alone); sees the whole world through a filter of cartoon logic; laughs in the face of laser vision; is un-puffed-up enough to settle for being the Sidekick even though he's got more of a clue than anyone else; saves the universe from a gigantic hairy rampaging mutant monster using a bomb built from someone else's briefcase and a bottle of cold tea.
  

I'm curious - which characters have made the best impression on the audience?  To find out, I've opened a poll over in the sidebar.  Will be interested to see how the voting goes...


The Final Stats:

• Twenty Questions status: 20 down, none to go - I think, just for once, I might have won.
• Days until Root Hill: 2
• Latest book read: Jennings Follows a Clue
• Latest film/TV watched: Red Dwarf 1.6
• Latest music listened to: Doctor Who Series 5 OST by Murray Gold
• Latest edible item eaten: chocolate cookie
• Predominant colour of clothes: blue/grey
• Programs and web pages currently running: Microsoft Office Outlook and Word 2007, Firefox (tabs: MatNav 6.1; Blogspot Create Post), Windows Media Player 11
• Webcomics posted today: Cylinder and Miserable #1339

- The Colclough