Myth! Myth! ..... Yeth?

I figure I’d cheat a bit, and continue the modern myths thing here. I remember something Peter David once wrote which struck a chord in me. It was an idea that said that myths are fictional characters that we think of as real. Not in the sense of being living, breathing people, but in the sense of being able to see them without their fictional context.

The example he gave was Captain Kirk. If you asked a dozen people on the street who Captain Kirk is, most of them will tell you he’s the captain of the Enterprise... instead of saying he’s the lead of the Star Trek tv show, and was played by William Shatner. They’ll know those things too, and probably give them to you right after, but the foremost thing in their minds would be he was the captain of the Enterprise.

I was thinking about this on the train today, thinking about characters that have this same resonance with us – that we think of their reality first, before we think about what they are in our own reality (fictional characters).

I think Charlie Brown meets the criteria. So does James Bond. I’m not sure about Indiana Jones – I think he’s probably too closely associated with his three movies (despite appearing in other media, including TV, novels, and comics) to be there yet. But I think the Simpsons certainly have made the grade. I think constant exposure is important, and that’s where Indy falls down, but Homer and his family certainly qualify.

Can you think of any characters created after the Simpsons that have reached this point? I have a couple ideas, but I want to hear your thoughts.