will you marry me, schroeder?

found in jessica zafra's blog:

Japanese man petitions to marry comic-book character

TOKYO (AFP) — A Japanese man has enlisted hundreds of people in a campaign to allow marriages between humans and cartoon characters, saying he feels more at ease in the "two-dimensional world."

Comic books are immensely popular in Japan, with some fictional characters becoming celebrities or even sex symbols. Marriage is meanwhile on the decline as many young Japanese find it difficult to find life partners.

Taichi Takashita launched an online petition aiming for one million signatures to present to the government to establish a law on marriages with cartoon characters.

Within a week he has gathered more than 1,000 signatures through the Internet.

of course my first thought wasn't "what a loony!" but rather "where would i hold the reception?" -- you could have an idea of what my thoughts on these things would be. if only it could happen.

but the thing many readers tend to overlook on comicbook characters is that they are just that: made up characters that came to life in the mind of another writer or illustrator. a character, no matter how many faults the writer infuses in it, would always be perfect because it is meant to drive a story to a predetermined conclusion.

unless we're talking about american superhero comics here, where a succession of writers would sometimes have various takes on an existing character without minding continuity.

but i digress.

the most difficult thing about marrying a comicbook character wouldn't be how it will sign the marriage contract, although that would be a challenge. it would be whether the characters' authors should also be there on your honeymoon night.