Tuesday, February 13, 2007

A favorite description of a literary character's existential plight:

From The Science Fiction Encyclopedia describing Captain Zero, the protagonist of a short-lived odd-hero pulp:

When invisible, he speaks in italics.

2 comments:

John Schmidt said...

Is his name really "Zero" or is this something like Asimov's Zeroth Law of Robotics?

Todd Mason said...

Well, his superhero identity was as Capt. Zero. About like asking if Bruce Wayne's name is really (the) Batman...if they bothered to give the name any more rationale than he is invisible, I don't know what that rationale might've been...he, I believe, predated the first statement of the Asimov 3 Laws...even as a relatively late superhero pulp character (all that business was concentrated in the comics arms of most of the pulp publishers by then...)