A Simple Way To Go Faster Than Light That Does Not Work

What do you call the opposite of a Mary Sue character? That is, an intentional self-insertion who, rather than being the smartest girl in Starfleet Academy who will marry Draco Malfoy at the end, is instead a pathetic and unloved loser - who still manages to be the star of the show, mind you.

I want to call this class of character a "Kilgore Trout", but for the sake of symmetry, I think I prefer "Charlie Brown".

"Mary Sue" works too, but I don't think it works as well to mean any kind of character who is based on the author. To me the term strongly implies that the character is idealized and amateurishly written, as well, and that is certainly not universally the case.

Yesterday's completely unexpected purchase was this edition of Lady Chatterly's Lover, entirely due to its covers and flaps being covered with delightful comics by Chet Brown, a favorite cartoonist whose distinct style bludgeoned me with its surprising presence as I walked past the "Classics" shelf.

The front cover is an illustrated excerpt from the book, the back cover is a tiny (but complete) cartoon biography of D.H. Lawrence, the front flap has a brief examination of the author's relationship with his wife and the rear flap lists his own possible extramarital affairs. Awesome! I had to buy it, both to own and to encourage more cool crap like this to exist.