Oh yea, I know Tom. He works in accounting.
Pepe the Frog? As our most iconic character? I don’t even know who that Neil guy is.
I’d say that Uncle Sam is more of a symbol or personification of the US than a character. (Similarly for John Bull.) He’s not so much an iconic character as he is a literal icon.
Not sure who’s being whooshed here, but that’s Tom Of Finland included in an inadvertent list of iconic real people.
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For France - Babar the Elephant or Jean Valjean.
For Great Britain - Paddington Bear
US: Ronald MacDonald or Mickey Mouse
England (not UK): Robin Hood (…Harry Potter?)
France: Asterix The Gaul, The Count of Monte Christo
Spain: Don Quixote
Japan: Hello Kitty
Germany: Hansel and Gretel
Paddington hailed originally from darkest Peru, I believe.
The UK suffers from the same thing as the US - an awful lot of characters stretching back hundreds of years, all fairly well know to most on this english-speaking site.
Hamlet and Beowulf both hailed from Denmark (or maybe more precisely Sweden in Beowulf’s case), so does that mean that can’t be the most known British characters?
I’m not smart enough to know the difference
True but the character’s in-story origin didn’t seem to need to be from the country in question, just that the character is domestically-created.
Superman can breath a sigh of relief…
As long as he doesn’t blow down a building while doing so.
Doremon is supposed to be the most popular cartoon in Japan. So Doremon for Japan.
Oh, an anthropomorphic personification, but Uncle Sam is a real person. When I was a kid he ran for President every 4 years.
For Australia, the most iconic character has to be the Jolly Swagman. Failing that, how about The Muddle Headed Wombat.
I was never exposed to the Astrid Lindgren books, so:
Lisbeth Salander
Winnie the Pooh for Canada? Although the author was British - the bear upon which the stories were based was from Canada, and named after the city of Winnipeg.
How about Dr Who? Definitely iconicly British but with multiple identities
Winnie the Pooh, iconic for every British child
Hercules has to be iconic for someone - so iconic he is the original one name character - (except for Adam)
Lord Greystoke, not for being English but of English extraction.
I think Dracula is iconic for Transylvania - even if its a Britsh author
Frankenstein - not entirely sure where it is supposed to be from
Cendrillon (Cinderella) for France?
The bear upon whom the books was based was a teddy bear owned by Christopher Milne. He was named for Winnipeg the Bear, but she had nothing to do with the inspiration for the books, aside from providing the name for the toy.