This is how you do meta right, Morrison. You focus on the existing characters and who they are, not drag in new ones to be more awesome. (It also helps to not get too distracted by the process of storytelling itself, and how many balls you can keep in the air at once, and whether they're on fire.)
(Of course, it still has one of the same issues, one inherent to all metafiction: it reminds you that You're Reading a Story, bouncing you out of the "reality" of the characters and events taking place on the page. This isn't quite as blatant as Buddy literally seeing through the page/fourth wall, but...)