The Gadget Man. Click Rush, the Gadget Man, was created by Lester Dent and appeared in Crime Busters from 1937 to 1938. Rush was a tall, lean, strong young man with brown hair and eyes. (Brown was his favorite color; he usually dressed all in brown.) Rush was an amateur investigator who invented gadgets towards this end. He'd come to the "big city" with the "notion of selling super-modern, crook-catching gadgets to the police." After the cops laughed him out of the station house he went out on his own.
Well, okay. He was prompted by a talking toad: "Bufa, of the species Bufonidae, which feeds on snails, slugs, insects, and such undesirable things....(I'm) eager to hire an expert private detective to investigate crimes I think need solving." The toad succeeds in convincing Click to solve crime (the $10,000 fee for each crime helped, too.) but proved to me an only average boss, enjoying giving Click the razz and showing a mean sense of humour.
Among Rush's gadgets include a portable x-ray device, phone-tapping equipment, a bulletproof vest, a repeating hypodermic needle he used to deliver a knockout drug; exploding matches; knockout gas vials; containers of liquefied tear gas; and a number of other such things.
Gamadge, Henry & Clara. The Gamadges were created by Elizabeth Daly and appeared in sixteen novels, beginning with Deadly Nightshade (1940). They were a husband-and-wife pair of amateur sleuths. He's an expert in handwriting and English literature, which helps matters in several cases. In the words of Anthony Boucher, Gamadge is "a man so well bred as to make Lord Peter Wimsey seem a trifle coarse."
Gang-Smasher. The Gang-Smasher was created by Hugh Clevely and appeared in over two dozen stories in The Thriller, from at least 1928 through at least 1939, as well as one novel, Gang-Smasher, in 1928. He was a rough-and-tough private investigator who focussed on gangs.
Ganton, Detective Colonel. Detective Colonel Ganton was created by the Australian writer Carlton Dawe and appeared in several novels, beginning with Leathermouth (1931). Det. Col. Ganton is a police officer in Melbourne who solves crimes.
Gar, Jo. Jo Gar was created by Raoul (Ben Jardinn) Whitfield and appeared in Black Mask and Cosmopolitan between 1930 and 1937. Gar was a Filipino detective of part Spanish descent who walked the mean streets of Manila, dealing with toughs and crime bosses in much the same way that American hard-boileds dealt with the criminals of New York and Los Angeles. The Manila of the Jo Gar stories is in fact much like the cities of American private eyes of the time, with night club entertainers, hotel managers, gamblers, and other low lifes; Whitfield, who spent many years as a child and teenager in the Philippines, portrays the islands in a hard but fair (and not racist) way. Gar, for his part, is very much in the hard-boiled tradition, a good, tough p.i. Gar is small, with short arms, narrow shoulders, stubby fingers, and greying hair, and although he is soft-spoken and polite he's still as tough as they come.
Garin. Garin was created by Alexei Tolstoy, one of the first Russian science fiction writers, and appeared in Giperboloid inzhenera Garina (Engineer Garin's Hyperboloid, 1926). Garin, an American engineer, is in fact the bad guy of the novel; John Clute describes him as "treated with some affection as a kin of force of Nature." He invents the "hyperboloid," a laser-like heat ray, and uses it to try to take over the world. He finds a massive deposit of gold and uncovers it, overcoming various sleazy Europeans and corrupt Americans on the way. He threatens the world with ecological disaster--he's power-hungry, see--succeeds in briefly ruling the decadent, capitalist US before he is toppled thanks to the efforts of a sexy female adventuress and a poor-but-honest Russian policeman.
Garth, Graydon. Graydon Garth was created by Sidney Drew and appeared in Big Budget. Garth, the "Statesman, Empire Builder, and Leader of Men," is described as another version of Drew's Ferrers Lord character.
Garth, Sidney. Sidney Garth was created by "Scott Campbell," the pen name for Frederick W. Davis, whose name has appeared a number of times on this site. Garth appeared in several stories in Popular Magazine from February through June 1908, starting with "A Master of Mysteries." Garth is an amateur investigator, but one a very long distance away from the Holmes school of gentlemen detectives. Some years before the series he'd spent three years in Sing Sing for an unnamed crime, a crime he did not commit. While in the Big House his parents died, and he canceled his engagement to his fiancé and his membership in various clubs, thus ruining his social standing. (Not that his stint Inside helped it any.) On getting out he'd moved to New York and begun working as a private investigator. He's very good at it, which is fortunate, because with his attitude he was unsuitable for any other work. He is one of the most foul-tempered detectives ever, being nasty and abrasive to everyone, even his one assistant, Michael Macklin, a red-headed, stereotypical Irishman who counts as Garth's only real friend. (Garth refuses to let anyone get close to him.) Garth disdains everyone, especially the police, who he takes a special pleasure in mocking and demeaning. Garth is "firm as a rock and hard as nails," excessively strong and a fierce hand-to-hand fighter who thinks nothing of taking on numbers of opponents at once. He is very pale, with dark hair shot through with gray and with "frigid blue" eyes.
Gaunt, Crispin. Crispin Gaunt debuted in Adventure in 1924 and ran for at least a year afterwards. I do not know who wrote his stories. Gaunt lived and worked in Deepest Darkest Africa, running a "portable light railway" for stranded travelers and scientists or for people looking to stock their zoos with large and recalcitrant animals. Gaunt, a huntin' shootin' sort of Brit, always wore his best in the jungle; he sported a monocle, a spotless silk jacket and shorts, and twelve school ties, which he wore in rotation. (Gaunt had been thrown out of all twelve schools, but he still felt loyal to them.) Gaunt inspires great loyalty among his (of course) blindly and fanatically devoted porters, who come to distrust any "white lord" who does not "carry a window in his eye." Gaunt is also a great hunter and tracker, and a powerful wrestler beneath his silks.
Gees. Gees, sometimes known as Gregory George Gordon Green, was created by "Jack Mann," the pseudonym of E. Charles Vivian (1882-1947), a British writer of fantasy. Gees was an occult detective, ala Doctor Silence. Gees does not begin as an occult detective, however. In his first novel, Gees' First Case (1936), he investigates normal crooks. In his second appearance, Grey Shapes (1937), Gees gets involved with werewolves who are atavisms of the Azilians, an ancient race, their memory preserved in the myths of the Sidhe. In Nightmare Farm (1937) Gees encounters a group of supernatural bad-asses who once guarded the legendary City of Kir-Asa (from Vivian's earlier novel, City of Wonder (1922). Gees, growing increasingly adept at the use of magic in his job, also tangles with a magic-using member of the Azilians, from Grey Shapes. In The Ninth Life (1939) Gees is forced to deal with a femme fatale who is also an immortal survivor from Pharaonic Egypt; she dies, Gees being finally unable to save her. In Her Ways Are Death (1939) Gees again fails to save a femme fatale, this one given assistance by Thor but also cursed by various evil gods, the latter proving more powerful than the former. Gees' final appearance, The Glass Too Many (1940), is a conventional country-house murder mystery involving an inheritance case and the use of a rare poison by a worshiper of The Unnameable, an ancient evil spirit.
Gees is "a tall, youngish man, with exceptionally large feet and hands...he looked ungainly, at a first glance, by reason of those feet and hands, but a second glance would convince anyone that he was nothing of the sort. Clean-shaven, unpleasantly ugly...." He begins as a Marlowe-type p.i. but becomes increasingly introspective, articulate, and somber as well as adept at dealing with magical cases. He is not a user of magic, in the Carnacki/Doctor Silence mode, but is somewhat educated in how magic works, and when he has the materials handy, such as the magical herbs in The Glass Too Many that loosen inhibitions and summon up The Unnameable, he can and will make use of them. Gees is intelligent and has taught himself more than a little about a wide range of subjects, including those that are magic-related. Between his knowledge, his skill as a detective, his guns (especially his Webley), and his contacts (he became well-known as a result of cracking his first case, and he uses this fame to help his clients) he is very efficient at solving crimes, even the ones in which magic is being used and magical beings are involved. As the novels go by Gees has increasingly bad luck with women, losing the ones that he falls in love with either because they have different lives from him or because they die in the course of a case. He somehow overlooks the fact that his "omnicompetent" secretary, Eve Madeleine Brandon, has feelings for him, and that she'd be a good lover for him.
German Heroes. Germany, during the pre-War years, produced a good number of pulp heroes and magazines. Unfortunately, information on them is rare and hard to find (especially in English), I've had trouble locating many works with useful information, and my translating skills have not so far been up to the job of turning what I've found into useful entries. (My French is better than my German.) So what I've put here is simply a list of names and titles. I will, naturally, be searching for more information on these characters and titles, and if and when I find (or am sent--believe me, if you've information on these characters, please send it to me) more information I'll put it here. Until then, alas, I'll be forced to leave you with only a list of evocative names and titles.
Since writing the preceding I've found some more information and was fortunate enough to be put in touch with Cora Buhlert, who provided me with some very good information on these characters. I can even tell you a little bit about the context of the German pulp industry. It began on a large scale in 1908, and though never respected by critics or adults was always widely popular with kids. Westerns in particular sold (and continue to sell) well, with Western heroes and magazines being by far the most numerous. During WW1 the government looked down on any hero or magazine that was not seen as being German enough and tried to discourage their publication. The publishers responded by retitling the magazines in more "German" ways, so that a Western magazine might now be called "A German Youth Abroad." The publishers did not, however, significantly alter the contents of the magazines, even keeping the old names of the heroes. The government never noticed this trick, and the publishers continued turning out magazines during the War.
Despite the Weimar years and the Depression the publishing industry continued on, turning out many magazines. But things changed with the ascent of the Nazi party. In 1933, soon after the German people elected the Nazis, publishers were pressured by the Nazis to make their magazines and heroes more properly German. In 1935 Nazis required all magazines in Germany to be submitted to them for approval. The publishers tried their old trick of changing magazine titles but not the magazine contents, but the Nazis were wise to this, and with the outbreak of WW2 the publishers were forced to change the names of the heroes. Examples of this are given below. Most of the magazines did not survive to the end of the war, and most of those that did were cancelled in the aftermath of the war due to Allied press laws.
The following are characters I have information on. A few of them, I know, appear after WW2, and thus outside the time limit I set for myself, but Cora Buhler was so generous with information that I just can't bear to see it go to waste.
Olaf Karl Abelsen. Cora Buhlert (vielen Dank, Cora!) provided the following about Abelsen:Gethryn, Anthony. Anthony Gethryn was created by Philip MacDonald and appeared in thirteen novels, beginning with The Rasp (1924). Gethryn is an Oxford-educated WW1 veteran who was discharged from service, as a Colonel, following his wounding; he is left with a permanent limp. He went on to serve in the British Secret Service and then retired to a quiet life in the English countryside. Unfortunately, crimes continue to draw him out of retirement, and he applies his intelligence, skills, and web of contacts towards solving these crimes.This was another Walther Kabel character. He starred in 50 issues of the pulp magazine Olaf Karl Abelsen - Abseits der Alltagswege (Olaf Karl Abelsen - Away from the paths of everyday life). Abelsen was a Swede innocently convicted of a crime he did not commit. He escaped from prison and fought for justice in Scandinavia (which Kabel was very fond of) and all over the world, while always on the run himself. Abelsen's only companion was a dog. Die Drei von der Feme, Kabel's final pulp series, is said to be a continuation of the Abelsen series.I have just a little more information to provide on it and Abelsen. The series ran from 1929-1933, with Walther Kabel writing under the pseudonym of "Max Schraut," a name he reused on a few occasions (see below). Heinz Galle makes the point that Abelsen's adventures had a real Sense of Wonder to them, unusual even for the heldroman, with stories like "The Dead Brain," "The Branch Into Nothing," "The Devil's Farm," "The Holy Smile," and "Solid Tears." And, in #37, "The Secret of the Sea," Abelsen travels into the same underworld as in Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth.Alaska-Jim. Jim Hoover, aka "Alaska-Jim," was a hunter and trapper in the Old West who also worked for the Canadian police, along with his best friend, Old Crow. Alaska Jim's magazine, Alaska Jim, Ein Held der Kanadischen Polizei (Alaska Jim, A Hero of the Canadian Police) ran for 227 issues from 1935-1939. His stories were written by "Big Ben," the pseudonym of Willi Richard Sachse, and "F.L. Barwin," the pseudonym of Lisa Barthel Winkler and Fritz Barthel. In #199, "Sturmvögel," Alaska-Jim crossed over with Sturmvögel, and in #5, in "Der Luftpirat von Oglivie," he (probably) crossed over with Captain Mors. In 1939, after the German government forbade the publication of all series with English-sounding heroes, Alaska Jim was cancelled and replaced with Sturmvögel.
Luciano Albertini. Luciano Albertini, like Carlo Aldini and Harry Piel and a couple of other characters in this section, was a real person, a film star in the 1920s; his Internet Movie Database entry gives some idea of what he did. In the heldroman he appeared in Luciano Albertini #1-16, 1923, as a world adventurer.
Carlo Aldini. Carlo Aldini, as it happens, was a German film star of the 1920s; his Internet Movie Database entry only hints at his filmography. He was also, like Harry Piel, fictionalised and made the heroic subject of an adventure serial, Carlo Aldini, der tollkühne Abenteurer (Carlo Aldini, the Rash Adventurer), which was written by Alfred Bienengraber and ran for 25 issues in 1924. His adventures were similar to Piel's, having him hunt tigers (boo!), fight modern pirates, go after female jewel thieves, and the like.
Frank Allan. Frank Allan, created and written by divers hands, appeared in Frank Allan, der Rächer der Enterbten (Frank Allan, Avenger of the Disinherited) #1-612, 1920-1932, and in another magazine of the same name for 55 issues from 1930-1932. Obviously, given his longevity, Allan was one of the major characters in German heldroman (hero fiction). He was a general do-gooder and avenger type, rather than being specialized as a pilot or detective. Naturally, he ranged around the world, fighting opium smugglers in China, submarine pirates in the Pacific, evil Indians in the American West, rioting prisoners in Sing-Sing, the masked criminal, the "Scorpion," in Gotham, the evil Chain Bearer of Krakow (no, I don't know what that means, either), jewel thieves on the Orient Express, pirates on the Yangtze, art thieves in Tokyo (who took the "urn of the Mikado," whatever that is), the Wolf of Bucharest, the Vampire of Baltimore, Mr. Satan, and much, much more. For the crossover-conscious among you, he fought with "Der Luftpirat," someone who had to have been Captain Mors in issues #472 & #491 (as far as I can tell "Der Luftpirat" was the only Allan enemy who survived for a return engagment), and he humiliated the very Holmesian "Inspector Doodle of Scotland Yard" in v2 n39.
Apaches. These are not the Native American tribe, but rather apaches in the Victorian sense, meaning street thugs and thieves. These apaches appeared in Apachen - Aus dem Dunkel der Großstadt (Apaches--From the Darkness of the Big City), which was written by divers hands and ran for 69 issues in 1920 and 1921. These apaches were active in New York and had various interesting adventures, fighting "the Vampire of New York," the "King of the Air," the "devil of Wall Street," and the "sailboat of death" (no, really!).
Around the Indian Imperial Crown. This series began in 1905 and was about a German adventuring in India, the "country of miracles."
Atalanta. This was another Robert Kraft character, appearing in Atalanta (1904) and Atalanta, the Secrets of the Slave Lake (1911). Atalanta was a German adventuress active in America and Canada. Some of her stories were titled, "A Nightly Visitor," "The Heiress of Moorfield," "The Vultures of the Sea," "At the Court of the Ox King," "In Lemuria," "In Flight," "At the Mountain Hermits," "Fred Barkor," "The Death Ship," and "Gentlemen of the Island."
Aus dem Reiche der Phantasie. (From the Realms of Imagination) This Robert Kraft series, which ran for ten issues in 1901, took the hero (whose name, alas, I don't know) across time and space, from the Stone Age to the Moon. The hero found the Last Caveman, space-traveling aliens, and was involved in the creation of cities on the floor of the ocean. Aus dem Reiche der Phantasie was originally planned for thirty issues but was cancelled after ten due to bad sales, so Kraft took the themes (and, I think, the main character, although I'm not sure about this) and put him in Kraft's utopian Der Neue Erde (The New Earth, 1910).
John Baxter. John Baxter appeared in John Baxter der Detektiv (John Baxter the Detective) #1-50, 1929-1932. He was, you guessed it, a detective, traveling around the world, yea, even unto Melanesia (where he fought some cannibals), as well as, in his last appearance, an apparent vampire. In #33 he attended the wedding of what may have been Nic Pratt, and in #38 he fought the "Meisterdieb" (Master Thief). Gee, I wonder who that could have been....? (Lord Lister, in case you were curious.)
Sven Berndt. Sven Berndt appeared in Sven Berndts Phantastische Abenteuer (Sven Berndt's Fantastic Adventures) #1-3, 1924. He was a standard heldroman world-traveling adventurer.
Black Bird. Black Bird, created by "Harald West," aka Elisabeth von Aspern (one of the few female pulp writers, let alone German pulp writers), appeared in Black Bird - der schwarze Vogel von Scotland Yard (Black Bird, the black bird of Scotland Yard) #1-33, 1933. He was a detective, very much in the Holmes mold and a more-or-less virtual copy of Tom Shark, although he wasn't visually Holmesian, being rather a tuxedo wearer and bearer of a pencil-thin mustache. His adventures, chronicled by his best friend, an English physician named Harald West, were often but not always set in London. In #27, "Baker Street 13," he solves a crime set at the home of the "late Sherlock Holmes."
Black Jack. This masked Western hero appeared in Der Schwarze Jack (Black Jack), years unknown.
Hannibal Blunt. Hannibal Blunt was created by Adrian Mohr and appeared in Hannibal Blunt, der Schrecken der Verbrecherwelt (Hannibal Blunt, the Terror of the Underworld) #1-50, 1921-1922. He was a consulting detective, English but tending more towards Sexton Blake than to Sherlock Holmes. Like Blake, he was active around the world, and even dealt with what may or may not have been actual Wellsian Martians.
Daniel Boon. As with Buffalo Bill, the Daniel Boon of James Robertson's Daniel Boon, der Held von Wildwest (Daniel Boon, the Hero of the Wild West, #1-47, 1920-1921) was a very fictionalised version of the real man. He fought the bad guys, both Indian and Anglo, and helped the good guys, both Indian and Anglo.
Jack Bowden. Jack Bowden appeared in Jack Bowdens Fahrten und Abenteuer (Jack Bowden's Travels and Adventures) #1-17, 1920 (?). Bowden was a big game hunter and adventurer who fought Indians, found oases, hunted game along the equator, visited the Caliph of Madras, discovered a secret tunnel under the Sphinx, fought cannibals, cleaned out an opium den in Hong Kong, fought the red Mexican, and--well, you get the idea.
Tom Brack. This Western hero appeared in a series which ran from 1949 through 1952. Brack was a decadent, weak college student who frittered away the money his mother sent him. Then, one day, Tom witnesses the murder of his parents and the destruction of his family home. Tom swears vengeance and trains himself to become a hero. He finds and kills his parents' murderers and then becomes a secret agent, working "Mr. X," the chief of police for the entire United States. (Mr. X, in fact, answers only to the President.)
Rolf Brand. Rolf Brand was created by Martin Seeger and appeared in Rolf Brand, der Deutsche Sherlok Holmes (Rolf Brand, the German Sherlock Holmes) #1-36, 1919. He was a Holmesian character, located in Berlin but working around Europe.
Heinz Brandt. This character, a German active in the French Foreign Legion, appeared in Heinz Brandt der Fremdenlegionär (Heinz Brandt the Foreign Legionnaire) #1-332, from 1913-1921. The series was written by Gustav Frohlich, the great German actor, and was the most popular of the German Fremdenlegionär series. Heinz Brandt featured the brothers Heinz and Fritz Brandt, a pair of patriotic Germans, serving in the Foreign Legion and doing the usual Legion thing, crossing the world and oppressing various indigenous peoples. Naturally, Heinz and Fritz were good, decent men, while the French commanders were brutal sadists, to the point where one of them was willing to use Heinz as a living target in order to test out a new weapon. With the Legion Heinz & Fritz traveled across North Africa, went to Asia, and then to Southern Africa, with story titles like "Battle of the Elephants," "The Secret of the Sunken City," "The Amazons of Dahomey," and "The Gluttons of Kitumbo." After WW1 broke out the focus of the stories shifted, and Brandt went to Belgium to fight the evil Frenchies. Both were eventually made Corporals and won the Iron Cross, fighting the British and French across most of Europe, in every famous battle in France, in Russia and in the Balkans. After the war ended, it was back to North Africa and the Foreign Legion for Brandt. In 1956 another series, Fremdenlegionär Brandt, was published, this one about Rolf Brandt, the son of Heinz and a Legionnaire just like his dad.
Buffalo Bill. This Western hero, very lightly based on the historical personage, appeared in a number of German magazines, including Buffalo Bill, der Held des Wilden Westerns (Buffalo Bill, the Hero of the Wild Westerns) #1-386 (1905-1912) and #1-123 (1930-1933). He was very much the quintessential German cowboy hero, ranging all over the United States and the Americas, North and South, fighting Aztecs, evil Indians, evil American cowboys and Easterners, making various Indian friends, and generally do-gooding.
Jim Buffalo. Jim Buffalo appeared in Jim Buffalo, Der Mann mit der Teufelsmaschine (Jim Buffalo, the Man with the Devil Machine) #1-29, 1922-1923. Buffalo is an intriguing character to me, because I have story titles but not much else to go on. An alternate title for the series was Der Mann mit der Teufelswappen (The Man with the Devil's Crest), and the second issue of the series had Buffalo dealing with (or perhaps receiving) the "Testament of Cagliostro," but I somehow doubt that Germany was ready, in 1922, for a dime novel about a hero who either sold his soul to the devil or used black magic. His adventures took him around the world, from India to the bottom of the ocean to Syria to San Francisco to the American prarie to rural Mexico to the swamps of Florida, so perhaps his "teufelsmaschine" was just a vehicle like Hans Stark's, capable of going under the water and into the sky? (Unfortunately, the San Francisco story is entitled "The Shylock of San Francisco," which makes me think that there may have been some anti-Semitism in the series.)
Tex Bulwer. This Western character appeared in Tex Bulwer, Abenteuer in Wilden Westen (Tex Bulwer, Adventures in the Wild West) #1-80, 1936 to 1938. The series began with Tex's ranch being destroyed, forcing him to go a-wandering.
Baron Bunny. Baron Bunny, created by Th. Offenstetten, appeared in Baron Bunnys Erlebnisse (Baron Bunny's Experiences) #1-5, in 1922. He was one of a number of German Arsene Lupin lifts.
Johnny Butson. Thanks to Nils Nordberg I can tell you that Johnny Buston appeared in a 1929 series of Sherlock Holmes stories, with Butson taking the place of Harry Taxon as the Watson replacement.
Bill Cannon. Bill Cannon, created and written by divers hands, appeared in Bill Cannon, Amerikas Berühmtester Kriminalkommissar (Bill Cannon, America's Most Famous Crimeboss) #1-22, in 1908. He was, as best I can tell, the "heroic thief" (ala Lupin and Blackshirt) who led a gang and fought other criminals, such as the "Murder Sect of Thugs" and a group of pearl thieves, for various valuables.
Al Capone. This fictionalised version of the brutal, coarse, and distinctly un-heroic Chicago thug and gangster appeared in Al Capone, der König der Gangster (Al Capone, the King of the Gangsters), which ran for 50 issues from 1932 to 1933. As far as I can tell, the stories varied between idolising him (Watch Al Capone Fight The KKK!) and showing him to be the vile creature he was.
Nick Carter. For information on Carter, see The Nick Carter Page. He appeared in Germany in Nick Carter, Amerika's Grösster Detectiv (Nick Carter, America's Greatest Detective) #1-375 (1906-1913) and Nick Carter, Amerika's Größter Detectiv (Nick Carter, America's Greatest Detective) #1-50, 1930-1932.
Fred Caterpink. Fred Caterpink appeared in Fred Caterpink, der Fürst der Hochstapler (Fred Caterpink, Prince of the Imposters) #1-28, 1922-1923. He was one of the many German Arsene Lupin lifts--well, characters who were heavily influenced by Lupin, anyhow. Caterpink, though, tended more to the heroic side; the subtitle of his magainze is "Three Years At War Against the Usurers and Smugglers." He was active widely, from London's Hyde Park to Chicago to New York.
John Class. John Class was created by Reinhold Grosser and appeared in John Class Serie (John Class Series) #1-12, 1923-1924, a series about John Class, a world traveler, adventurer, and explorer.
Hein Class. This Nazi-approved version of John Kling, written by Paul Pitt among many others, appeared in an eponyous magazine from from 1936-1937 and then 1939-1941, for 158 issues. Class was a wandering sailor of the German Navy, traveling the world and fighting those things which the Nazis deemed evil, although as far as I can tell the stories held no open anti-Semitism.
Sir Ralf Clifford. This was a German reprint of the Italian hero, for more information on whom seek out the Italian Heroes section. In Germany Clifford appeared in Sir Ralf Clifford, Der unsichtbare Mensch oder Das geheimnisvolle Vermächtnis des Fakirs (Sir Ralf Clifford, the Invisible Man, or the Mysterious Legacy of the Fakirs), which ran from 1921 to 1925 for 192 issues.
Bill Cnox. Bill Cnox, creator unknown, appeared in Bill Cnox, der Gummimensch (Bill Cnox, the Rubber Man) #1-27, 1922-1923. Cnox I'd like to know about, since I very much doubt he's a "rubber man" in the Eel O'Brien sense, but I can't tell, from the information I have, just why he's called the "rubber man." As best I can tell, he was one of a number of German wandering cowboys, doing good and fighting crime in NYC, Chicago, Mexico, and San Francisco, both on the frontier and in the cities.
Conny Coell. Coell, a Western hero, starred in a very odd series which appeared in the early 1950s and which was written by the Austrian author Konrad Koelbi. Coell was a Texas Ranger and expert marksman who served under Colonel Sinclair. The series was not only full of factual errors about the names and spellings of people, places, and things, but real people like Wyatt Earp showed up years after they died.
Pat Conner. Pat Conner was created by Robert Heymann and appeared in Pat Conner, der Meister-Detektiv (Pat Conner the Master Detective) #1-30, 1908. He was a detective active in America.
Detective Nobody. I've unfortunately found only a very little on this interestingly-named detective character. At least some of his adventures were penned by the notable German science fiction writer Robert Kraft, with one of the series being called Detective Nobody's Experiences and Traveling Adventures (1904-1906). Some of the stories were titled, "The Rejuvenation Treatment," "On the Devil's Island," "Of the Cossacks," "Princess Turandot," "Many Riddles," "The Hostile Cutter," "The Island of Mothers," "The Mexican," "Nobody and the Company," and "In Noah's Ark."
Harry Dickson. Dickson, who is much better known in his French incarnation (see the Harry Dickson entry for more information) debuted in Germany in 1907, and ran there, as an uninspired Sherlock Holmes pastiche, for 230 issues.
Billy Dogg. Billy Dogg appeared in Billy Dogg, Der Blinde Meisterdetektiv (Billy Dogg, the Blind Master Detective) #1-12, 1931. Billy Dogg is one of the few, but interesting, blind detective characters in pre-WW2 fiction, and the only one in the German heldromans. He was located in Vienna but traveled around the world, aided by his dog, his best friend, and his reputation, which commanded airplanes and vehicles to be made available to him at all times.
Franz Drake. Franz Drake, creator unknown, appeared in Die Blutfahne der Flibustier (The Blood Flag of the Buccaneer) #1-30, 1908. He was Captain Franz Drake, the “ore pirate,” a pirate during the years of the Spanish Main who sailed the various seas preying on, well, everyone who came his way. He was active around Cape Horn, off Cartagena, along “Cannibal Island,” in the Amazon–you get the idea. The series ended with his death, somewhat unusually.
Sar Dubnotal. See his entry for information on him. In Germany, he appeared in the magazine Sar Dubnotal, der Große Geisterbanner (Sar Dubnotal, the Great Ghost Hunter) #1-10, circa 1920.
Baronet Duncan. This masked Lupin-lift was created by William Harrison and appeared in Baronet Duncan, aus düsteren kellern und kaschemmen, der Kampf um 218 Millionen (Baronet Duncan, from out of gloomy cellars and thieves' dens, a war for 218 million) #1-38 from 1922 to 1923. Baronet Duncan was slightly more than the ordinary Lupin-influenced gentleman thief, however. His exploits had an over-arching plot to them, involving the Baronet's war, against a rival gang of thieves, for a treasure trove of 218 million dollars. This war took Duncan all over the world, starting with a joust against Sherlock Holmes in "The Steel House Under Baker Street" and bringing Duncan to NYC, Cairo, Hungary, Constantinople, the Carpathian mountains, India, and Borneo.
Claude Duvall. This German reprint of the original Charlton Lea serial (see the French Claude Duval as well as his entry on my Victoriana site) appeared in Claude Duval #1-46, 1907-1908.
Thomas Alva Edison. This fictionalized version of the real inventor appeared in Thomas Alva Edison--Der Gross Erfinder (Thomas Alva Edison, the big inventor), which first appeared before World War One. This version of Edison was similar to other fictional Edisons, and was a kindly-yet-heroic old man who created wonderful new inventions--homunculi, advanced radio sets, and the like--and used them to vanquish benighted natives and wicked men, from yacht pirates to Indian gold thieves to Chinese pirates (Edison's later adventures took him around the world) to radium thieves.
Frank Faber. Frank Faber was created and written by "Karl Richard," the penname of Richard Blasius, and appeared in Frank Fabers Abenteuer #1-52, 1939-1940. He was an adventurer whose missions took him around the world, from Kurdistan to Mexico to India. Faber was in many way similar to Rolf Torring, although Faber himself was described as an American with a German mother. Faber's best friend, Patrick Button, was Irish.
Fred Faber. This was a Nazi-approved version of Fred Faber, also written by Richard Blasius. He appeared in Fred Faber's Abenteur #53-124, 1940-1941. Fred Faber, unlike his predecessor, was pure-bred German, and Fred's Watson was no longer the Irish Patrick Button but the German Hein Lemke.
Norbert Falk. He was the German hero of Norbert Falk in der Fremdenlegion (Norbert Falk in the Foreign Legion) #1-105, 1931-1933. He was, like the other German French Foreign Legion heroes and Heinz Brandt, active around Africa and the world, oppressing various native peoples in the name of French imperialism.
Jörn Farrow. This hero was created by Hans Reinhard and appeared in Jörn Farrow's U-Boot Abenteuer (Jörn Farrow's U-Boat Adventures), #1-357, 1932-1937. Jörn (or "Joern") Farrow was the youthful and heroic commander of an advanced submarine who had fantastic, Nemo-like adventures across the world. He had at least one recurring villain, a Yellow Peril type called Lu Wang. Farrow crossed over with Captain Mors in #61, too, and with Rolf Torring in #100. It was also revealed in Rolf Torring #92 that Jörn's father was a U-boat captain named Hans Farrow, and that following WW1 Hans had retreated from the victorious Allied forces and hidden, with his crew, in a South Sea atoll. This series was very popular and continued after the war and in to the 1960s.
Max Fink & Moritz Peter. Max & Moritz were created by Hans-Willy Hocke and appeared in Fink und Peter, die Knorken Jungens (Fink & Peter, the Over-Enthusiastic Kids) #1-7, 1912 (?). They were two enthusiastic teens with a tendency to get themselves into adventures far, far over their heads.
Reporter Flax. Reporter Flax was created by Bert Oehlmann and appeared in Reporter Flax #1-11, 1922. Flax was a crime-busting reporter for a Berlin daily.
Flier. This pilot, whose name I haven't been able to find, appeared in Flieger-Abenteuer (Flier Adventures) #1-6, in 1939. He was a German-American who was, surprisingly, active primarily in America, especially America's West, in what seems to have been an attempt, most likely ill-inspired, to combine the flight genre with the Western genre. The flier ventured into the "Alligator Sea," settled the War in the Fazenda, put down a new American Civil War, got into hijinks along the Rio Negro, and sought a mysterious "white Indian" in the Amazon jungle.
The Four Musketeers. The Musketeers appeared in Die Vier Musketiere (The Four Musketeers) #1-52, 1935-1937. The Four Musketeers were heroic German airmen who used technologically-advanced aircraft, seemingly derived from Captain Mors' technology (viz. issue #5), to fight crime and evil men, ala G-8. The Musketeers' Rogues Gallery sounds enticing: Moloch, the Seal of Satan, the Yellow Dragon, the Black Werewolf, the Blue Tiger, the Vampir, the Czar of the Arctic, the Black Legion, the Scorpion, and Achmed the Dervish.
Timm Fox. This detective hero appeared in Timm Fox, der Konig der Detektiv (Timm Fox, the King of Detectives) #1-48 and Aus den Geheimakten, Eines Weltdetektvis (From the Secret Acts, A World Detective) #1-11, both starting in 1921. Some of his story titles were, "The Living Holy Picture," "The Hunt after the Sudanese Corpse," "The Carnage of the Secret Sect," "The East River Murder House," "A Human Devil," "The Secret of the Martians," "Three Weeks in the Eternal Egg," and "The Man With Three Eyes." Some of these titles would seem to indicate a more fantastic environment for Timm Fox than the ordinary detective. He also jousted (in a friendly way, of course) with Nick Carter, of all people, in Hyänen auf dem Schlachtfelde des Lebens (Hyenas on the Battlefield of Life) #15.
Detective Frank. Detective Frank was created by Matthias Blank and appeared in the play Erlebnisse des Detektiv Frank (The Experiences of Detective Frank, 1908) and then in the magazines Erlebnisse des Detektiv Frank #1-5, 1910 (?), and in Detektiv Frank #1-7, 1916-1918, written by O.E. Ehrenfreund. Frank was a Holmes-style consulting detective.
Jack Franklin. This Nick Carter-"influenced" character was known as the "World Detective." He appeared in Jack Franklin, der Meisterdetektiv (Jack Franklin, the Master Detective) #1-41, in or around 1911. Like Carter, his adventures took him around the world, from Bombay to East St. Louis to Warsaw.
Fred. Fred, of no last name, appeared in Fred ex Voto (Fred, from a vow, 'ex voto' being a Latin phrase) #1-9, in 1923. Fred is actually an intriguing character, and I wish I had more information on him. As best I can tell, he is a wandering adventurer who was so badly burned by a love of affair (he is the "pariah of love") that he sold all his effects, abandoned his last name, and took off on a trip around the world, going where he will. He deals with the "Revenge of the Gypsy Prince," and "the Secret of the Devil's Moors," among other stories.
Kurt Gafran. Kurt appeared in Kurt Gafrans Reiseabenteuer (Kurt Gafran's Travels and Adventures) #1-56, and then was reprinted in sequence, running from 1922-1932 in all. They were supposedly the stories of the real Kurt Gafran and his adventures in India, the Sahara, Mexico, New York, around the Mediterranean, in the Rif desert, Sumatra, etc. Unusually for the heldroman, the stories appeared in sequences, so that issues #1-4 were the "Der Inder" series, #5-7 were the "Bei den Räubern der Sahara" story arc, and so on.
Ralph Garby. Ralph Garby was created by Oscar Breucker and appeared in Die Erlebnisse und Abenteuer des Detektivs Ralph Garby (The experiences and adventures of Detective Ralph Garby) #13-25 (it was a continuation of Wessels-Kriminal-Bucherei, which was not devoted just to Garby). He was yet another of the famous, world-traveling detectives, active in Birmingham, Budapest, Hong Kong, and Persia.
Florian Geier. Geier appeared in Florian Geier's Kampf mit den Raubrittern (Florian Geier's War with the Robber Knights) #1-50, 1907, the series being reprinted in 1914. Like Klaus Störtebecker, Florian Geier was an actual person, a German farmer who in 1524 & 1525 led a farmer's revolt against a corrupt band of thuggish knights. In 1525 Geier and his forces lost a key battle in Ingoldstadt, with their siege of the castle of Giebelstadt being defeated. The magazine stories were fictionalisations of Geier's real life as well as more standard heroic fiction stories. The series ended with Geier's death at the seige of Giebelstadt.
The Gentleman of the Air. This Robur-like character appeared in an eponymous Robert Kraft-written series running from 1922 to 1923.
Konrad Götz. Konrad Götz appeared in Konrad Götz der Wandervogel (Konrad Götz the Wandering Bird) #1-47, 1914-1915. He was a wandering adventurer who traveled the world, from the American prairies to Belgrade to Russia. The series may have had some anti-Semitism, one of the stories being entitled "The Shylock of Saloniki." When WW1 began Gotz left aside his adventuring around the Mediterranean and hustled to the front. As it happened, Götz was actually a witness to the murder in Sarajevo, but with the commencement of the war he was unable to rejoin the German army, and so he joined up with the Österreichern in their "revenge-war against Serbia."
Wolf Greif. Wolf Greif was created by Elisabeth von Aspern and appeared in Wolf Greif #1-6, 1939-1941. This was the Nazi-approved version of Tom Shark, created when the Nazis outlawed series with English-sounding heroes. Wolf Greif was now a member of the police force of Rio de Janeiro, still of German descent and still a world-traveling adventurer and crime-solver. He was assisted by Peter Strunz, also a young man of German descent but now a reporter for the Journal do Commercio and the narrator of Greif's adventures.
Fred Gunther. Fred Gunther was created and written by Gustav Winter and appeared in Fred Gunther's Abenteuer (Fred Gunther's Adventures) #1-5, 1921. He was a spy for Germany, taking on and defeating the enemies of Germany, including an American spy.
Kid Gurney. This Western hero appeared in an eponymous series in 1939. It ran for 23 issues and was written by Anton Johann Maly.
Count Leo V. Hagen. Hagen appeared the Robert Kraft-penned series In Search of the World Cure. Hagen was a German-American reporter who had adventures across the globe. There were at least five issues, starting in 1899: "From the Earth," "The Fogship," "The Swimming Island," "Yermack of the Cossack Leaders," and "The Forest Devil."
J. Halifax. J. Halifax, creator unknown, appeared in Die Abenteuer des J. Halifax (The Adventures of J. Halifax) #1-3, in 1928. He was an adventurer who solved crimes and helped Germany protect state secrets.
Harald Harst. Harst, a detective hero, appeared in Der Detektiv Harald Harst (The Detective Harald Harst), a series which ran from 1919 through 1934, although the series began as Der Detektiv and Harst did not appear in every issue.
Cora Buhlert (blessings upon you, Cora!) provided much more information on Harald Harst:
This detective hero starred in 372 issues of the magazine Harald Harst - Aus meinem Leben (Harald Harst - From my Life), which was published between 1919 and 1934. Harst starts out as a prosecutor and turns detective when his fiancee, Marga Milden, is murdered. Along the way he picks up the pickpocket Max Schraut, aka Comedian Max, who has just escaped from prison to attend the burial of his mother. The kindly Harst agrees not to turn Schraut in until the funeral is over. In return, Schraut helps him to track down the killers of Marga Milden. After the killers are safely apprehended, Harst and Schraut remain together for many other adventures.Bob Hill. This cowboy hero appeared in an eponymous series from 1940 through 1951, most likely excepting the war years.The duo have a Holmes and Watson type relationship. Harst, who is described as tall and gentlemanly as well as independently wealthy, is the brains. He is also a crack-shot with his Clement-pistol (a brand that never existed) and smokes opium laced cigarettes (apparently drug use was not yet considered a problem). Schraut, on the other hand, is short and corpulent and a little bit stupid. He is the muscle of the team and also provides valuable contacts to the underworld. In a move akin to the Sherlock Holmes stories, Schraut is also the narrator of the stories. Harst and Schraut are based in an idyllic house in Berlin-Schmargendorf (which is later burned down by a gangster queen) together with Harst's mother and a cook named Mathilde. Many of there adventures take place in Berlin, but also in other parts of Germany, Scandinavia and even in India. In his final adventure, Harst drowns in the Baltic Sea near Swinemuende (which is nowadays a Polish city known as Swinoujscie), while fighting a criminal master mind.
The Harst stories were written by author Walther Kabel, using the penname Max Schraut. Kabel was born in 1878 and initially intended to become a lawyer before being side-tracked by his writing talent. Kabel started to write for the pulps while still in his teens. In 1919 he was offered to take over a pulp series called Der Detektiv (The detective) and created Harald Harst. A lot of Kabel's personal life went into the Harst stories, and his lifelike and detailed descriptions of people and places made them extremely popular with German pulp readers. Especially, the despictions of pre-war Berlin are said to be very atmospheric.
Like so many other, Kabel got in trouble when the Nazis came to power in 1933. In fact, Kabel had even briefly joined the Nazi party back in 1925 but left in disgust after seeing the SA beat up Jewish shopkeepers (there are quite a few positive Jewish characters in his novels). After the Nazis came to power, every writer had to be licensed by the Ministry of Propaganda, whose head was Joseph Goebbels. Goebbels had also been the head of the Berlin division of the Nazi party back in 1925 and bore a personal grudge towards Kabel for leaving the party. Thus, Kabel was forbidden to write and publish almost as soon as the Nazis came to power. He wrapped up the Harst series as well as the other pulps he was writing and attempted to start a new series Die Drei von der Feme (difficult to translate this one, an approximation would be "The three secret vigilantes"), keeping his authorship a secret. This lasted for three issues, then Kabel was found out and the new series was banned as well. Desperate and also suffering from a lung disease picked up in WWI, he shot himself in 1935.
Harry Hill. Harry Hill appeared in Harry Hill, der Weltmeister der Sensationen (Harry Hill, the World Champion of Sensations) #1-27, 1921-1922. Hill was a standard adventurer hero, active around the world and in the land, sea and air.
Captain Axel Holm. Captain Holm appeared in Kapitän Axel Holm's Abenteuer (Captain Axel Holm's adventures) #1-18, 1919-1920. He was a ship Captain, active in the 18th century, adventuring around the world.
Harry Houdini. In much the same fashion that Harry Piel was fictionalised by the heldroman, so too was Harry Houdini. I have been unable to find whether he was the subject of a serial or if his appearance was a one-off. In fact, the existence of Houdini's fictional adventures had eluded me altogether, but not, thankfully, the attention of Greg Gick, who writes:
In Kenneth Silverman's Houdini!!! (note the three exclaimation points), I found this in the ninth chapter, covering 1916-1917.Lukas Hull. Lukas Hull appeared in Lukas Hull, Detektiv Abenteuer (Lukas Hull, Detective Adventures) #1-8, 1921. He was a detective located in Hamburg but also active across Europe. Interestingly, one of his stories was about a Japanese spy called "Oka-Yuma;" this might well have been the same character as the Russian Oka-Yuma."Taking on the lineaments of a fictional character, he appeared in Germany as the co-hero of a thirty-two-page dime novel, Auf den Spuren Houdinis (Trailing Houdini), published also in Danish and French editions. Here a trio of envious Handcuff Kings tries to eliminate him by pouring sulfuric acid into his Milk Can. He is rescued by none other than the admiring Sherlock Holmes."
Bob Hunter. This cowboy hero appeared in Bob Hunter auf Indianerpfaden (Bob Hunter On Indian Paths) for 111 issues between 1937 and 1939 and then again after WW2. He was written by "F.L. Barwin," the pseudonym of Lisa Barthel Winkler and Fritz Barthel. He was active in the Wild West, but like many of the German cowboy heroes he had a much more vivid and exciting set of adventures than their American counterparts. Bob Hunter, along with his native pal Red Ben, encountered the Red Pirate, black Amazons, slave handlers in Louisiana, Aztecs along the Rio Puerco, The Man In The Red Turban, the King of the Forests (a Robin Hood type), a Comanche war on Canadian settlers (!), and a vicious group of Molly Maguires.
Tom Hypnos. Tom Hypnos appeared in Tom Hypnos, der König der Geheimwissenschaften (Tom Hypnos, the King of the Secret Sciences) #1-13, 1921 (?). Tom Hypnos is a German adventurer who got the power of hypnosis from various Indian fakirs. He uses this power and his natural adventurousness to fight evil, some of it fantastic, around the world, from the Pyramids to India to Mars itself.
Robby Ix. Robby Ix was created by Paul Hain and appeared in Robby Ix #1-48, 1935-1936. He was a London-based detective.
Jimmie Jackson. Jimmie Jackson was created by Doug J. Layton and appeared in Vagabunden des Schienenweges (Wanderer of the Railways) #1-17, 1929-1932. Jackson was a do-gooder who wandered the rails of America, doing good wherever he went.
Jambo. This magazine, about a white big game hunter in Africa ("Jambo" means "hello" in Swahili), appeared in the 1920s and 1930s.
Jesse James. This fictionalized version of the real-life criminal appeared in Jesse James--Amerikas groesster Abenteuer (Jesse James--America's biggest adventurer), Die Abenteuer der James-Bande (The adventures of the James Band), and Jesse James, Amerikas Gefürchtetster Brigant (Jesse James, America's Most Feared Brigand) #1-11, in the years before, during, and after World War One. Jesse James, of course, appeared in any number of American dime novels during the 19th century, and even during the early years of the 20th century was fodder for pulps. When American authors fictionalized James, however, he was most often an anti-hero, sometimes being portrayed as a Robin Hood of sorts but more often being shown to be a crook and bandit with some redeeming qualities but nonetheless a criminal. The German version of Jesse James, however, was an out-and-out hero, a Robin Hood who helped the poor and robbed from the rich and never, never, never, did anything to deserve the hounding he got from the unfair lawmen of the Old West.
Mister Jenkin. Mister Jenkin was created by Mark Schaffer and appeared in Mr. Jenkins Abenteuer (Mr. Jenkin's adventures) #1-30, 1932. A German in America's Old West, he was similar to Old Shatterhand, only without Karl May's talent behind it. He did, however, go up against a vampire, which I don't think even Old Shatterhand ever did.
Billy Jenkins. Billy Jenkins was a Western hero who was one of the biggest stars of German pulp fiction. He appeared in a number of series, including Billy Jenkins #1-4 (1930) and Billy Jenkins, The Cowboy King #1-264 (1934-1939), and then again from 1949 through the 1963. Cora Buhlert contributes this about the real Billy Jenkins:
There was an actual Billy Jenkins, a German born circus rider and animal trainer. Born in 1895 as Erich Rudolf Otto Rosenthal, he had a life as colourful as any pulp character. He ran away to sea as a young boy, took part in the Boer War as well as the Boxer Rebellion, worked as a cowboy in the American West and perfored in the finest circuses in both America and Europe. He lived to see his incarnation as a pulp character and survived the Third Reich, although his father had been Jewish. Several injured while trying to save his beloved animals from a circus fire in 1940 (which was rumored to have been started by the Gestapo) he died poor but not forgotten in 1954.All of this would make for an excellent movie or biography. The pulp series ignored all of that, unfortunately, and went for much more pulp-y stories. Billy Jenkins, in the pulps, was a secret agent for the U.S. government active in the American West, in Alaska, and even in Central and South America during the 1920s and 1930s. He had his very own arch-enemy and was wanted by the law in Arizona for a crime he did not commit. He also had a Cheyenne sidekick (whose original name was something ridiculous but whose post-WW2 name was the more real-sounding "Hunting Wolf"), and a companion wolf Husky. He was not only a top shot but an ace with the lariat. The stories, which had very Gothic settings (decayed graveyards, abandoned mines, and the like), involved things like zombies, killer plagues, gold thieves and car hijackers. On a few occasions he crossed over with Hans Stoch-Sarrasini. In 1939 the German government forced the cancellation of Billy Jenkins, along with all the other series whose heroes had English-sounding names. Robert Ramm was the Nazi-approved replacement.Harri Kander. Get this--he's East German! An actual East German pulp hero! He was the star of Die Abenteuer des Fliegenden Reporters Harri Kander (The adventures of Harri Kander, the flying reporter), which appeared in the 1950s. Kander was a reporter for the East German news who traveled around the world fighting decadent capitalist swine.
Kansas Jack. This cowboy character appeared in an eponymous series which appeared for 10 issues from 1938 to 1939. The series was written by the same author who wrote the Billy Jenkins series.
Rolf Karsten. Rolf Karsten appeared in Rolf Karsten, der Schrecken der Berliner Unterwelt (Rolf Karsten, the Terror of the Berlin Underworld) #1-6, 1930. He was a tough consulting detective who waged war on the criminals of Berlin.
Ethel King. Ethel King was created and written by divers hands and appeared in Ethel King, ein weiblicher Sherlock Holmes (Ethel King, a Female Sherlock Holmes) #1-201, from 1912-1915. (There was a later French version.) She was a tough, no-nonsense (though of course feminine) detective who took on and defeated some very tough customers, from “Long Ho, the Chinese Horror” to “The Bomb Woman” to “the Demon Female” to “Professor Smith, the Fiend in Human Form.” She was also in some ways quite Holmesian, down to her pipe smoking, but was in her mid-twenties and was a native of Philadelphia.
Master King. Master King appeared in Master King, der Gentleman-Detektiv (Master King, the Gentleman Detective) #1-25, 1923. he was a Holmesian consulting detective, working around Europe (Ireland, London, Zurich) and fighting various Sexton Blake-ian villains (Professor Blythe, the Crime Genius (who was a recurring villain for Master King), The Murder Clan, the Satan of London, pirates on the North Sea, Brill Brillon, the boss of the underworld, and a gang of Thugs). I don't know whether he is the same character as the Italian hero William King.
Robby King. Robby King was created by Paul Hain and appeared in Robby King #49-85, 1936-1937. Robby King was a Nazi-approved version of Robby Ix, but King was located in Berlin and traveled around Europe and the world solving crimes. As far as I can tell there was no anti-Semitism in the series.
King of the Paris Apaches. This bandit-king, creator unknown, appeared in Der König der Pariser Apachen (The King of the Paris Apaches) #1-16, 1910 (or thereabouts). He did not have any similarity to Fantomas, predating him by a year, and in fact was rather dull, all things considered.
John Kling. John Kling appeared in Welt Kriminal Bucherei (World Criminal Book) #1-21, and John Kling's Abenteuer (John Kling's Adventures) #22-35, and then Welt Kriminal Bucherei again, #36-42, and then John Kling's Abenteuer again, #43-592, running from 1924 to 1933 and then again from 1949 through 1954, as well as John Kling's Erinnerungen (John Kling's Memories) #1-215, 1931-1939, and John Kling Bucher #1-21, from 1937 to 1939. John Kling was a detective hero, one of the foremost of the German heldromans. He was assisted by Jones Burthe in a Holmes-Watson arrangement, although Kling was more similar to Sexton Blake in being more action-oriented. While Kling was, of course, not in Blake's class--certainly not in terms of villains, of whom Blake had a Rogues Gallery for the ages--Kling had a good long run of stories, both in variety and in longevity. He went around the world, fighting occultists, "Satan," "Madame Satan," pretenders to operetta kingdoms, and boxing champions; he found a lost kingdom of Mayans, was appointed King of another European operetta kingdom, investigated Martian gold, and encountered the "Three-Eyed Buddha." (#501, "The Man From Baker Street," was a crossover with an English detective who might have been Holmes but more likely was Sexton Blake.) His love interest was Mary.
Loke Klingsor. Loke Klingsor, The Man With the Devil's Eyes was a Robert Kraft series written in 1927. Loke Klingsor dressed like, and apparently was a lift from, Dr. Nikola. Klingsor had and had hypnotic powers.
Nick Knatterton. Nick Knatterton was created by Manfred Schmidt and appeared in an eponymous comic strip in the Grünen Post newspaper beginning in 1936. He was modelled on Nat Pinkerton.
Sun Koh. Sun Koh appeared in Sun Koh, Die Erbe von Atlantis (Sun Koh, the Legacy of Atlantis) which ran from 1933 to 1936 for 150 issues and was written by "Lok Myler," the pseudonym of Paul Alfred Müller-Murnau. Sun Koh was about the "inheritance of Atlantis." Sun Koh, the direct descendant of the "Mayan kings," is a tall, bronzed, muscular man who has a strange map tattooed on his body. He literally falls out of the sky, landing in front of amazed bystanders in London one rainy night. He has amnesia, but that doesn't stop him from quickly gathering a group of friends (including Jan Mayen and, in #49, Alaska-Jim) and enemies (there are certain marked and not, I think, coincidental similarities to Doc Savage) as the stories work towards the climax of Atlantis rising from its grave at the center of the hollow Earth and Sun Koh being there and in power to claim it. There's a new ice age coming, see, and Atlantis will be the only city to survive it. Unfortunately, one of the themes of the series is eugenics--who will be the strongest and most fit to survive into the new age--and that can't help but put us in mind of the Nazis, under whom this was published. (Also see the Jan Mayen entry below.)
Sun Koh
An informative, illustrated German site on Sun Koh and Paul Alfred Müller-Murnau.Arno Kraft. Arno Kraft was a heroic robber, one of the noble highwayman characters who've been a staple of German popular literature since the 18th century. His series appeared in the 1910s.
Graf Harras von Kraft. Graf Harras appeared in Graf Harras von Kraft #1-8, 1922-1923. He was, in fact, an actual Graf (count), and like Prince Petroff he worked as a thief among the moneyed classes of Europe, stealing gold shipments from trains, robbing ministerial couriers, and such-like. He was particularly good at escapes, being known as the "German champion of escapes."
Horst Kraft. Horst Kraft appeared in Horst Kraft der Pfadfinder (Horst Kraft the Pathfinder) #1-313, 1913-1916 and 1919-1920. Horst Kraft was a German boy, late pre-pubescent (11 or 12), who traveled to South America and traveled across the continent, with his family and a number of other families. Kraft and his kid chums got into a number of adventures there, and then, when World War One began, Kraft, slightly older now, took off and went to Tsingtao, in China, and fought the wicked French and British there. After the war ended it was back to exploring for Horst. Among the places Horst adventured were Macao, China, Japan, Alaska, Bangkok, North Africa, Delhi, and other such foreign parts.
Legionnaire (I). This character, who may have been created by C.L. Panknin, appeared in Erlebnisse Deutscher Fremdenlegionäre (Experience of a German Legionnaire) #1-40, 1914-1915. I’m fairly sure that he was a different character from Heinz Brandt. Like Brandt, he was a German who was a member of the French Foreign Legion, and so got to have all the Legionnaire-type adventures: pirates in the Sahara, wandering in China, hunting down deserters in Casablanca, fighting fanatical Muslims in Algiers, chasing down “the Horror of Oman,” staking the vampire of the Sahara, and so on.
Legionnaire (II). This Legionnaire character appeared in Zehn Jahre in der Fremdenlegion (Ten Years in the Foreign Legion) #1-65, 1925 (?) And was in nearly every respect like Legionnaire (I).
Lene & Lotte. Lene & Lotte were created by Walter Neuschub and appeared in Lene und Lotte #1-24, 1922. They were two adventurous girls who got into Nancy Drew-style adventures.
Lord Lister. For most of the particulars about Lord Lister, see his entry in the French Heroes section. In Germany, he appeared in Lord Lister, gennant Raffles, der Meisterdieb (Lord Lister, named Raffles, the Master Thief) #1-81, 1909-1911, and Lord Lister, genannt Raffles, der große Unbekannte (Lord Lister, named Raffles, the Great Unknown) #1-83, 1932-1935.
Harold Lloyd. Like Harry Piel and a couple of other figures here, Harold Lloyd, the movie star, was made the hero of a magazine, Harold Lloyd #1-5 in 1924. As with Piel et al, the fictional adventures of Lloyd had little to no relation to the real Lloyd’s life, and were considerably more adventurous.
Colonel Longarm. Colonel Longarm appeared in Oberst Longarm (Chief Longarm) #1-15, 1906-1907. He was an Anglo chief of the "Indian Police," that group of honkies who were in charge of oppressing the imprisoned American natives. Colonel Longarm, of course, was a good Indian policeman, also fighting the evil Indians and never the good ones, as well as various other bad men--pirates, train robbers, the Mafia, and the like. The series and the character had nothing to do with the modern pornographic Western series.
Lu & Lo. Lu & Lo appeared in Lu & Lo #1-37, 1915. They were like Lene & Lotte, two girls having various mild, Nancy Drew-style adventures.
Der Luftpirat. See The Captain Mors Page.
Männe & Max. Männe and Max were created by Reinhold Hansche and appeared in Männe und Max #1-133, from 1921-1922 and 1930-1932, and Männe und Max, Lustige Bubengeschichten (Männe and Max, Jolly Rascal Stories) #1-80, 1938. They were two German youths having Hardy Boys-style adventures.
Manolescu. Manolescu appeared in Manolescu, der Prinz von Dieb (Manolescu, the Prince of Thieves) #1-27, 1928. He was based on a real-life thief, one Georges Manolescu, a Hungarian who was apparently rather infamous in his day, and who was the source of the main character in Trouble in Paradise. The fictional Manolescu a gentleman thief who was explicitly described as being the vorganger, predecessor/ancestor, of John Kling. In Neue Kriminal Bibliothek #46 Nat Pinkerton clashed with Manolescu, thus making Manolescu Kling's father, rather than grandfather.
Jan Mayen. Mayen was a sort of detective-adventurer who was created by Paul Alfred Müller-Murnau and appeared in Jan Mayen, The Gentlemen of the Atom Power, which ran for 120 issues from 1936 to 1938. Mayen, who flew an atomic-powered aircraft, was active around the world, from Maracaibo to Africa to Ohio; some of his story titles were, "Atom Fire in Greenland," "The Representative of the Murdered," "The Invisible Fire," "The Diamond Sun," and "The Green Dragon." He even helped out Sun Koh on several occasions, Jan Mayen being Müller-Murnau's sequel to Sun Koh. In some of the stories Mayen and Sun Koh ventured into the hollow earth via a tunnel in Greenland. In others...well, I'll let Manfred Nagl tell it:
The heroes [of Sun Koh and Jan Mayen--Jess], charismatic leader types, have been chosen by fate--and also provided by it with the resources of a sophisticated and extremely powerful technology. It is their vocation to create new and arable territories for the German people and the White races. This they achieve by raising Atlantis out of the ocean and by making Greenland (Thule) arable. The manner in which Sun Koh and Jan Mayen treat the rest of humanity in the pursuit of their aims is distinguished from Nazi methods only insofar as the fictive inferior peoples speedily submit.Minx. Minx appeared in Minx der Geisterbeschwörer (Minx the Exorcist), issues unknown, appearing circa 1908, and Minx der Geistersucher (Minx the Ghostfinder) #1-10, c. 1910. He was a ghosthunter and ghostbreaker, usually wearing a tuxedo as he did so. Although several of his stories dealt with ordinary crimes, several others had fantastic elements to them--murder via hypnotism, screaming blood, disappearing corpses, and the like. I do not know whether Minx actually had Sar Dubnotal-like powers or whether he was more like Joseph Bell.Tom Mix. Mix appeared in an eponymous title, which featured fictionalized stories of his adventures.
Captain Morgan. This Captain Morgan, a fictionalised and very sanitised version of the historical pirate, appeared in Unter Schwarzer Flagge (Under the Black Flag) #1-240, 1907-1910. He was a heroic pirate, fighting people like "Captain Satan" and the "Tyrant of Zanzibar."
Phil Morgan. Phil Morgan appeared in Phil Morgan - Der Herr der Welt (Phil Morgan, a man of the world) #1-171, 1921-1922. Phil is an airman, very much like Hans Stark, who traveled the Earth and beyond with his two friends, Herbert Schranz, a big, bear-like man, and Jean, a boy. They go everywhere on Earth, from the Yukon to Lake Baikal to Shanghai, and even venture off-world, exploring comets, the Moon, and even foreign worlds. His vehicle, whose name is apparently "Phaenomen-Apparat" (Phenomen Apparatus) and which is powered by the wonder element "Morganite," can fly, drive on the land like a car, go underwater like a submarine, and go into space. Morgan himself is a heroic engineer/inventor who built his ship as well as various other technologically-advanced equipment, such as the "Death Ray," a gun which can anesthetise or kill. He was also capable of superhuman feats, such as catching bullets with his bare hands.
Salto Mortale. Salto Mortale, like Harry Piel et al, was a real person, a movie star during the 1920s and 1930s. His magazine, Salto Mortale, ran for 26 issues from 1937 to 1938, and portrayed him as a world-traveling adventurer.
Will Morton. Will Morton appeared in Kleine Detektiv-Romane (Small Detective Novels) #1-370, 1920-1927. Morton was a detective, based in New York, who traveled around the world, solving crimes and helping people.
Jack Mylong. Jack Mylong appeared in Jack Mylong, Der Abenteuerliche Hochstabler (Jack Mylong, the Adventurous Imposter) #1-30, 1921-1922. The fictional character may have been based on the actor Jack Mylong, thus replicating the Harry Piel trick, but the dates seem wrong. The fictional Jack Mylong was a do-gooding Lupin-alike.
Jack Nelson of the Tric-Trac-Tric. Jack Nelson appeared in Jack Nelson vom Tric Trac Tric #1-30, 1925-1926. After much wondering I can at last give some information on him. To begin with, the "Tric Trac Tric" was apparently somehow based on TricTrac, a French game related to backgammon. As for Jack himself, it's like this. In the world of 1999, there are new men and new technology, but still the same old crime and evil. Luckily for everyone, there's the Tric Trac Tric on the case. The TTT is a secret organization of 99 black helmeted vigilantes who fight against crime and are the terror of criminals everywhere. Leading the fight is Jack Nelson himself, the TTT's best agent and a master of boxing, soccer (that's what it says, I tell you no lie), motorcycles, autos, flying and swimming, as well as more mundane things like fighting and guns. The stories Jack appeared in were: "The Vanished Express Train," "The Cowboy of Death," "The Forger's Alliance," "The Red Domino," "The Smugglers of the Rio di Santo," "The Game Devil," "A Terrible Debtor," "The Midnight Rider," "Kognaw the Tipser," "The Warehouse Ghost," "The Alliance of the Three," "200 Kilometers an Hour," "K.O.," "The Blackfoot Profiteer," "The Revived Daisy Count," "The Railway Thieves of Texas," "Against the Insanity," "Around Gold and Love," "The Gold Shipment of the Steamer Gulliver," "The Flaming Auto," "The Dungeon in Lake Michigan," "The Rag Collectors of New York," "The Last Hour of the Dancing Tavani," "The Shadow on the Sea," "The Tank Person," "The Phantom of Ditmoore Castle," "Around the Race Horse, `Looker,'" "The Grey Cave," and "$100,000 Reward."
The New Eccentric Club. The Club was an unauthorised sequel-cum-spin-off from the Percy Stuart stories and appeared in Der Neue Excentric Club (The New Eccentric Club), #1-534, 1920-1927. The New Eccentric Club was a group of English gentlemen who solved murders and similar vile crimes, both in London and around the world, from Niagara Falls to Beijing to Paris and all points between, on the land, under the sea’s surface, and in the air. They often worked with Percy Stuart, but on occasion went off on their own. Sometimes they engaged in races, to see who could cross the oceans the fastest, but more often their stories involved murders and other vilenesses.
The New Leatherstocking. This Leatherstocking was created by divers hands and appeared in Der Neue Lederstrumpf (The New Leatherstocking) #1-587, 1912-1923. He was a latter-day Hawkeye, active on the American frontier after the Civil War. He dressed like Jeremiah Johnson and did the German-cowboy thing, fighting the bad guys (red and white), helping the good guys (red and white), and acting like a combination cowboy-detective-adventurer. His stories sometimes verged on the fantastic, as when he encountered, in the jungles of Mexico, the “City of the Gorilla Men.”
The New Robinson. This character was created by Heinz Waldau and appeared in Ein Neuer Robinson (A New Robinson) #1-60, 1912-1913. This poor soul was lost in the South Pacific and spent his issues wandering from island to island, encountering medusas, horrific storms, pirates, and the like.
Mr. Nobody. Mr. Nobody was created by Robert Kraft (apparently for a film by Johannes Jühling, although I haven't been able to find out which one) and appeared in Nobody - 30 Jahre im Dienste einer Weltzeitung (Nobody - Thirty Years in the Service of a Newspaper) #1-17, 1922. Mr. Nobody was, as you might have guessed, a reporter, working stories around the world, some with a fantastic tinge ("The Devil's Claw," "Little Pet, the Doppelganger," "The Yellow Dragon").
Old Ironhand. Old Ironhand was created by Friedrich Meister and appeared in Geheimnisse der Wuste #1-16 and Old Ironhand der Trapper #17-20 in 1909. Old Ironhand was a frontiersman and trapper active in the American frontier in the years of the Wild West.
The Old Scout. The Old Scout--I haven't been able to find his name--was created by William Taylor and appeared in Der Alte Waldläufer (The Old Scout) #1-27, 1919-1920. He was, as you might have guessed, an aging scout and Indian fighter on America's frontier, dressing like Jeremiah Johnson and fighting "wizards," jaguars, and the like, from Canada down to Mexico. I don't believe he had anything to do with the American dime novel Old Scout.
Fred Parker. Fred Parker appeared in Fred Parker, Die Erlebnisse des Großen Unbekannten (Fred Parker, the Experiences of the Great Unknown) #1-152, 1921-1923. He was a straight-shooting adventurer and detective, active around the world.
Lee Parry. Lee Parry was created by Dr. Paul Rosenhain & Dr. Paul Hain and appeared in Lee Parry--Die tollkühne Abenteuerin (Lee Parry, the daring adventuress) #1-35, 1924. Surprisingly, Lee was a she, and the series was about the travels of an adventuress, one of the few in the German heldromans. She wasn't functionally that much different from the other German adventurers apart from sex. She traveled around the world (Mont-Martre, Upsala, the Rif desert, Whitechapel), fought interesting opponents (the Lady In Black, the Smiling Muslim, the Death Club), made good friends (the Gypsy Princess, the White Knight), and in most ways was just like Fred Parker or Jack Patterson, apart from being a woman.
Jack Patterson. Jack Patterson was created by Lothar Wolffen and appeared in Jack Patterson, Der Meisterdetektiv (Jack Patterson, the Master Detective) #1-8, 1920. He was a detective.
Jürgen Peters. Jurgen Peters appeared in Jürgen Peters der Schiffsjunge (Jurgen Peters the Ship Boy) #1-448, 1914-1923. Jurgen was a ship boy who was before the mast in the 1870s and 1880s, sailing around the world on the ship Sturmvogel (Storm Bird) and having adventures (some of the them verging on the fantastic) everywhere. His captain was Kapitan Schlüter and his best friend, the Sturmvogel's helmsman, was Oll Kopp. (There was also, apparently, some anti-Semitism, with one story being titled "The Shylock of Buenos Aires.")
Rolf Petersen. Petersen was created by Paul M. Brandt and appeared in Karins Versprechen (Karin's Promise, 1943). Petersen is a German detective dealing with a diamond-smuggling ring located in Copenhagen. The ring is actually controlled by American gangsters, leading Brandt, through Petersen, to describe America as "the paradise of the gangsters."
Prince Petroff. Prince Petroff was created by Robert Heymann and appeared in Fürst Petroff, der König der Hochstapler (Prince Petroff, the King of the Imposters) #1-10, in 1908, with a two-book reprint coming a few years later and then another reprint series in 1920. Prince Petroff was in fact a Prince, the scion of royalty of an unnamed European country, who did the Arsene Lupin routine among the rich and famous and blooded nobility, both in Germany and abroad, especially in Russia. He also did some good, taking on the Black Hand and fighting against an "insane locomotive engineer." (Go figure.)
Harry Piel. Harry Piel, it turns out, was a notable German film star, born Hubert August Piel in 1892. He worked in a number of genres, was a success whether in the circus, playing a romantic lead, performing as an adventure hero, or acting opposite Marlene Dietrich (!). He acted for 40 years and in 110 films, but his downfall came (as with so many other Germans) during World War Two, when he entered the Nazi Party and became a public relations officer for the SS. He did six months prison for that, after the war, and on emerging from prison found that he could not duplicate his past successes. His second wife died in 1960, and he briefly moved to South Africa to be with his son Harry, but found he could not stand the heat, and he returned to Germany. He lived on charity after that and died, poor, in 1963.
The fictional Harry Piel appeared in a number of magzines: Harry Piel, Der Tollkühne Detektiv (Harry Piel, the Rash Detective) #1-92, 1920-1923; Harry Piel, Der Abenteurer-König (Harry Piel, the Adventure King) #1-150, 1922-1926; and Harry Piel, Abenteuer #1, 1928. The fictional Harry Piel was apparently a crystallization of his film persona. The fictional Harry Piel was a "gentleman of the world," a detective-adventurer at ease in the abysses of the wilds and in the big city, fighting for good, helping the poor and downtrodden, rescuing the imperilled maiden, etc etc etc.
Fred Pinkerton. Fred Pinkerton appeared in Fred Pinkerton, Amerikas Meisterdetektiv (Fred Pinkerton, America's Master Detective) #1-140, 1920-1921. He was the son of Nat Pinkerton, and took after his father in being a great detective in his own right. He, like his father, was very much from the Nick Carter mold, crisscrossing the U.S. and the world in the course of his cases. He was helped by Lord, his bloodhound.
Jimmy Pinkerton. Jimmy Pinkerton appeared in an eponymous series beginning in 1919. Like Fred Pinkerton he was the son of Nat Pinkerton, and like Fred he emulated his father and was a great detective in his own right.
Nat Pinkerton. See his entries in the French Heroes and Russian Heroes sections for the basic information on the fictional Nat Pinkerton. In Germany, though, he was not just a great detective but also the father of great detectives, including Fred Pinkerton. Nat appeared in Nat Pinkerton, der König der Detectivs (Nat Pinkerton, the King of Detectives) #1-476, ~1910-1915, and Pinkerton, Amerika's grosster Detektiv (Pinkerton, America's Greatest Detective) #1-10, 1929. In his stories he had not just Fred Pinkerton as a son but two others, Jimmy and one named Tommy. Interestingly, in #26 he fought Oka Yuma, the Japanese spy, just as Lukas Hull did. Perhaps Russian Oka Yuma made a practice of plaguing German detectives?
Harry Pitt. Harry Pitt appeared in Harry Pitt's Abenteuer #1-25, 1927. He was an adventurer whose travels took him to the U.S. and England, where he fought evil masked crime leaders and Satanic cults.
Eddy Polo. As with a couple of other figures in this section, like Harry Piel, the Eddy Polo stories were fictional stories using a real person. Next to nobody remembers Eddy Polo now, but in his day he was enormously popular, one of the kings of film; known as the “Hercules of the Screen,” he had a long career, and his filmography, seen on the Internet Movie Database, gives you an idea of his career. He appeared in a few German magazines, including Der Zirkuskönig, Eddy Polo (The Circus King, Eddy Polo) #1-6, 1922, and Eddy Polo Serie #1-58, 1923-1924. In the magazines he was a circus owner and adventurer, wandering around the world solo or with his circus and doing good.
Peter Porr. He was the German hero of a few series, including Peter Porr--Alaska Gold and Peter Porr, China Adventures. He was a cowboy who traveled very widely, from Alaska to China. The magazines were published in the 1930s.
Nic Pratt. Nic Pratt appeared in Nic Pratt, Amerikas Meisterdetectiv (Nic Pratt, America's master detective) #1-33, 1922. He was a typical Nick Carter-influenced detective.
Tom Prox. Tom Prox was a Western hero identical in most respects to Billy Jenkins. He appeared in the post-War years and ran through the early 1950s.
Robert Ramm. Robert Ramm appeared in an eponymous magazine for ten issues from 1939-1940. He was the Nazi-approved replacement fro Billy Jenkins, following the latter's cancellation due to his English-sounding name. Ramm, a German, was a cowboy hero on the American frontier.
Reo Ratt. Reo Ratt appeared in Reo Ratt - Im Kampf gegen List und Gewalt (Reo Ratt, at war against crime and force) #1-9, 1924-1925. He was a German in America during the Wild West era, doing the Old Shatterhand bit, fighting evil and doing good.
Bob Reid. Bob Reid was created and written by divers hands and appeared in Bob Reid, der Meisterdetektiv (Bob Reid, the Master Detective) #1-16, 1922. Reid was a jowly American detective, given to wearing a deerstalker cap and affecting certain Holmesian attitudes, but he stuck to America in his investigations.
James Robertson. James Robertson was created by Kurt Falkenstein and appeared in James Robertson, Der Weltdetektiv (James Robinson, the World Detective) #1-136, 1919-1922, and #1-17, 1923. He was a world-traveling detective.
The Robinsons. The Robinsons appeared in Robinsons im Wilden West (Robinsons in the Wild West) #1-16, ~1920. This was a Wild West reprise of the Swiss Family Robinson, only involving a German family lost in the American frontier.
Rockheart. Rockheart was created by Walther Kabel and appeared in Felsenherz der Trapper (Rockheart the Trapper) #1-34, 1922-1923. He was a trapper active in the American frontier.
Rolf Rodewald. Rolf Rodewald was created by Dr. Adrian Mohr and appeared in Rolf Rodewalds Reise um den Erdball (Rolf Rodewald's Trip Around the Globe) #1-50, 1908-1909. Rodewald was a German adventurer and explorer who travled around the world, doing good; most of his adventures were in the United States, fighting against the Native peoples, but he did go elsewhere, to Hawaii, the Amazon, Peru (to fight the last of the Incas), New Guinea, and a few other places. But for the most part he stuck to the American West.
Jens Rolf. Jens Rolf appeared in Jens Rolfs Mystisch Abenteuerliche Erlebnisse (Jens Rolf's Mystical Adventurous Experiences) #1-10, 1922-1923. Rolf was a Sar Dubnotal type, taught mystical powers by Indian fakirs and using them in various global settings against evil men and powers. His stories were, "The Sleeping Beauty," "The Soul of the Tigers," "The Living Marionette," "The Experiment of Doctor Mors," "O Tsuru in the Jo-ta-ka Tea House," "The Vampire's Mansion," "Jimmy Brook, the Second Story Man," "At the House of the Storm Bird," and "A Modern Robbing Knight."
Frank Romane. Frank Romane was the detective hero of the Detektiv Frank Romane, which appeared for five issues in 1938; it was originally a novel, Hurrican - Frank, before being broken up for serialization.
Max Schraut. This Walther Kabel hero was a Great White Hunter/Adventurer type who had Professor Challenger-style adventures in lost lands stocked with dinosaurs and monstrous unknown and forgotten species.
Allan Scott. Allan Scott, created and written by divers hands, appeared in Allan Scott, der Berühmte Meisterdetektiv (Allan Scott, the Famous Master Detective) and Allan Scott, der Weltdetektiv (Allan Scott, the World Detective), which ran for 21 issues in or around 1920. He was, as you might have guessed, a famous global detective, although interestingly he was balding and had a mustache, rather than following the Holmes template.
Captain Seehorst. The Captain was created and written by Leopold Wogenhart and appeared in Detektiv-Abenteuer des Kapitän Seehorst (The detective adventures of Captain Seehorst) #1-21, 1920. He was a sailor and adventurer whose travels took him around the world, so that one issue he might be helping an Indian Rajah recapture a stolen diamond, in another issue he might be fighting pirates in the Indian Ocean, and in another issue be trapped in a pit of scorpions in Africa. He fought a “death cult” in Japan, female thieves in Samoa, and Zulus in South Africa.
Tom Shark. Tom Shark, the "King of Detectives," was created by "Pitt Strong," aka Elisabeth von Aspern (yes, that's right, a woman) and appeared in Tom Shark, der König der Detektivs (Tom Shark, the King of the Detectives) #1-553, 1928-1939. From 1939 through 1945 von Aspern was forced to publish a Nazi-approved version of Tom Shark called Wolf Greif. After the war von Aspern resumed the series under its original title, continuing it through 1951. Tom Shark was, of course, a world-traveling and very successful detective, whose stories had titles like "Two Hellish Days," "Mister X," "The House of Horror," and "The Patient of Dr. Harbichs."
Rama Singh. Rama Singh, created by Fritz Lange, appeared in Rama Singh - Indische Kriminalromane (Rama Singh, the Indian detective) #1-11, 1925. Rama Singh was an actual Indian detective, rather than a Native American detective, making him possibly the only non-white, non-Native American lead character in the German heldroman. He was an actual detective, primarily active in India but also venturing into Burma, Ceylon, and even Mecca. (He was a Hindu, but went to Mecca. As I've said elsewhere on this site, it was the pulps--don't ask, just accept.) He investigated the "Secret of the Seven Pagodas," the "Secret Temple of Radnapura," "The Diamonds of Golconda," "The Revenge of the Caliph," the "Gold of Nineveh," the "Box of Flaring Flame," and the "Bengal Tiger."
Sitting Bull. Sitting Bull, who was (very) loosely based on the real person, appeared in 180 issues of Sitting Bull, Der Letze Hauptling Der Sioux-Indianer (Sitting Bull, the Last Chief of the Sioux Indians) and in most of the 180 issues of Berühmte Indianerhäuptlinge (Famous Indian Chiefs), both running from 1906 to 1909. He was, in this series, a heroic character, quite the reverse of the usual portrayal of First Nations people in magazines like Texas Jack (see below). He appeared in France (see his entry in the French Heroes section for slightly more information), in Holland (1907), Sweden (1908), Norway (1915, for 144 issues), and Italy (see his entry in the Italian heroes section for slightly more information).
The Slave Deliverers. This pair appeared in Die sklavenbefreier, für Menschenrecht und Menschenwürde (The Slave Deliverers, for Human Rights and Human Dignity) #1-18, 1921. I’m unfortunately short of information on this pair; I know they were active in Africa but I can’t tell whether they were active in the U.S. before the Civil War, as well. They appear to be German-Americans, to boot.
John Spurlock. Spurlock appeared in Detektiv John Spurlock (Detective John Spurlock) #1-36, 1915. He was the “man of a thousand disguises,” a master of disguise with certain Holmesian traits. A German-American, he was based in New York City but was active around the world, and some of his stories verged on the fantastic, as in the two-part “Message from Mars” sequence, in which he encountered and defeated Wells-ian Martians.
Fritz Stagart. Fritz Stagart was created by Max Landenburg and appeared in Fritz Stagarts Abenteuer (Fritz Stagart's Adventures) #1-80, 1909-1910 (or so). He was an American detective, active in the 1870s, both on the frontier and in the cities. Interestingly, he was neither a cowboy nor a frontier adventurer, but rather an Easterner who traveled widely.
Hans Stark. Hans Stark appeared in Hans Stark, Der Fliegerteufel (Hans Stark, The Flying Devil) #1-38, 1919-1920, and then in Hans Stark, der Weltraumfahrer (Hans Stark, the Spaceman), #1, 1950. In the former he was a typical (for the time period) flying hero, traveling widely and fighting crime and evil around the world. In the latter, an explicitly science fictional series, he was the father of the eponymous hero.
He was a German youth, too young to have appeared in the Great War, who took some advanced technology (source unknown, but hinted, in issue #1, to have ultimately come from Captain Mors) and created a ten metre long vehicle, driven by 25 batteries and capable of a speed of 400 km/hour. It has retractable wings and can change itself into a submarine. It is armed with machine guns and a bow heat ray. With this craft Stark traveled around the world, frightening Bedouin, Indian riots, Mexican insurgents, and bloodthirsty Zulus.
The stories he appeared in during his first run were: "Hundreds of Millions Through the Air," "In the Country of the Sorreks," "In Fort Peter-Paul," "Under the Mexican Revolution," "A Gambling Den in the Sky," "In Battle Against the Smuggler," "In the Hands of the Thuggees," "The Tunnel Destroyers," "The Treasure in the Australian Sea," "The Vanished Jewel Clerk," "The Thief of Millions," "The End of a Traitor," "The Battle in the Bulajawa Mountains," "The Survivors of Death," "The Gold Count," "Eleven Men," "The Battle in the Japanese Sea," "Captive of the Indians," "Robbing the Aristo," "A Drama in Siberia," "In the Country of the Zulus," "Jack Booth, the Traitor," "The Koribri Pirates," "The Ghost Ship at Sea," "The Annihilation of the Slaves," "The Heroic Boy Pilot," "In the Gorges of Nevada," "The Secret of the Garage," "In the Dream Country," "In the Shallows of the Crater," "The Sacrifices of the Towns of Atonement," "In Battle with the Kabylen," "The Jewel Swindlers," "Between the Icebergs," "War in Senegal," "The Smugglers of the Shoreline," "Under Chinese Beasts," and "The Convict of Sebastopol."
Hans Stoch-Sarrasini. Hans Stosch-Sarrasini, vaguely based on a real person, apepared in Hans Stosch-Sarrasini #1-80, 1923-1924? and #1-100, 1925-1926? The real Hans Stosch-Sarrasini knew the real Billy Jenkins, and the two occasionally crossed over in Hans’ magazine. Like Jenkins, Stosch-Sarrasini was a cowboy in the American frontier. Hans was also a circus owner and a crack shot, and his adventures and his circus brought him around the world, so that he encountered Apaches, tea-houses in Japan, hunting parties in the Indian state of Baradhot, and evil Cossacks in the Caucasus.
Klaus Störtebecker. See his French Heroes entry. His first appearance was from 1908-1909, in Klaus Störtebecker, Der Gefürchtete Herrscher der Meere (Klaus Stoertebecker, the Feared Ruler of the Seas) #1-60. He then appeared in the French version, and was reprinted twice in Germany, in 1930 and 1931 as Klaus Störtebecker, Die Liebe des Seeräubers (Klaus Störtebecker, the Love of the Pirates) and under his original title from 1932-1933, #1-54. Cora Buhlert contributed the following:
This pre-war series was based on the exploits of a real-life 14th century pirate who prowled the North Sea coast and was later captured and beheaded in Hamburg. Reportedly, his last request was that all of his shipmates past whom his headless body would walk were to be set free. Stoertebecker saved every single man. There are many other legends connected to the real-life Stoertebecker who has become something like the Robin Hood of North Germany. A few years back, somebody actually sued the city of Hamburg demanding them to rehabilitate Stoertebecker 600 years after his execution.In the German magazine he prowled across the North and Baltic Seas, fighting against the Hanseatics, the Danes, and the citizens of Hamburg. He even went as far south as Constantinople.Lord Stuart. Lord Stuart was created by Ernst Pinkert and appeared in Lord Stuart, der Große Abenteurer (Lord Stuart, the Great Adventurer) #1-76, 1919-1925. He was in the Arsene Lupin mode of the tuxedo-wearing gentleman adventurer and thief. He was not (officially) related to Percy Stuart, more's the pity. Lord Stuart traveled around the world, fought interesting opponents (the Vampire of Dover Street, Caracas the Devil, Roloff, the man nobody knew), had an anti-Semitic story ("the Shylock of Nizza"), and so on.
Percy Stuart. Percy Stuart appeared in Lord Percy vom Excentric Club #1-44, and Percy Stuart vom Excentric Club #45-134, from 1913 through 1916. He was a rich young English Lord. He started out as an independent adventurer, but when he got wind of the New Eccentric Club in London he tried to join them, only to be told that he had to solve 197 mysteries--the solving of unpunished crimes, the discovery of missing persons, and the like--to qualify for membership. He never did succeed in this, as he solved one mystery per issue, and the series, as mentioned, only made it to issue #134. He did receive help from the Club in solving the various mysteries, both in England and around the world. When World War One broke out a heroic Englishman was no longer a suitable hero for a German magazine, so Percy Stuart suddenly became an American millionaire, and the series continued apace until 1916, when the German military ordered the series' cancellation. In #88, Das Wunderauto (The Wonder Car), Stuart drove a very Frank Reade-like armored landrover/car across the American prairies, fighting off Indian attacks. (In 1916? Whatever....)
But that was not the end for Lord Percy and the New Eccentric Club. In 1917 Joe May directed the Fritz Lang-scripted film Der Hochzeit im Excentric Club. Then came Der Neue Excentric Club, for more information on which see the New Eccentric Club entry. In the "sequel" Percy, again an English Lord, was only partially able to solve the 197th case, and so, shamed, vowed to solve another 197. In issue #394, Percy finally joined the New Eccentric Club, but that wasn't enough for him. He was offered the Presidency of the Club if he would solve another 197 cases. Unfortunately, the series was cancelled by the publisher with issue #534, so Percy never solved his third set of 197 cases, but in the final issue Percy saves the daughter of the Club's President and gains her hand in marriage, thus making himself the President's successor.
That still wasn't the end. There was an abortive comeback in 1950, and from 1969-1972 the series ran on television, with Claus Wilcke in the title role. And then, in 1972, fifteen books of the original series were reprinted.
Captain Fred Stürmer. Captain Fred Stürmer was created by Harry Strong and appeared in Kapitän Stürmer Fahrten und Abenteuer zu Wasser und zu Lande (Captain Sturmer's Travels and Adventures on Land and Sea) #1-75, 1906-1908. Captain Fred Sturmer, on his ship the Albatross, sails around the world (during the 19th century) and has various adventures. He is known as sturm vogel, the "storm bird," but is well-known and well-loved wherever he goes.
Sturmvögel. (Storm Bird) In 1939 the German government cancelled all series with English-sounding heroes. Alaska Jim was one such. The Canadian Alaska Jim was replaced with the German Rolf Rauhaar, aka Rolf Kraft, aka Sturmvögel, who had previously appeared in Alaska Jim's series. The series, written by by "F.L. Barwin," the pseudonym of Lisa Barthel Winkler and Fritz Barthel, was about a German, having adventures in the Western frontier of America and Canada, accompanied by his native companion and friend Old Grey. It was called Sturmvöogel, Mit Buchse und Tobbogan durch die Arktis, Abenteuer zwischen Urwald und Prarie (Storm Bird, With Box and Toboggan to the Arctic, Adventures between the Jungle and the Prairie) and ran for 82 issues from 1939 to 1941.
Fred Tarnum. Fred Tarnum was created and written by Olaf Nesie and appeared in Fred Tarnum #1-100, 1928-1929. He was a cowboy, typical of the German heldroman variety.
Harry Taxon. Harry Taxon, created by Kurt Matull & Theo Blankensee (the creators of Lord Lister), appeared in a number of the many Sherlock Holmes "homages" which Germany (and Europe) was so fond of. In Taxon's case he was particularly popular, being something of a home-grown creation. Taxon, you see, was Holmes' assistant, replacing Watson. (The Holmes in these stories, however, is a variant Holmes.) Taxon is a young boy who serves as Holmes' famulus, detective-in-training, butler, secretary, gopher, and errand boy. Taxon is, of course, not slow-witted, and is actually rather agile and keen, to the point of sometimes correcting the errors of "Holmes." (!) Mrs. Watson, in the Harry Taxon stories, is called Mrs. Bonnet. Thanks to Nils Nordberg I can tell you a bit more information. Mrs. Bonnet, in the Taxon stories, does not answer the door; Holmes has equipped his apartment with a variety of instruments, including an "electric mirror apparatus," which lets him see who is at his door. Holmes, in the Taxon stories, is much more like Sexton Blake or Nick Carter than the traditional Holmes, being more action-oriented than intellectual.
Taxon appeared, among other magazines, in Detektiv Sherlock Holmes/Aus den Geheimakten des Welt Detektiv (From the Secret Operations of the World-Famous Detective) #1-230, 1907-1911, and in Harry Taxon und Sein Meister (Harry Taxon and His Master) #1-97, 1908-1909. The Holmes/Taxon stories were later reprinted in Spain (under the title of Memorias Intimas del Rey de los Detectives--see the Spanish Heroes section) and possibly elsewhere.
Teddy. Teddy was created by "Teddy de Ryter" (get it? Get it?) and appeared in Teddy, der Schatzjäger (Teddy, the Treasure Hunter) #1-6, 1922 (?). He was a German treasure hunter who traveled through the U.S. and India, searching for gold.
William Tex. This Western hero appeared in an eponymous series for 33 issues in 1939. It was written by Hans Curt Mueller.
Texas Bill. This Western hero appeared in an eponymous series in 1938 for 17 issues. It was written by Paul Hermann Schubert.
Texas Jack. This Western hero, who later appeared in both French (and other) magazines (see the French Heroes section for slightly more information), appeared in a few magazines, including Texas Jack, which ran from 1906 to 1911 for 215 issues, Der Grosse Kundschafter (The Great Scout) #1-100, from 1911-1912, Texas Jack, Der Große Kundschafter (Texas Jack, the Great Scout) #1-120, from 1930-1932, and Texas Jack, Der Große Kundschafter #1-75, 1932-1934. In his German stories he was much more of a scout than a cowboy, with an emphasis on exploration and finding new places and peoples rather than rounding up them doggies and such-like. Some of the stories took Jack into Maximilian's Mexico, with the French soldiers in Mexico being the villains. Others...well, as with most of the German cowboys, he did a fair number of exotic acts, fighting opium smugglers and the like around the Americas.
The Three Vigilantes. (Thanks to Cora Buhlert for some of the information here.) The Three Vigilantes were created by Walther Kabel and appeared in Die Drei von der Feme (roughly, “The Three Secret Vigilantes”) #1-3, in 1933. This title was reportedly the continuation of Olaf Karl Abelsen’s adventures. In this case, however, the Three were three masked men who dealt out secret justice; their stories were entitled, “The Snake Head of the Medusa,” “The Buzzard of Norwood,” and “A Dangerous Prize Competition.”
Claus Timm. (I'm rather tickled at being able to positively identify this character as something I'd previously guessed he was.) Claus Timm was created by "Hein Snut," the pseudonym of Willi Richard Sachse, and appeared in Claus Timm, der Held von Kamerun (Claus Timm, the Hero of the Cameroon) #1-19, from 1934 to 1935. Timm was a Great White Hunter and informal agent of the German government in their African colony in the years before and during World War One. He did the usual Great White Hunter/jungle action thing as well as fighting Allied spies, not just in the Kamerun but in the Congo, San Thome, and the Nyika Plateau. He was often helped by his wife, Ulla.
Rolf Torring. Rolf Torring was created by "Hans Warren" (most likely the pen name of the brothers Wilhelm & Hans Reinhard) and appeared in Rolf Torrings Abenteuer (Rolf Torring's Adventures) #1-446, 1930-1939, and then Rolf Torrings Reiseabenteuer (Rolf Torring's Traveling Adventures) from 1949 through the mid-1950s. Torring was a great white hunter type, the most successful and longest-running of the German heftroman variety, who traveled the world, exploring and adventuring. He was helped by his juvenile German water-carrier, Hans Warren, and by the enormous black Pongo, a racist stereotype. The only series is said to be very racist and sexist, and what I've read of Pongo (who actually says "Massa") confirms that. In #92, "The Temple Dancer," Rolf encountered a German U-boat captain named Hans Farrow, the father of Jörn Farrow. In #330 Rolf encountered the modern descendant of Captain Axel Holm.
Trapper Trueheart. Trueheart appeared in Trapper Treuherz #1-13, circa 1923. He was a trapper and frontiersman in America's frontier.
Pancho Villa. Yes, that Pancho Villa. An extremely fictionalised version of his life appeared in General Villa, der Mexikanische Rebellenführer (General Villa, the Mexican Rebel Chief) #1-12, 1914-1916, and then #13-51, 1920-1921. His stories showed him fighting against the exploitive gringos as well as against other bandits and bad guys. He found a lost Mayan temple, dealt with native witches, defeated a Japanese spy in Mexico (the Japanese, as it happened, actually did spy in Mexico during WW1, but more than that they landed some troops in Mexico in 1915 and then briefly marched them over the American border, just to see how alert the Americans were and what would happen during a surprise invasion--and if you don't believe me, well, do some research on the grounding of a Japanese cruiser in San Bartolome Bay in March, 1915), and in general had a much more glamorous life than the real Pancho Villa did.
Wanda of Brannburg. Wanda of Brannburg appeared in Wanda von Brannburg #1-22, 1907-1908. She was the Baronesse von Brannburg and was known as "Wanda of Brannburg, Germany's Master Detective." She was a female detective, similar to Miss Boston and Ethel King, whose career (according to her stories) began in 1895. She fought criminals around the world, from Berlin to Hamburg, where she overthrew the city's crimelord, to Budapest, where she uncovered the secret of the "vice caves," to a murder mystery in a rural mansion, to Frankfurt, where she caught a serial killer, to the Munich. She also and even fought a group of corrupt Masons.
Tom Webbs. This Western hero appeared in an eponymous series for 12 issues in the 1930s. It was written by "Robert Storr," a.k.a. Anton Johann Maly.
Joe West. Joe West appeared in Im Radio Club, Aus Dem Tagebuch des Ingenieurs West (In the Radio Club, From the Notebooks of the Engineer Joe West) #1-24, 1924-1925. Joe West was an Edison-like inventor who used the miraculous new invention of radio as a springboard not just for adventures but for further inventions, advanced airplanes, submersible ships, robots, and the like. West and his assistant Albin adventured around the world, using their fantastic new inventions to fight for good in stories like "The Homunculus," "The Secret of the Omega Rays," and "The Stolen Radium Crystal."
John Wilson. John Wilson appeared in John Wilson, Aus dem Geheimbuch des berühmten amerikanischen Detektivs (John Wilson, From the Secret Book of the Famous American Detective) #1-56, 1908-1910. Wilson was, as stated, a famous American detective, although his adventures were primarily within America, rather than taking place around the world.
Max Wing. Max Wing was created by Ernst Weber and appeared in Max Wing's Tolldreiste Abenteuer (Max Wing's Three Mad (?) Adventures) #1-9, 1933. He was a standard German heldroman adventure hero.
Winoga. Winoga appeared in Winoga, der Letzte Mohikaner (Winoga, the Last of the Mohicans) #1-90, 1921-1924. He was the classic German Noble Savage character, the last Mohican warrior, wandering the American frontier, fighting for good and helping the good red and white people against the evil red and white people. He even found Chingachgook's weapons in #86.
Young German. This nameless character–nameless as far as I’ve been able to discover, anyhow–was created by Hans Warren and appeared in Ein Deutscher Junge Fliegt Um Die Welt (A Young German Flies Across the World) #1-11, dates unknown. He traveled widely, and fought enemies like the “Devil Fu Chang,” the “Blue Knight,” and the “House of the Spider.”
Ghost (I). The Ghost (I) appeared in The Ghost Super-Detective in 1940. George Chance is a magician, one so good that he "excelled the late Harry Houdini in the technique of escape." He also teaches magic, being proficient in disguise, criminology, lock-picking, knife-throwing, psychology, stage illusion, background construction, and other such things as a professional magician needs to know. Naturally, he wished to put his skills to use fighting crime, and so he put on a fright mask and became "the Ghost" (sometimes "the Green Ghost"), aiding Police Commissioner Standish against the bad guys. (Standish, for his part, knows that Chance is the Ghost and so gives him every cooperation possible.) George was raised in a circus and was wise in the tricks of the trade, but more often used his skills as a magician to catch crooks and to save his girlfriend, Merry White, who was often in trouble. Chance is assisted by Joe Harper, a freeloader and con man who provides information to the Ghost in exchange for money and a place to sleep, and Tiny Tim Terry, a circus midget with a foul attitude, and Glenn Saunders, a young fella who is greatly attracted to magic and who idolizes the Ghost.
The
Ghost!
A short bio of the Ghost from the Secret
Headquarters site.
Ghost (II). The Ghost (II), Brian O'Reilly, was created by Wyatt Blassingame and appeared in Ace G-Men beginning in September 1939. He's a former stage magician who was forced to kill a foreign agent. In the aftermath of that fight he was declared legally dead, but the FBI began employing him as an undercover agent. He reported directly to The Chief (aka J. Edgar Hoover) , and used his magician's skills of disguise, sleight-of-hand, and ventriloquism to track down and catch the bad guys.
Ghost Exterminator. The Ghost Exterminator was created by Gelett Burgess and appeared in Cosmopolitan and possibly a few other magazines from 1904 through 1906. The Exterminator is Hoku Tamanochi, a Japanese San Franciscan who uses an ancient Japanese formula and his family's traditional skills to exorcise the ghosts of San Francisco. Hoku sprays the ghosts with an ancient Japanese powder when he finds them; this turns them semi-solid, and he then uses a bellows to capture them. He then seals them in bottles, thus permanently trapping them. Hoku is (unwillingly, at first) teamed up with the nameless narrator, who is Hoku's friend. The narrator analyzes the powder and creates a special compound of his own that does the same thing. He then begins stealing Hoku's business (some friend, eh?) and making an additional profit by selling the ghosts, which he can reconstitute with the help of radium. The narrator eventually fumbles things and Hoku is forced to save him. The Exterminator stories follow this pattern: the narrator gets greedy and is initially successful in using Hoku's ideas and methods, but eventually something goes wrong and Hoku is forced to ride in at the last minute and save the day.
Gibson, Speed. Speed Gibson was created by Virginia Cooke and appeared in "Speed Gibson of the International Secret Police," a radio serial running from 1937 to 1938. Gibson was a young child who lives with his uncle, Clint Barlow. Clint is a crack agent for the very secretive International Secret Police. Speed accompanied Clint on a mission, mostly by accident, and proves so helpful that he ends up being inducted in the ISP. Together with comic sidekick Barney Dunlap (he of the "suffering whangdoodles" exclamation) and "apprentice air-hostess Ann Burton" they investigated and fought the Octopus, a ruthless criminal mastermind, who had secret hideouts around the world. Gibson, Barlow, and Dunlop flew in their plane the Flying China Clipper around the world, from Tibet to Africa, uncovering the Octopus' bases wherever they went, and finally capturing the Octopus in the 178th and last episode of the serial.
Giles, Commissaire. Commissaire Giles was created by Jacques-Napoleon Faure-Biguet and appeared in 22 novels, beginning with Hasard (1933). Giles is a police commissioner, sleek and elegant, with refined tastes and a penetrating intellect.
Gill, Geoffrey. Geoffrey Gill was created by the Dutch writer Jacob van Schevichaven under the pseudonym of "Ivans" and appeared in 34 novels, beginning in 1922 with De Man Uit Frankrijk. Gill was a Sherlock Holmes clone operating in England; he was Watsoned by Willem Hendriks. Gill eventually married Mrs. May O'Neill, an Englishwoman and also a detective.
Ivans
A site in Dutch on Gill & Ivans.
Gilland, Francis. Francis Gilland was created by Robert W. Chambers (creator of Yue-Laou) and appeared in various magazines in 1902-4 before being collected together in In Search of the Unknown (1904). Gilland is a zoologist who works for the Bronx Zoological Gardens. His boss is Professor Farrago, who is continually sending Gilland out on various missions to find and capture animals. There are complications, of course. Some of the animals are supposed to be mythological. Others are in faraway locations, difficult to reach and dangerous to enter. And everywhere he goes, Gilland finds pretty women to chase after and "termagants and "viragos" who are put over him and make his life miserable. So even though Gilland retrieves auks, dingues, an ux, and invisible women, he continually has troubles with women ordering him around. Although the set-up may seem sexist, the stories are rather light and amusing; Chambers was clearly enjoying himself while writing them, and it shows.
Gilmore, Henry. Henry Gilmore was created by Cornelius Grafton and appeared in at least three novels, beginning with Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1940). Gilmore is a lawyer-detective.
Gilmore, Mark. Mark Gilmore was created by Percy Fitzhugh and appeared in the three-book "Mark Gilmore" series, which began in 1930 with Mark Gilmore, Scout of the Air. Mark was a Boy Scout and a pilot who put his flying skills to good use in fighting crime and having adventures.
Gimlet. Captain Lorrington "Gimlet" King, DSO, was created by W.E. Johns and appeared in ten novels, starting with Gimlet, King of the Commandos (1943) and running through 1954. Gimlet was unlike Johns' other characters, being a humorless, grim, and ruthless commando, exactly the sort of character the SAS and SBS actually used during WW2. Gimlet was very successful at killing loads of Germans and Italians. He was assisted by Albert Edward "Copper" Colson, a former London peeler and Gimlet's Corporal; the young newbie Nigel Norman "Cub" Peters; and Private "Trapper" Troublay, a French-Canadian.
Girl Aviators. The Girl Aviators, Peggy Prescott and others whose names I don't know, were created by Margaret Burnham and appeared in the four-volume "Girl Aviators" series, which began in 1911 with The Girl Aviators and the Phantom Airship. The Aviators were, as you might expect, teenaged female pilots who took on criminals and had adventures in their planes.
Glass, Doctor. Doctor Glass was created by the Swedish writer Hjalmar Söderberg and appeared in Doktor Glas (Doctor Glass, 1905), the second major work of crime fiction published in Sweden by a Swede. Unfortunately I've found very little information in English on Doctor Glass. All I know is that he was the detective, working in Stockholm, and the central figure in a world-weary and fin de siecle-flavored novel, with Glass being equal parts a Dostoevsky, Ibsen, and Strindberg figure. (Oh, that sounds fun.) One description of Söderberg's protagonists, and this may equally apply to Glass, is that they were "passive and listless, aimlessly roaming the streets of Stockholm," with a "decadent lifestyle."
The G-Man Ghost. The Ghost was created by Wyatt Blassinghame and appeared in Ace G-Man in its September 1939 issue. The G-Man Ghost was really Brian O'Reilly, a Fed who before joining up had been a stage magician. As a Fed he used his skills as a magician, specifically sleight-of-hand and ventriloquism, in a "freelance vendetta against the FBI's most vicious foes."
G-Man's Son. The son (I'm working on getting his name) was created by Edward O'Connor and appeared in the "G-Man's Son Series," which were The G-Man's Son (1936) and The G-Man's Son on Porpoise Island (1937). The son was, indeed, the child of an FBI agent, and against his father's wishes the son "helped" his dad. This led to the usual shenanigans, but the son helped the father bust a ring of gangsters and then a ring of spies on "Porpoise Island."
G-Men. The G-Men (I'm working on getting their individual names) were created by Lawrence Dwight Smith and appeared in the three-book "G-Men Series," which began with The G-Men Smash the Professor's Spy Ring (1938) and continued through 1939. The G-Men were FBI agents who took on all sorts of criminals, in this case a spy ring led by a German professor, a German spy ring, and a Japanese spy ring.
Goade, Nicholas. Nicholas Goade was one of a number of detective characters created by E. Phillips Oppenheim. Goade appeared in a series of short stories which were collected in Nicholas Goade, Detective (1927). He was an Oppenheim detective--smug, superior, and essentially unlikeable.
Go Ahead Boys. Go Ahead Boys were created by Ross Kay and appeared in the six-part "Go Ahead Boys Series," which began in 1916 with The Go Ahead Boys on Smuggler's Island and continued through 1917. The Boys were: Fred Button, the rich kid, seventeen (like all the Boys), small, pudgy, and called "Pygmy" by the others; John "String" Clemens, 6'3" and skinny; Grant, the brain and track star and the one who "easily led in whatever he attempted" and whose nickname was "Socrates" or "Soc;" and George Washington "Pop" Sanders, the popular boy. The group travels around the US and the Caribbean, solving crimes and using Fred's family's money to buy motor boats and the like.
The Go Ahead
Boys and Their Racing Motorboat
The e-text of the novel.
Golden Boys. The Golden Boys were created by L.P. Wyman and appeared in the ten-volume "Golden Boys Series," which began in 1923 with The Golden Boys and Their New Electric Cell and ran through 1927. The Golden Boys (haven't been able to find out their names yet) were Maine natives who traveled around the Maine woods, helping people, fighting criminals (evil lumberjacks and French Canadians), and saving both civilization (the Chamberlin Dam) and the wilderness.
Golem. This version of the Golem (the original was a Jewish myth) was created by Henrik Galeen and Paul Wagener and appeared in Der Golem (The Golem) in 1915. The story follows the original myth in part; Rabbi Loew in Prague creates the golem in 1580 out of clay to help protect the Jews of Prague. At some point after that the golem is buried in rubble, and the film then shows what happens when the golem is revived in the 20th century. Workers uncover the golem and sell it to Gelehrter, an antiquarian, who animates it and puts it to use for him as a servant. The golem falls in love with Jessica, Gelehrter’s daughter, and eventually goes mad from unrequited love. The golem goes on a rampage in Berlin before finally falling off a roof and dying.
Goodrich, Dr. Daniel. Dr. Daniel Goodrich was written by Stoddard Goodhue and appeared in six stories in Everybody's Magazine from December 1921 to June 1922. Goodhue was a doctor and author. Goodrich was a scientific detective, and arguably the last major one, although the stories were not, it should be said, written well (with the exception of "The Phantom Auto," his debut, and rather an over-the-top adventure in which the incompetent prose is compensated for by the outpouring of ideas). Goodrich is of course up to date on the best scientific equipment, and is knowledgeable in psychology (he doubts Freud), science, and law, all of which he uses to fight crime. He is tall, with sharp gray eyes and a frank and open face. He has a country home in Roxbury, Connecticut and practices medicine in New York City.
Gordon, Flash. Flash Gordon, greatest of all scientifiction comic strips, was created by ghostwriter Don Moore and cartoonist Alex Raymond and debuted in 1929, continuing through to 1993. The reason for its greatness, however, was not Moore's scripts, which were imaginative but not of the highest quality. The reason Flash Gordon remains a byword for excellence is Raymond's art; not for nothing is Raymond ranked only slightly below Hal Foster as the best adventure comic strip artist of all time.
In case you don't remember that wonderfully awful 1980 movie, or if you've been so deprived that you've never had the pleasure of reading Flash Gordon, here's what happened. A "strange new planet" was sighted "rushing toward Earth." Nothing can be done to save Earth. Or so everyone thought. Everyone, that is, except for Dr. Hans Zarkov, who was working on a private rocketship which he hoped to use to stop the threat. As Zarkov is finishing up work on the ship, a plane, passing over Zarkov's house, is struck by the meteor. The passengers are forced to parachute from the plane; among them are "Flash Gordon, Yale graduate and world-renowned polo player, and Dale Arden, a passenger." They end up on Zarkov's ship, and the trio land on the "strange planet," Mongo. There they quickly discover that the cruel, Yellow Peril ruler is Ming "the merciless," and that he hated not only Earth, but white folks in particular.
And away the adventures went, with Flash, a well built Beef Ironchunk type, battling Ming and eventually defeating and overthrowing him and hooking up with Dale. Mongo, in the words of one critic, had an "1890s Ruritanian" feel, but with a science fantasy feel, with castles, forests, jungles, mountains, hawk-men, princess, rockets, atomic guns, and evil emperors. For as long as Raymond lasted on the strip, it was immortal.
Alex
Raymond
A concise biography of the man's life.
Alex Raymond
(II)
Another good biography, with images.
Flash Gordon
The second-best Flash Gordon site on the 'Net. A little short in content--more
than a little short, actually--but it's still the best the 'Net has at
the moment.
The Holloway Pages
Now this is more like it. A nice, long, illustrated and in-depth
exploration of Flash and friends. A very nice job--the 'Net should have
more sites like this.
Gordon, Lucy. Lucy Gordon was created by Aline Harvard and appeared in the four-volume "Captain Lucy" series, which began with Captain Lucy and Lieutenant Bob (1918). Captain Lucy Gordon was a female pilot who had adventures over the Western Front and then at home. Although mysteries were solved and adventures had, it was Lucy's sweetheart Bob who did the shooting-down of the Hun.
Gore, Colonel Warwick. Colonel Gore was created by "Lynn Brock," aka Alister McAllister (no, really) and appeared in eleven novels, beginning with The Deductions of Colonel Gore (1926). I know nothing about Colonel Gore, but there is this, from W. Huntington Wright's classic The Great Detective Stories:
Of an entirely different personality, yet with dialectic methods broadly akin to Father Brown's and Dr. Priestley's, is Colonel Gore in Lynn Brock's The Deductions of Colonel Gore and Colonel Gore's Second Case. Colonel Gore, though ponderous and verbose, is well projected, and the crimes he investigates are well worked-out and admirably, if a bit too leisurely, presented. The various characterizations of the minor as well as the major personages of the plots, and the long descriptions of social and topographical details, tend to detract from the problems involved; but the competency of Mr. Brock's writing carries one along despite one's occasional impatience.Gotch, Shark. Created by Albert Richard Wetjen and appearing in Action Stories starting in 1928, Shark Gotch (“that’s Gootch!”) was a small, thin man, almost frail-looking, who was a gun for hire. To his advantage was his draw, which was quicker than anyone he encountered and perhaps on the level of the greats’. Gotch was active in the South Pacific, fighting against every kind of ill-intentioned character one might think of, from pearl rustlers to Chinese pirates. His arch-enemy was the vicious Larsen of Singapore, who ended up killing Gotch. (Gotch got him at the same time, though, so they went to Hell together) Gotch was in the same universe as Typhoon Bradley, and even appeared in “The Vengeance of the Shark” with him.
Granby, Alastair. Colonel Alastair Granby was created by “Francis Beeding” (aka John Leslie Palmer) and appeared in seventeen novels, beginning with (I think) The Six Proud Walkers (1928). Granby, a winner of the D.S.O., was a Colonel in the British Intelligence Service, Secret Branch, and fought against spies and occasionally criminals in his novels.
Grant, Harrison. Harrison Grant was created by Courtney Cooper and appeared in The Eagle's Eye (1918). Grant was the leader of the "Criminology Club," a group of retired policemen and Secret Service men who were concerned not only with crime in the United States but also with the vast number of German spies on American soil. (This was wartime, remember) Grant managed to convince the Secret Service that there were hundreds of German spies, and helped take the spies on and capture them. Grant was helped by Dixie Mason, a young and beautiful Secret Service agent.
Graves, Sam. Sam Graves was created by George Stratton, creator of Fred Cawthorne, and appeared in Practical Electrics in 1923 & 1924. Graves was an inventor, somewhat eccentric but brilliant, but who is pig-ignorant about money. Fortunately for Graves, his wife is very level-headed and often rescues him. Graves invents things like gravity nullifiers and telephones that pick up mental images and broadcast them.
Gray Ghost. The Gray Ghost was created by Stuart Paton and appeared in The Gray Ghost (1917). The Ghost was the audacious leader of a gang of thieves and was given to planning and expertly executing large-scale crimes, like the looting of a jewelry house in broad daylight.
Gray Ghost (II). See the Gray Phantom entry below.
Gray Maiden. The Gray Maiden was created by Arthur D. Howden Smith and appeared in Adventure from 1926 to 1927. The Maiden is actually a sword, a thin gray blade of excellent forging and, just possibly, a bloodthirsty disposition. It was forged at the bidding of Pharaoh Thutmose III, who ordered his smith, a wizard and worshiper of Ba'al, to make a blade tempered in the blood of one who the Pharaoh loved and one who the Pharaoh hated. The forge does so, making a sword whose blade was "keen and terrible, O hate that was relentless unto death," and who no weapon could resist. The stories follow the Maiden through the ages: it is in the hands of a Greek slave during the Battle of Marathon; it kills its cowardly owner during a battle between Alexander the Great and King Darius; it is used by Cretan pirates, Roman marines, a grunt in Hannibal's army, a soldier of Muhammed, and a Viking. The Maiden is covered with writing, Egyptian, Greek, and even some English: "Gray Maide men hail Mee/Death doth Notte fail Mee."
Gray Phantom. The Gray Phantom was created by Herman Landon, the creator of the Picaroon and Godfrey Usher; the Phantom appeared in Detective Story Magazinestarting with "Seven Signs," on 18 December 1917, and running in Detective Story through 1924. The Phantom is Cuthbert Vanady, and he is a handsome devil, tall, lanky, with a "lean, clean-chiseled" face and "ash-gray" eyes to match the gray at his temples and his gray business suits. The Phantom is more than just good-looking, of course. He's a criminal mastermind.
To the world he was known as a wealthy speculator, and few suspected that his exploits on Wall Street were but an avocation and a studiously calculated pastime that cloaked other and more mysterious activities. To society...he was known as a successful, though somewhat eccentric, business man, one who preferred quiet and intellectual pursuits to the razzle-dazzle with which many others in his sphere of life whiled away their leisure time. But to a few--a very select few--he was known as the Gray Phantom.With a description like that, you're no doubt expecting big doings from the Phantom. And there were some exciting stories, to be sure. There was his theft of the Russian Crown Jewels; he stole them from his European counterpart, the Duke, who was the power in Europe as the Phantom is the power in America. The Phantom, after some doing, steals the crown jewels, including the fabled Koh-i-tur, formerly the eye of an idol in Dabaredyh, in India. Unfortunately, he kills the Duke's man in England. Then he has his little finger cut off, and experiences a few misfortunes, including the death of his faithful servant, Dulla. (Don't worry; both the finger and Dulla return in later stories). Finally the Voice and the Hand, an Indian woman, appears with two servants, to take the Koh-i-tur back. The Phantom had thought that the Curse of the Koh-i-tur was affecting him, but it was actually the Voice and the Hand, who is the daughter of the Nizam of Dabaredyh; she is doing this to help her father raise money to help the Allies during the War. The Phantom frees himself, and then gives the diamond to the woman, on the grounds that he admires a "worthy foe."
Later, after disbanding his organization out of sheer boredom, the Gray Phantom loots the entire town of Bostburg, six banks and two jewelry stores worth; takes on the Duke again to save a museum's curator, and does so, winning the love of the curator's daughter (she started everything, threatening the Phantom at gun point--she suspected him of being behind the thefts at the museum); and after that, well, the Phantom reforms (love will do that to you) and begins Doing Good, especially when it concerns saving Helen (the curator's daughter) from kidnaping and other vile deaths. The Phantom stops Mr. Shei, a former pupil of the Phantom who blackmails the seven wealthiest men in New York City, on pain of slow poison. And the Phantom finally defeats the Duke.
The Phantom is aided by Dulla, ever devoted to him. His two main assistants are Wade, the fat one, and Liggett, the man with the hard face and the hard personality. His lover is the beauteous Helen, a successful playwright and a crack shot with a pistol. While the Phantom has no superpowers, he is a good fighter, a good shot, a master of disguise (of course), always thinks ahead, to the point of planting "phosphour-compounds" to create a grey mist, so that people will think the Phantom turned into a column of mist, and carries a small tool kit (think: Utility Belt) which helps him escape from death traps, break into safes, etc.
Gray Seal. Jimmie Dale, the notorious "Gray Seal," was created by Frank Lucius Packard (1887-1942). Packard wrote widely in both Westerns and in the pulps, with the Gray Seal, that most influential archetype of costumed rogues, being his greatest achievement. Dale's adventures first appeared in People's Magazine and then were made into novels: The Adventures of Jimmie Dale (1917), The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale (1919), Jimmie Dale and the Phantom Clue (1922), Jimmie Dale and the Blue Envelope Murder (1930), and Jimmie Dale and the Missing Hour (1935), with the serializations generally appearing the year before the novel version was published.
Dale’s history is an interesting one. He was born in 1888, the son of a wealthy NYC family. After spending his teenage years working at a safe manufacturing factory he entered Harvard. While there he amused himself with a wide range of practical jokes, extensive reading in detective fiction, and with amateur theatrics. After graduation in 1911 he was elected to the extremely exclusive St. James Club. Then, while starting his life of leisure—the only appropriate life for a “gentleman” such as himself—he decided to carry out another prank, to tease the police and to amuse himself, for “the sheer deviltry of it.” He created the identity of the “Gray Seal” and began to enter homes, stores, and public buildings by night. The Gray Seal always opened safes, no matter where they were or how guarded they were, and left behind a gray diamond paper seal. The Gray Seal never took anything else; his goal was amusement, not larceny.
Unfortunately for Dale, in mid-1912, while entering the safe of Marx’s jewelry store he is surprised by an unidentified person. Dale flees, but discovers later that he accidentally held on to a pearl necklace, thus making him a thief in fact as well as in theory. The very next morning a letter arrives for him, hand-written by a woman. The woman, unfortunately, knows all about him, about the Seal and what the Seal did for a joke. And, worse still, about what happened in Marx’s. The woman threatens Dale with a jail term unless he works for her.
Dale, no fool, gives in, and begins a long series of break-ins and burglaries, following the woman’s orders but still never committing a crime. She aims him as a living weapon at a ring of criminal masterminds who oversee all organized crime in New York City.
In 1913 Dale’s father dies, and Jimmie sells his interest in his father’s safe company. He then retires to the life of a rich young single gentleman, living alone in his mansion except for his faithful old butler Jason and his thuggish and devoted chauffeur Benson. Jimmie continues as the Seal, but hides his secret identity from both Jason and Benson. His two secret identities, actually. His first is the Gray Seal, of course. His second is “Larry the Bat,” a character he changes into in the Sanctuary, a third floor room in a tenement in the Badlands, the worst part of NYC. He keeps there his disguise kit, his changes of clothes, and anything else he needs. Everyone in the underworld knows about Larry the Bat, dope fiend, and everyone accepts him. Larry the Bat can go where neither Jimmie Dale or the Gray Seal can and get information.
And so Dale, directed by the women, wages war on the underworld of NYC while also looking for the woman. He finds out by accident that her identity is “the Tocsin,” but nothing more. Then he finds out not just her identity—Marie LaSalle, young and beautiful—but also the identity of the crime geniuses controlling NYC: the Crime Club.
Dale wars on the Crime Club, and while he manages to put them to death (through maneuvering their actions against them, rather than pulling the trigger himself—the Seal, though usually armed, rarely shot someone and never killed them, something he shrank from) Larry the Bat’s identity is blown, and the underworld guns for the Gray Seal. The Sanctuary is destroyed by fire. Marie comes and goes, tending to the wounded Dale but never staying for long. Dale, frantic at her absence, creates a new character, Smarlinghue the junkie-artist. After various long adventures the Crime Club is finally vanquished for good, on July 31, 1920, and Dale and LaSalle walk off into the sunset together.
Dale was, in some ways, a model for later characters who made use of secret identities. Dale’s secret hideout, referred to by him as “Sanctuary,” functions not only as a place in which he can switch identities but also as a refuge where he can be alone and be himself. It prefigures the Fortresses of Solitude of Doc Savage and Superman. Some critics have argued that Dale was the first American hero to be a part of the tough underworld adventure that was to become common in a few years.
Dale was a man of many parts and abilities (as, of course, he would be—he’s the Gray Seal, after all!). He has an unusual aptitude for things mechanical. His memory is very powerful, as is his body:
Six feet he stood, muscular in every line of his body, like a well-trained athlete with no single ounce of superfluous fat about him--the grace and ease of power in his poise. His strong, clean-shaven face, as the light fell upon it now, was serious--a mood that became him well--the firm lips closed, the dark, reliant eyes a little narrowed, a frown on the broad forehead, the square jaw clamped.Dale is also an accomplished painter, disguise artist, and mimic. He is an able cracksman, of course; in the identity of the Seal he carries a “wide leather belt filled with small pockets,” each with the tools of his trade (a clear precursor to the Utility Belt of Batman).
Gray, Beverly. Beverly Gray was created by Clair Blank and appeared in the twenty-six volume "Beverly Gray" series, which began in 1934 with Beverly Gray, Freshman. As Beverly grows up and becomes a working journalist, she has a wide range of adventures and takes on a wide range of mysteries, both at home and abroad.
Gray, Colin. Colin Gray was created by Mark Channing and appeared in King Cobra (1933), White Python (1933), The Poisoned Mountain (1935), and Nine Lives (1937). Gray is a tough, cunning British Secret Service Agent and Brevet-Major (and winner of the Victoria's Cross) who is active in Central Asia, specifically India, Tibet, and Afghanistan, working for the Empire against its enemies. (The Talbot Mundy/Jim Grim influence is marked). He's rather a hard piece of work, having worked for Crown and Country in the Congo as well as Central Asia. He was given the nickname "Zero" by the North-West Frontier Army for his lack of external emotion and the cool and masterful way with which he deals with all crises.
In his first novel he takes on the "Veiled Man," who is controlling a group of "Yanistani" warriors (Yanistan being "far beyond the north-west Frontiers of India") and using them, and the dreaded local bandit-hero Alam Khan, aka "King Cobra," to plot a war against the British. The Veiled Man plans to declare a jihad and slaughter the Hindus of India. In this he will be aided by a million Mongols, led by Khoon, the descendant of Genghis Kahn. the descendants of Prestor John who are holed up in an underground stronghold beneath the Himalayas. Luckily for everyone concerned, Gray is on the case, and after the requisite number of adventures, captures, and fights he succeeds in stopping the Veiled Man and Alam Khan.
In his second novel he is sent to Tibet to stop an outlaw who plans to overthrow the Dalai Lama and take over Tibet; he succeeds, but not until speaking with a resurrected corpse and dealing with a race of sightless troglodytes who have lived for generations inside a huge, hollow mountain and who worship a huge white python who is in turn commanded by the gorgeous priestess Gynia. In the third novel he investigates a previously-unscaleable Himalayan mountain inhabited by ape-men. And in the fourth novel he takes on seemingly immortal (but evil) lamas.
He is assisted by his love interest, Piers Bryan, a crack pilot (she is the "World's Most Famous Air-Girl"). He is also helped by Samdad Chiemba, an exiled lama whose occult powers enable him to grant Colin visions. Samdad is a "Follower of the Way" and the "spiritual head of a hundred million Hindus," and his precognition and "power of projecting his image and his voice across space," among other powers, are of great help to Gray in his cases. Samdad is also a sadhu, a "thrice-born" hermit. Gray's right-hand man is Limbu, a "squat" and "muscular" Gurkha whose life Gray saved (this was part of the reason Gray won the V.C.) and who is devoted to Gray (and vice-versa). Limbu is a doughty fighter and as hard as...well, as hard as most Gurkhas are. Limbu is also a devotee of Kali, which should tell you all you need to know about Limbu.
Gray, Elmo. Elmo Gray was created by Robert F. Hill and appeared in the 18-part serial The Flaming Disk (1920). Gray is an American secret agent who is assigned to protect Professor Wade, a scientist who has created an “optical disk-lens” that focuses the sun’s rays so powerfully that the resulting beam can vaporize steel. Unfortunately, Stanton, the “king of the crooks,” hears about the weapon and steals it. He uses it to rob banks and even threatens to destroy New York City with it. Stanton is such a bounder that he has hypnotized Elmo’s brother Jim to do his bidding, and it takes seventeen chapters of adventure and derring-do for Elmo to finally corner Stanton in his lair, shake Jim out of his trance, and team up to recover the disk-lens and kill Stanton.
Grayle, Panther. This detective/adventurer was created by Alfred Edgar and appeared in Champion beginning in 1922. He was the "modern methods detective," using the most current technology to solve crimes; he was the British story paper version of Craig Kennedy.
Grayson, Garry. Garry Grayson was created by "Elmer A. Dawson" (aka Edward Stratemeyer and someone else) and debuted in Garry Grayson's Hill Street Eleven, or, The Football Boys of Lenox (1926), appearing in nine more novels through 1932. Garry was "an athletic Nancy Drew, perfect and infallible," who gained most of his glory on the gridiron, though he of course took on blackmails, thefts, families faced with foreclosures and evictions, kidnappings, and other Stratemeyer Syndicate Situations. Garry did all this with the help of his two best chums, Nick Danter and Ted Dillingham, and in the constant face of opposition by rich "wild boy" Sandy Podder and his droog Lent Stewart.
Great Ace. The Great Ace is Billy Smith, who was created by Noel Sansbury, Jr., and appeared in five book "Great Ace Series," which ran from 1928 to 1934 and began with Billy Smith, Exploring Ace, or, By Airplane to New Guinea. The Great Ace series is curiously underrated and forgotten about, as it has all the ingredients of a classic series, yet somehow it's overlooked by most critics. Smith is a teenage pilot, full of all the heroic virtues that one would expect and yet somehow less unbearable than, say, a Frank Merriwell. He owns his own biplane and variously goes exploring to New Guinea (where he encounters headhunters), works for the Secret Service stopping white slavers in "Arabia," explores South America and rescues a group of trapped and lost archaeologists and explorers (they ran afoul of some bloodthirsty natives), goes hunting for gold in Alaska (and catches more criminals, you may be sure), and then fights and defeats a nasty set of pirates in Malaysia and cannibals in the Solomon Islands. It's all great fun, really.
Great Marvel. See the Professor Henderson entry.
Great Merlini. See the Merlini entry.
Green Ghost (I & II). For these entries I'm indebted to Ed Love. Quoth he:
Strangely, George Chance, the Ghost, (see above--Jess) is at the least the third man to go by the moniker of the Green Ghost.Green Hornet. The Hornet began life in 1936 as a radio show out of Detroit, created by Fran Striker and George W. Trendle, before moving on to the comics and then the pulps. The Hornet is Britt Reid, a "daring young publisher," who puts on a costume to take on those criminals that he can't fight as the publisher of the Daily Sentinel. As the Hornet he is assisted by his valet Kato, a Filipino of Japanese ancestry. As with the Lone Ranger, Kato was actually the brains of the outfit, being not only an expert at martial arts but also a chemical genius--he was the one who developed the Hornet's gas gun--as well as a mechanical whiz--he's responsible for souping up and maintaining the Hornet's car, the Black Beauty. The Hornet, a master chemist, uses smokescreens and a gas gun to put his enemies to sleep, and drives the Black Beauty, an supercharged and very powerful auto. The Hornet, who is the grand-nephew of John Reid, the Lone Ranger, is wanted by the police, but the District Attorney knows who he is and believes in him. The Hornet's identity is also known to Reid's secretary, Lenore "Casey" Case. Michael Axford, an Irish stereotype and Reid's bodyguard, does not know his other identity, and thinks he is only the Sentinel's publisher; Axford was hired by Dan Reid, Britt's father, to watch over Britt and to get him out of the trouble that his playboy lifestyle would get him in to. Axford's opinion of the Hornet is quite low, though, and he lusts to capture him. The top reporter at the Sentinel is Ed Lowery, who usually dug up the stories that Reid exposed.The Green Ghost (I), author unknown, from Five Novels Monthly, December 1931. Michael Armstrong, professionally billed as "Signor Rubino, the World’s Greatest Ventriloquist" is a young man with a mysterious past. His father was an American and his mother a Russian Countess and they were caught up with the revolution; his father killed and his mother captured. The guards promised her freedom if she showed them where she had hid a necklace of great value, but of course they lied and they divvied up the stones of the necklace between them.
So, Michael puts on a green silk mask adopts the identity of the Green Ghost to steal back his inheritance but is dogged by an old family friend, Patrick Hennesy who is also a police detective. The love of Michael’s life is Jessica Grey and by story’s end, the bad guys are punished, the necklace back where it belongs, the couple engaged and the Green Ghost retired. I don’t know if Mr. Armstrong ever ventured out of retirement.
Green Ghost (II) by Johnston McCulley (I believe you’ve heard of him) in Thrilling Detective circa 1934 published by Standard Magazines, Inc. Danny Blaney was an honest cop until he was framed by crooks and lost his badge. While he was never tried, he was seen guilty by his comrades. So, he became the Green Ghost to capture and steal from the crooks the police were unable to show up both the cops and the crooks. He pretended to inherit some money and ran a corner cigar store as cover. His costume was a green hood and gloves.
The Green Hornet
Guide
The best site on the Internet on the Hornet. Beware, though: this site
takes a long time to load.
Green Lama. The Lama, created by Kendell Foster Crossen and appearing in an eponymous radio show and in Double Detective (1940), was Jethro Dumont, an American who went to Tibet after World War One and spent several years there learning to be a Lama. When he returned to the States he was shocked to discover that crime was a problem. In fact, he saw a murder occur. (Horrors!) This spurred him to use his weapons and powers against crime in the guise of the Green Lama. As with many another pulp hero, the Lama was assisted by several people in his fight against crime, few of whom knew his secret identity. These assistants ranged in society and type from ex-gangsters to society girls; first among his assistants was the mysterious woman Magga, who was very knowledgeable in Tibetan Buddhism and was an expert hypnotist. The Lama had a number of weapons and abilities. He wore a long red kata (scarf) which he could (and did) use as a whip and a garrote. He knew all the pressure points on the human body, which enabled him to paralyze or stun criminals at will. He could also mix "radioactive salts" into a solution which he would drink, enabling him to deliver "powerful electric shocks" by touch. And, of course, he had the very memorable chant, "Om! Ma-ni-pad-me Hum!"
Greenwood, Inspector. Inspector Greenwood was created by the Australian writer G.W. Wicking and appeared in at least three novels, possibly beginning with Boom-Time Gold. Inspector Greenwood is a member of the Melbourne police and solves crime around Australia.
Greer, Douglas. Created by "Peter Perry" and appearing in Flynn's from 1926 to 1928, Douglas Greer was a two-fisted, heroic cop who never gets promoted because of his "unwillingness to be bound by rules and orders." He's colorless beyond that, as are the stories.
Grellon. Grellon was created by J.D. Newsom and appeared in Adventure from 1927 through 1933. Grellon was the only real recurring character in Newsom's French Foreign Legion stories. Grellon is a sergeant in the Legion, a hulking man with only half an ear on his left side and no ear on the right; he's tall, brutish-looking, a fierce fighter, and very strong. Although he dresses very sloppily, he is a stickler for discipline (the most violent and direct kind, of course) and he spends enough successful years in the Legion, fighting against the Arabs, to rise to the rank of Captain.
Gresham, Digby. Digby Gresham was created by Florence Pettee, creator of Quicksilver, and appeared in Detective Tales,Argosy All Story Weekly, and Flynn’s Weekly from 1923 to 1927. Gresham is a private investigator in the Holmes mold and tradition, adored by the police and able to solve any crime.
Grey, Colwin. Colwin Grey was created by the Australian writer Arthur Rees and appeared in a few short stories and novels, at least beginning with The Threshold of Fear (1925). Grey is an English P.I. who investigates crimes in and around Cornwall.
Grey Shadow. The Grey Shadow was created by George E. Rochester and appeared in Modern Boy magazine in the 1930s and in Grey Shadow--Master Spy (1936). I don't really know that much about the character, apart from his being a British spy ("the Master Spy of the British Secret Service") and pilot who adventured around the world before, during, and after World War Two. He was assisted by Peter, a boy.
Gribb, Knut. Knut Gribb was created by Sven Elvestad, the creator of Asbjorn Krag, and first appeared in the pulp Lys og Skygge (Light and Shadow) in 1908. Gribb was in large part responsible for starting the detective fiction craze in Norway (although I've read conflicting reports as to Sven Elvestad's background--Norwegian? Danish?). He was very popular in his day, and was pirated in Sweden and presented as a Swedish character, with Oslo rather than Gothenburg as his home town. Gribb's adventures have been handled by over 80 authors and continue to be published today, making him the longest-running detective character extant. Originally he was intended to be a less morally suspect and less violent version of Nick Carter, and therefore a better role model for young boys; as time passed, however, and more writers (a number of them without permission from Elvestad & the owners of the rights to Gribb) got their hands on Gribb, Gribb's personality changed, to match the times. Gribb is a "master detective" on the Oslo police force, assisted by Finn Jerven and Brede, two younger men. Gribb has the rank of overbetjent (head inspector), although T.B. Hansen (who provided most of the information in this entry--thanks!) points out that "in real life police were changed to 'førstebetjent' ('first inspector') decades ago."
Nils Nordberg very kindly passed along the following:
Sven Elvestad was definitely a Norwegian, he was born in the town of Fredrikshald (now Halden) in 1884 and died 1934. (Only one of his books was published in the US but it was praised by no less than Dashiell Hammett.) He sold or gave up his rights to the Knut Gribb character to his publisher, so there have been no stories written without permission. And while it is true that Gribb became a Swedish character in and a Gothenburg resident there was no piracy involved: The Swedish publisher bought the stories fairly and squarely from the Norwegian publisher and his writers and even if the change of nationality was done wilfully it seems that no objections were raised on this side of the border. In fact: In the Swedish translations of the Gribb stories, the detective appears under no less than 13 aliases in addition to his original name, some Norwegian, some Swedish, and in two stories he is Danish and German respectively. Indeed, he is best known in Sweden under his alias Harald Ask, "the famous Norwegian detective", and even appeared under that name in a number of Norwegian stories and small novels.Griffin. The Griffin was created by J. Allen Dunn and appeared in Detective Fiction Weekly in the late 1930s. He was an evil criminal mastermind similar to Fu Manchu; he was a "slanty-eyed, pointy-nosed, leprous gent with no redeeming qualities."Also he never was an "overbetjent" - his rank is never given, but one may take it that he rather was "førstebetjent" which corresponds to the British rank of Chief Inspector. In almost all the stories written since 1928 he is "fullmektig" which roughly corresponds to the British "superintendent". The last sentence in your entry doesn't really make sense the way it is written.
The rank of "overbetjent" was not changed to "førstebetjent"; it and its function, which was purely administrative, was simply done away with. On the other hand, Gribb's assistants Harald Brede (same age as Gribb) and Finn Jerven are both "overbetjent" in the later (1971-present) book series.
Griffon. The Griffon was created by Arch Whitehouse and appeared in Flying Acesbeginning with its June 1935 issue. By day he was Kerry Keen, a “young millionaire layabout.” At night, however, he became the Griffon, a costumed crime fighter. Keen put on a red silk and rubber mask, entered the underground hangar on his Long Island estate (in the "Graylands"), and flew the Black Bullet, his “supercharged” and heavily armed seaplane, out missions of justice and vengeance. He was assisted in this by Barney O’Dare and by Barbara "Pebbles" Colony, an adventurous woman who discovered Keen's costumed identity during one story and joined his team.
Kerry Keen Bibliography
A very short summary of the character and a lengthy bibliography, with
links to cover images.
Grim, Jim. James Schuyler "JimGrim" Grim was created by William Lancaster Gribbon, under the name of "Talbot Mundy," and debuted in Adventure on November 10, 1921, and appeared there through 1930 and in a few books after that. Jim Grim, simply put, is an American who made himself very useful to the British secret service in the Near East in the years after World War One. When the series begins he is 34 years old; during WW1 he served with Lawrence of Arabia, "doing the unseen, unsung spade-work." After the war he was attached to British Intelligence, seconded to a British army major. He is fluent in a number of languages, sympathetic to the Arabs among whom he works (without being foolish or romantic about them), and is an excellent agent and handler. He is unflappable and ruthless in pursuit of his tasks, but not exploitative; those who work under him are always aware of the risks he is going to put them through.
These tasks involve defeating the enemies of the British empire. If an invasion of Palestine is planned by a group of renegade sheikhs, Grim will capture and kidnap the ringleader. If the Dome of the Rock is to be exploded by conspirators looking to start a war in the Middle East, Grim and a group of Sikhs (they often help Grim, or come to the rescue at the last moment) will take care of the group. If a native warlord, working from the hidden city of Petra, plans to invade Palestine, Grim will convince the warlord, through fair means and foul, not to.
Eventually Grim leaves the service of the British and strikes off on his own, as a professional adventurer, bankrolled by the mysterious and wealthy Meldrum Strange, who wants Grim et al to hunt down international criminals. His tasks remain strenuous and bloody. Grim and Co. go to Egypt, to the very heart of the Great Pyramid itself and the real tomb of Khufu; they go to India, where they encounter the evil agents of the Nine Unknown, whose mystic powers seem at first to be more than a match for Grim; they go to northwest India, where Grim's friend Joan is kidnaped (mayhem ensues); and Tibet, where the group goes to rescue an old friend of Ramsden, where they come in conflict with the Black Lodge, a group of thoroughly evil and occult-powered wankers. Singh dies in battle in Tibet, and Grim begins to be trained in the mystic and occult by the White Lodge, the Black Lodge's opposite. In the final JimGrim story (it wasn't intended to be the final one, but Mundy never got around to writing it) Grim et al take on one Dorje, who discovered a city buried in the Gobi, a city full of Atlantean superscience. Dorje uses this science and the weapons of Atlantis to try to conquer the world. But Dorje's organization is flawed, and after much bloodshed he is destroyed, his monastery blown up--and Grim within it. (That was not intended to be the end of the series; Mundy had plans for at least one more JimGrim novel, but he died before he could write it)
Grim is of average height, very strong, with large hands, dark skin, and grey-blue eyes. Grim is assisted in his adventures by a select few friends: Ramsden, the narrator, a very strong and large American big game hunter; Suliman, an eight-year-old street boy, who with a few other children act as Grim's Baker Street Irregulars; Narayan Singh, the ferocious, turbaned Sikh warrior and WW1 vet; Jeremy Ross, an Australian trickster and WW1 vet; Chullunder Ghose, one of fiction's great characters, the fat Indian con-man, spy, agent of JimGrim, and a man never to be underestimated; and Joan Angela Leich, a rich, smart, spunky woman of 23 and an old friend of Grim's (she ends up proposing to but not marrying Ramsden, who loves her but won't endanger her).
Talbot Mundy's
JimGrim Tales
A decent accompaniment to the stories, with lots of images. From the
Talbot
Mundy Pages site.
Gringo Legion.The Legion was created by Sidney M. Graham and appeared in People's from 1916 to 1917. The Legion are simply mercenaries, for hire to anyone with money. They're run by General Crosby, "young, fearless, strong, and gray-eyed," excellent with guns and a firm disciplinarian. All of his skills were needed to control the Legion, for the Legionnaires are unsavory types. The only requirement for membership is skill with firearms; nothing else might bar one from joining. Naturally, this means that the Legion attracts bad men, crooks and murderers evading justice. They would continue their bad ways but for the strict discipline of the Legion, Crosby and the Legionnaires, and the understanding that disobedience will lead to expulsion or execution. The Legion works in Mexico, just below the border, in Tijuana and Mexicali, and they do some thief-chasing and "muscle work."
Guffman, Big Scar. Big Scar Guffman was created by Henry Leverage, an ex-con and hard man who'd had "adventures" in a number of countries, from China to France. "Big Scar" debuted in the 10 January 1925 issue of Flynn's. Guffman was an enormous convict, scarred and muscular, who is serving life plus fifteen for murder, bank robbery, safe blowing, and any number of other violent crimes. The scar of his nickname various runs from his chin to the "upper lobe of his right ear" or "across the scalp from ear to ear;" Guffman received it when two railroad bulls threw him from a moving freight train. Scar breaks out of prison, having stolen the warden's watch and used it to cut the bars to his cell, and goes on a crime spree, picking up $400 to a $1000 at a pop. Many of his crimes, however, involved him saving old friends unjustly targeted or punished by the law, which is corrupt and brainless, like its servants. Guffman is a hard, violent man, but he does not murder unnecessarily and does not rat out a friend. As the stories go by he does time in jail again and escapes again, growing a little more sentimental as the stories go by.
G-X. G-X, the "Phantom Fed," was created by Harry Lee Fellinge and first appeared in Ace G-Men in its May 1939 issue. G-X is a man of ordinary looks with a "fighting Irish pan." But he's got a gimmick that makes him very effective and the horror of criminals everywhere. He is not tied down to a desk in Washington, DC, or even forced to report to a boss. He is a free agent, in most respects. What's worse (from the perspective of the criminals) is that he doesn't dress like a Fed. G-X wanders around the U.S. dressed like a hobo, accompanied by a real bum by the name of Sydney Gimp. His trademark is his symbol, a circle pierced by an arrow with the initials G-X scrawled inside the circle. He leaves his symbol everywhere he goes, and criminals find it everywhere they go.
G-8. The greatest of all the pulp air aces was created by Robert J. Hogan, a veteran author of the pulps and former pilot, and appeared in 110 issues of G-8 and His Battle Aces, beginning with the October 1933 issue. G-8, who was never given a real name besides his codename (it might be argued that "G-8" was his real name), was an air ace and agent of Allied Intelligence during the first World War. Initially G-8 is saved by two superior pilots, Bull Martin and Nippy Weston, who bicker with each other but can always be relied upon to help G-8. Soon enough both became G-8's aides and he became a better pilot than either. Nippy is a small, quick, blond magician who scorns superstition and who flies Spad #13. Bull is tall (twice Nippy's size), broad, a former All-American half-back, and very superstitious, which is why he flies Spad #7. G-8, the "Master Spy," learned the art of disguise from his manservant Battle, who was highly skilled in that area. And guest-star Red Falcon undoubtedly taught him a trick or two. And he most likely learned some things from R-1, the beautiful blonde pilot from the American Intelligence Service.
G-8 himself, of course, is exceptionally capable and, as mentioned, the greatest fighter pilot of them all. He's only of average height, though athletically built, and has "sandy" hair and "steel gray" eyes. He and the Battle Aces worked from an airdrome located near Le Bourget, north of Paris.
G-8's Rogues Gallery was extraordinary, arguably the superior of the Shadow's. In addition to the supernatural monsters G-8 killed, the vampires and werewolves and zombies that G-8 sent to the vasty halls of death, there were the recurring Japanese and German villains. The worst was Herr Doktor Kreuger, the evillest mad scientist Germany ever produced, a man completely dedicated and devoted to evil and viciousness solely for their own sake. His plans ranged from killing all the humans between the Rhone and Paris by way of giant, poison-breathing bats to using captured American pilots against their own side in suicide attacks. He was a short little man with teeth filed to a point, and he always wore his trademark gray cutaway coat. There was Baron von Todschmecker, a schemer and pilot who carried on despite a knife, thrown by G-8, lodged in his brain. There was also Chu Lung, the Chinese "Master of Death" and a flying spy for the German military. Chu Lung was a gaunt giant with "glowing jade-green eyes" and an aerial arsenal, including poisonous clouds, artificial, death-dealing banshee wails, and a gas-powered, fire-breathing dragon plane. Herr Matsu was a small, soft-spoken Japanese freelancer who hired out to the Germans to fight G-8, and then returned as Chu Lung's ally. There was Stahlmaske (Steelmask), a Prussian genius with, as one critic put it, "Messianic delusions." G-8 had mutilated his face with one well-aimed shot, and so Stahlmaske, having lost not only most of his face but much of his memory, hid behind a black steel mask, created fear and loathing among even the German High Command, and invented a number of deadly weapons and vehicles to kill the Allies and help Germany.
And then there was Herr Grun, the beauty-hating American ape-man; the Vampire Hag, "queen of the winged dead;" the Raven, a "beak-faced avian travesty," who swore vengeance against G-8 for the death of his younger brother and for his own facial disfigurement; the enormous Man In Armor, who flew a fighter plane in full plate and who led "an army of bloated corpses;" Dr. Schlemmer, a mad scientist who created bloodthirsty "gorilla-men;" Herr Feuer, the asbestos-clad German firebug; and, finally, Herr Doktor Wormer, the "Death Master," the German mad scientist who planned to literally blow up the world. When need be, these villains would team up together to fight G-8. They never won, but oh, the high times they had!
Battleaces
The new champeen of G-8 sites and a very fine production indeed, from
that gentleman and scholar Chris Kalb.
G-8
Short on information, but you can buy e-texts of the original
pulps from here. Part of the Vintage
Library site.
G-8 And His Battle
Aces (II)
Eight G-8 links.
Pulp Heroes: G-8 and
His Battle Aces
A good site on G-8 and well worth your time to look at.
Introduction
A.
The Abbey Girls to Dusty Ayres
B.
Bagley to Scott Burton
C.
Orhan Cakiroglu to Dr. Theodore Cunliffe
D-E.
Dana Girls to Don Everhard
F.
Ralph
Fairbanks to Miss Fury
G.
The Gadget Man to G-8
H-I.
Dr.
Hackensaw to Baron Ixell
J.
Jack,
Doc & Reggie to Justice Syndicate
K.
Calvin Kane to Kwa of the Jungle
L.
Major John T. Lacy to Langhorne Lyte
M.
Professor Maboul to Mr. Mystic
N.
Lee Nace to Nyoka
O.
Fergus O'Breen to Ozar the Aztec
P.
Penny Packer to Judge Pursuivant
Q.
Oliver Quade to Sebastian Quin
R.
Ed Race to Captain Rybnikov
S.
The Safety First Club to Tom Swift
T-U.
Tahara to Godfrey Usher
V.
Lieutenant Valcour to Norton Vyse
W.
Inspector Wade to Dr. Xavier Wycherley
X-Z.
X Bar X Boys to Zorro
Links.