Since we were just listening to the old-time radio show "Nick Carter, Master detective," a few words about the character and his origins seem to be in order.
One interesting point is that Nick Carter's debut actually predates that of Sherlock Holmes, by a little over a year (1886 vs. 1887)!
Nick was never as famous as Holmes, but was still pretty famous and spanned a lot of media.
First were his adventures in the newspapery "New York Weekly' followed by "Nick Carter Weekly" as published by Street & Smith through 1915.
By the 1930s, Street & Smith was publishing pulp magazines such as "Doc Savage" and "The Shadow," so Nick Carter was revived with his own title.
Then there was a series of three MGM films from 1939-1940 starring Walter Pidgeon as Nick in an early leading role for him prior to his big breakthroughs in the Oscar-wining Best Pictures "How Green Was My Valley" (1941) and "Mrs. Miniver" (1942).
Then of course was the radio series "Nick Carter, Master Detective" (aka "The Return of Nick Carter") starring Lon Clark as Nick and running on the Mutual Broadcasting System from 1943-1955.
Meanwhile, Nick also appeared in "Shadow Comics" headlined by his Street & Smith and MBS stablemate.
Skip ahead a bit to the James Bond inspired spy craze of the 1960s and we had the emergence of Nick Carter - Killmaster!
This series ran for 261 novels from 1964-1990. Proof you can't keep a good literary property down!
One word of caution: if you want to research this character, make sure you include the word "detective" in your search to avoid boy band drama!
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