Like his later-born counterpart across the pond, Nick Carter has sometimes been called “The World’s Greatest Detective.” So you have to wonder why he’s asking when he’ll be receiving his copy of the PulpFest 2023 Newsletter. After all, March has just begun.
Nick Carter, the creation of John Russell Coryell, debuted in 1886 in Street & Smith’s New York Weekly. Five years later, the character was handed over to Frederick Dey and other writers who would pen over a thousand stories featuring “The Little Giant.” The character was so popular that when Detective Story Magazine began in 1915, Street & Smith claimed “Nicholas Carter” was its editor.
By 1933, interest in the old Nick Carter stories had waned. It was the era of the hardboiled detective with characters such as Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op and Sam Spade, Carroll John Daly’s Race Williams and Vee Brown, and Frederick Nebel’s “Tough Dick” Donahue and Jack Cardigan.
It was also the time of the pulp hero. With The Shadow Magazine flying off America’s newsstands on a twice-monthly basis, Street & Smith had decided to expand the single-character field with a pair of magazines featuring an adventure and a detective hero. Doc Savage was the adventure hero, while the latter was a hardboiled version of their dime novel detective, Nick Carter.
Dated March 1933, the new Nick Carter Magazine sported a Jerome Rozen cover and a lead novel entitled “Marked for Death.” It was the work of Richard Wormser, writing as “Nick Carter.”
Born in 1908 and a graduate of Princeton, Richard Wormser got his start in late 1932 with a backup story for The Shadow Magazine. A few months later, he was churning out hardboiled detective yarns for the new Nick Carter Magazine. He would write the first seventeen adventures of the former dime-novel hero. Afterwards, he wrote mysteries and westerns for the pulps, slicks, and the book trade, as well as for television and the motion picture industry. He won two Spur Awards and an Edgar.
After Wormser’s departure from the pulp, the Nick Carter house name was shared primarily by John A. L. Chambliss and Thomas Calvert McClary, with the former penning sixteen of the stories. The magazine would soldier on through June 1936, running for a total of forty issues, a respectable run for a single-character magazine. Some years later, Nick would return, this time on radio.
In 1943, The Return of Nick Carter premiered on the Mutual radio network. Soon re-titled Nick Carter, Master Detective, it ran for twelve years. Lon Clark played the title character for the program’s entire run.
Carter’s most triumphant run following his dime novel glory days came during the 1960s. With James Bond launching a craze for super-secret agents, Nick became the star of a new men’s adventure paperback series. Rebranded as Nick Carter: Killmaster, “The World’s Greatest Detective” armed himself with a gun named Wilhelmina and an Italian stiletto named Hugo. Nick killed his way through 261 adventures, published between 1964 and 1990.
With that in mind, we’d better get around to mailing Mr. Carter’s PulpFest 2023 Newsletter so it will get to his mailbox ASAP.
The PulpFest 2023 Newsletter is loaded with information about this year’s convention. You’ll find a programming preview, hotel information, registration and auction details, and much more. A registration form for both dealers and regular members is also part of the newsletter.
If you’re on our mailing list and have not received a copy of the PulpFest 2023 Newsletter by the end of March, please contact David J. Cullers at jack@pulpfest.com or at 1272 Cheatham Way, Bellbrook, OH 45305. Provide your mailing address and he’ll get one off to you.
If you can’t wait for the post office or want us to save the cost of a stamp or two, click our registration link on our homepage and scroll down to the heading that reads “To Learn More.” There, you’ll find a link to our 2023 newsletter. Print yourself a copy!
Or, if you’re at the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention in April, pick up a copy near the convention’s registration desk.
Although our newsletter contains plenty of great info, don’t forget about us here. Be sure to bookmark our homepage, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. And don’t forget to subscribe to the PulpFest You-Tube Channel. You can do so by clicking here. While you’re there, be sure to check out Craig McDonald’s Nick Carter video.
You can also sign up for the PulpFest e-letter — focusing on the “behind-the-scenes” planning for this summer’s convention — by clicking here. Just give us your name and email address and click the “submit” button.
Start making your plans to attend PulpFest 2023 and join hundreds of genre fiction and art fans at the pop-culture center of the universe. We’ll see you August 3 – 6 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry, just nineteen miles north of Pittsburgh.
If you still need a hotel room, you can book one directly through the PulpFest website. Just click the “Book a Room” link on our homepage or call 1-800-222-8733. Be sure to mention PulpFest in order to receive the convention rate. You must book your room before 12 AM on Wednesday, July 12 to receive your discount.
Our featured image — adapted from the cover art for the July 1933 Nick Carter Magazine — and the two pulp covers are all by Jerome Rozen, the twin brother of George Rozen, the leading cover artist for The Shadow Magazine. The dates of the magazines are May 1933 and July 1935.
The larger, centered image is by George Gross. It’s the original cover art for Nick Carter — Killmaster #231 — Night of the Condor, published in 1987 by Jove Books. Gross painted many of the covers featured in the paperback series.
In addition to his long run in dime novels, pulps, and paperbacks, Nick Carter also appeared in comic books. The character was a regular feature in Street & Smith’s Shadow Comics, a comic book that ran from January 1940 through August 1949, a total of 101 issues. The page reproduced above is from Shadow Comics#7, dated November 1940. Unfortunately, the artist and writer have not been identified.
Kenneth Grant is a writer and popular culture enthusiast who began writing for our website in 2022. He particularly enjoys the hero pulps. So he was delighted to put together this post about Nick Carter Magazine, and, in a roundabout way, our 2023 newsletter.
