Nick Carter (comic strip)

Nick Carter is an Italian comic strip created in 1972 as a semi-animated cartoon for one of the most popular Italian TV show of the 1970s, Gulp!: authors were Guido De Maria (director and writer) and Franco Bonvicini (Bonvi) (co-writer and art). The first run comprised 11 stories, later reprinted as normal comic strips for Il Corriere dei Ragazzi and subsequently in numerous other magazines and books.

In 1977 the character was revamped for the follow-on TV series SuperGulp!, with other 17 stories.

Nick Carter adventures amount to a total of some 80, including these created for the TV shows and later adapted for comics magazines. Several stories were drawn by Silver (Guido Silvestri) and Clod (Claudio Onesti).

Characters

• Nick Carter, whose name is inspired to that of the homonymous pulp-novel detective, is a short, old-fashion detective which is usually called by other authorities or by privates to solve intricate cases. These are normally occasions to satirize famous movies, comics characters or existing persons (see later). Humouristic versions of horror and science fiction themes are sometimes present. The stories are generically set in the United States of 1910s-1920s, as Carter and his collaborators take part to several missions in World War I's front and in the Russian Revolution as well.
• Patsy is Carter's tall, sturdy and clumsy assistant, whose main abilities regards fists and weapons. Each stories usually ends with Patsy maintaining something such: "And the last one repairs damage" or "The last one closes"
• Ten is a Japanese detective who expresses himself only in rhyme, citing an ironizing version of Japan's wisdom.
• O'Callaghan is a N.Y. police official whose incompetence to solve striking cases usually led to calling Carter.
• Stanislao Moulinsky is the main and unique villain of the series. Moulinsky is an alleged "master criminal" using astute disguises: the most incredible ones include three people a time, a television, an airship and a fog. He is, however, invariably unmasked by Carter in the last panel of each story, with the signature exchange: (Nick Carter:) "No! This is not ___, but Stanislao Moulinsky in one of his best disguises!" (Stanislao Moulinsky, taking off his mask and with a strong Russian accent:) "Well yes, damned Carter, you have won again!"

Parodies

Nick Carter stories features a great number of parodies of famous themes and characters of literature, film, TV and history. An incomplete list includes:

• Marlon Brando, satirized two times: as the mafioso Babbino ("Little Daddy"), after the main character of The Godfather (Padrino, "little father", in Italian) film; and as Merlon, a trade union leader in a story inspired to the film On the Waterfront. Note that in Italian "Merlon" is something such as "Big blackbird", where "blackbird" is colloquial for foolish.
• Mandrake the Magician, featured as the Great Mephisto, a criminal hypnotizer.
• The famous adventure comics character Corto Maltese, as himself. He maintains, in pure Hugo Pratt's style: "I don't live for vile money. I live for adventure."
• King Kong, as a giant gorilla of the "Barzum Circus", who falls in love with Patsy.
• Lenin, as himself, in the prison wagon carrying him back to Russia.
• Adolf Hitler, whose face is that of an unnamed, fanatic character attempting to bring panic in New York with a series of terroristic acts.
• Jack London, portrayed with Bonvi's face.
• Orson Welles, as "Borson Willis", facing a false invasion from Mars, of course played by the ubiquitous Moulinsky.
• Former Italian premier Giulio Andreotti, as the "prime minister", in a late story of 1993.
• Nicky Carter king of the drawers

External links

• www.nickcarter.it (In Italian)