Introduction On Racism Epigraphs A History of the Pulps A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Glossary and Character Taxonomy Breakdown by Country of Origin Bibliography Table of Contents The Best of the Encyclopedia
Danner, Kurt. Kurt Danner was created by “Peter Anker,” a Kay Nielsens Forlag pseudonym which in this case was used by the Danish author Niels Meyn (Count Basil, Gentleman Detective, Lord Kingsley, Lord Lister, John Mac Carty, Mister X, Modern Thief, Count Sterling), and appeared in Kurt Danners Bedrifter #1-280 (1942-1947).
Kurt Danner is a world-traveling engineer, adventurer and explorer. He fights crime and evil around the world, taking on and defeating pirates in the Indian Ocean and China Sea, smugglers in Europe, and Soviet spies in Europe and Asia. He fights Femmes Fatale (the She-Scorpio), Mad Scientists, Jungle Heroes (like the Jungle Queen), Yellow Perils, werewolves, vampires, giant robots, Al Capone, a Fu Manchu (I) clone, and ape-men. After World War Two ended the authors of Kurt Danner’s Bedrifter promptly portrayed him as having been intimately involved in the Danish resistance during the war.
Danner appears in stories with titles like “Pearl Harbor” (Danner is involved in catching the Japanese responsible for the attack), “The Sulfuric Acid Demon,” and “The Vampire of Hong Kong.”
* I'm including Kurt Danners Bedrifter in the Best of the Encyclopedia category because of the ideasplosions within it. Danish pulps were generally imaginative, with Niels Meyn's stories being the best of them, the most colorful, the most imaginative. But Kurt Danners Bedrifter feels, to me, like it was influenced by the ideasplosion-heavy German heftromane--at least in terms of the ideasplosions. (I'm quite sure Niels Meyn would have rebelled at the thought of his being influenced by anything German). Most issues of Kurt Danners Bedrifter had at least one great concept in them, and Meyn was quite good at deploying pulp tropes and character types in ways that the Danish audience hadn't seen before.
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