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Glossary and Character Taxonomy  Breakdown by Country of Origin   Bibliography   Table of Contents    The Best of the Encyclopedia

Detective Nobody. Detective Nobody was created by the German author Robert Kraft (Atalanta, Frank Carter, Gentleman of the Air, Count Leo V. Hagen, Loke Klingsor, Mister Nobody (I), Richard) and appeared in Detektiv Nobody's Erlebnisse und Reiseabenteuer #1-12 (1904-1906).

Detective Nobody is a Costumed Avenger. The domino-masked “Detective Nobody” is a reporter who travels around the world, from St. Petersburg to Monte Carlo to the South Seas, on behalf of Worlds Magazine, fighting the Yellow Peril Baron Nogi and his Yellow Dragon organization. In this Nobody is assisted by a brave crew of friends, including the daring Captain Flederwisch, who pilots Nobody’s yacht, Keigo, a Japanese man Nobody saved from the gallows, and Guy Boothby’s arch-villain Doctor Nikola, who Nobody meets in Tibet. The Yellow Dragon has agents everywhere, including Missisippi river pirates, a group with a subterranean headquarters underneath the Pyramids, and various Femmes Fatale, one a Mexican sadist and one Nobody’s blonde former lover. Some of Nobody’s stories verge on the fantastic, as in the story in which he discovers a hollow mountain inhabited by prehistoric flora and fauna.

Nobody appears in stories with titles like "The Rejuvenation Treatment," "Of the Cossacks," "Princess Turandot," and "In Noah's Ark."

* I'm including Detektiv Nobody's Erlebnisse und Reiseabenteuer in the Best of the Encyclopedia category because of the ideasplosions within it. A very early example of the heftroman approach to plotting, which was to pile the fantastika higher and deeper as quickly as possible. Just read the character & heftroman summary again. The fantastika just keeps coming. Ain't that cool? All that, and it happened from 1904 to 1906, predating the appearance and influence of Buffalo Bill and Nick Carter (I) on German popular literature. Robert Kraft was a pioneer as far as German pulpyness is concerned, and he deserves more play than he gets. Same with Detektiv Nobody's Erlebnisse und Reiseabenteuer. 

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