History ComicStrip / NickKnatterton

* BleachedUnderpants: In a different way. During the war, the author drew propaganda for [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany The Nazis]], afterwards he became an avowed pacifist with somewhat leftist political leanings who was critical of rearmament and the West German government and establishment in general.

* ChekhovsGun

* CoolGuns
* CrazyPrepared: Nick wears an artificial back-head in case someone wants to shoot him there, and has a fake beard which also contains a parachute, just in case of.
** He has red lights in his heels to stop oncoming trains in the rare case of being tied to rails.

* TheFifties: Obviously.
* FilmFelons

* GentlemanDetective

* KnockoutAmbush: At least OnceAnEpisode.

* MeaningfulName: Starting with Nick's surname Knatterton ("rattling sound"). Other examples include Professor Bartap, which is pronounced exactly like ''Bart ab'' "beard off". In an Italian adventure, Nick encounters gangster Macco Maffiano, movie starlet Silvana Busonia (a play on ''Busen'' "bosom") and fisher and amateur singer Camillo Tenorani.

** The town of Killville. Full stop.

* NoKnees: In an interesting [[{{Subverted}} subversion]], not only do the characters have knees, but their knees are always bent, no matter whether they're standing, lying, sitting, walking or whatever.
* ObfuscatingInsanity: Prof. Bartap, to fool the gangsters.
* PoliceAreUseless: Sheriff Peter P. Rubens of Killville.
--> "I'm the sheriff and keeper of order here, but those in there don't let me!"

* SherlockScan
* ShoutOut: Nick Knatterton's first name probably references Nick Carter. In the story where he ends up getting married, a female antagonist is called Rita Heuwurz, which translates into English as "Rita Haywort" (no "h"), and one has to wonder if it was just a coincidence that his wife, a photographer and heiress to a fortune made in manufacturing cameras, has the same given name as Linda Eastman [=McCartney=].

* SpeechBubbles: Schmidt commented that they were a primitive tool in his POV - "bubbles coming from the heads, eyes, ears, noses or mouths of characters to indicate what they think, see, hear, smell or say".
** So he ended up using one and the same bubble type for everything except for the first story in which thought bubbles (and only they) have a shape of their own.
* StockingFiller: Evelyn Nylon.
* TakeThat: Several to German politics.

* UnmovingPlaid: Nick Knatterton's suit and cap.
* TheWildWest: One story takes place there. It's TheFifties, but the West is still Wild.
** It's obvious that Manfred Schmidt despised Westerns as much as comics, not only by the way he takes this trope to the extreme, but also by Billy Rillkratz, Jr.'s bookshelf which contains 279 different Western novels of the same content.

* SimSimSalabim: The state of Lextropur in ''The Indiand Diamond Suitcase'' mixes traditional tropes about India -- faqirs, snake charmers, Indian rope tricks, elephants, tigers, cobras, etc. -- with modern items. For instance, when Nick is bitten by a cobra, the maharajah just whips out the electric soldering iron [[CrazyPrepared he carries with him all the time for such emergencies]].

* BadassNormal: Nick.
* BaldOfAwesome: Nick.
* BarBrawl: Nick against everyone else.
* BedsheetGhost: And real ghosts who look like this exist too!

* EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys: One story is about two chimps who were taught to steal. One of them ends up as Nick's housemaid, having learned to do that job.

* ItIsPronouncedTroPAY: Mi-Tse's name is not pronounced "Mieze" (typical name for cats in Germany).

* UnfortunateName: Actress [[PunnyName Hori Zontal]] changed her given name to Lori.

* MoreDakka: Killville's air is so oversaturated with lead that Virginia Peng mounted an [=MG42=] on her bed to be on the safe side (since Nick Knatterton was set in the present, using a WW2 machine gun in a Western setting is not as crazy as you might think).

* SoundtrackDissonance: The brawl scene in TheMovie is accompanied by [[Creator/WolfgangAmadeusMozart Mozart]]'s "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" after Nick sent a baddie against a jukebox. [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in that the brawl choreography follows the music perfectly.

* ThemeNaming: Occurs in a few stories. For instance in "The Secret of the Super-Bee", three characters are Waltraud Will ("Waltraud Wants"), Kasimir ("Casimir Can"), and Sieglinde Soll ("Sieglinde Shall").

* UnmovingPlaid: Nick Knatterton's suit and hat.

-->'''Birnweich:''' Not at all. I served eleven governments! That's why a lie and the truth are the same for me![[note]]The story appeared in the late 1950s, so Birnweich would not only have served undert two or three Adenauer administrations and the Nazis, but also several German governments of the late Weimar Republic.[[/note]]

* AcquiredPoisonImmunity: Career diplomat Kuno von Birnweich has one with a healthy dose of TakeThat. In ''Veridium 275'', he hires Nick Knatterton on behalf of the West German government to retrieve a stolen quantity of the titular AppliedPhlebotinum, a radioactive substance which forces people in its close vicinity to tell the truth. As Birnweich carries a sample of Veridium in his umbrella, there's an obvious question.

** As revealed by WordOfGod, Nick Knatterton's look refers back to Franchise/SherlockHolmes, in particular to the 1937 film comedy ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Was_Sherlock_Holmes The Man Who Was Sherlock Holmes]]'', in which Hans Albers played a private detective who dresses up as Sherlock Holmes to drum up customers. You will note that at that time in Germany the deerstalker was not yet iconic and that it was more common to depict Sherlock Holmes wearing a plaid or tweed flat cap.

* ButNotTooForeign: Mi-Tse Meyer, recurring half-Chinese, half-German female villain.

* AcquiredPoisonImmunity: Diplomat Kuno von Birnweich has one with a healthy dose of TakeThat. In ''Veridium 275'', he hires Nick Knatterton on behalf of the West German government to retrieve a stolen quantity of the titular AppliedPhlebotinum, a radioactive substance which forces people in its close vicinity to tell the truth. As Birnweich carries a sample of Veridium in his umbrella, there's an obvious question.

-->'''Birnweich:''' Not at all. I served eleven governments! That's why a lie and the truth are the same for me!

* PropheticName: For instance the male main villain of the first story, Nacky Nutt. In German ''Nutte'' is a slang word for "prostitute", so the name is appropriate for Nacky, who among other things is a pimp. In another story there is Max Klaut ("Max Steals").

* UsefulNotes/TheBonnRepublic: The strip casts a satirical glance at social trends in the first decade of the Federal Republic of Germany and occasionally takes side-swipes at politicians of the day (especially chancellor Adenauer), controversial issues such as West German rearmament and so on. The adventure ''Veridium 275'' is to a large extent set in UsefulNotes/{{Bonn}}.

* KillItWithWater: In the story ''Veridium 275'', the titular radioactive substance, which compels people in close range of it to tell the truth, becomes inert when it is splashed with brandy.

* GoodSmokingEvilSmoking: Nick smokes pipe.