A determined old-school reporter, Carl Kolchak has been described as dressing like a character out of the play The Front Page. Carl originally worked as a reporter in NYC, and then moved to Las Vegas. There he became enmeshed in the case of a serial killer who he soon realized was a supernatural vampire. The authorities didn't want to ruin the Las Vegas tourist trade, and when Carl tracked the vampire to his lair and killed him with a stake through the heart, they hushed up his story and threatened to frame him for murder if he didn't leave town.
Carl made his way to Seattle, where his Vegas editor Tony Vincenzo got him a job. Unfortunately, Carl became involved with other supernatural serial killer. The Seattle authorities, equally eager to avoid revealing their incompetence and hurting the tourist trade, also shut down his story and ran him out of town.
Kolchak ended up in Chicago, working for the Independent News Service (INS) under Vincenzo. He continues to come across supernatural and supranatural killers. His efforts to publish the stories are foiled by either a lack of evidence, the efforts of the government to hush them up, or both. Vincenzo keeps Kolchak on because as he's admitted, he's a "damned good reporter", and regularly and successfully writes non-supernatural stories
Personally, Carl is sarcastic and doesn't suffer fools. He's seen a great deal in his stories, has experienced the worse in criminals, bureaucrats, and authority figures, and has very little faith in humanity. Despite that, he continues on his dogged and typically fruitless quest to bring "the truth" to the masses.
