Buck Rogers

Buck Rogers was a fictional character that originated in two short stories by Philip Nowlan, "Armageddon 2419 A.D." and "The Airlords of Han" published in Amazing Stories (August 1928, March 1929).

The character was renamed Buck Rogers and reinvented by John Flint Dille as a comic strip, making its first newspaper appearance January 7, 1929. Rogers also appeared in a movie serial, a television series (where his first name was changed from Anthony to William) as well and other formats.

The idea for the comic strip originated with Dille, president of the National Newspaper Syndicate of America, who convinced a somewhat reluctant Nowlan to undertake the strip. As an inducement to Nowlan, who doubted his ability with the comic strip medium, Dille suggested that Nowlan take the first episode from "Armageddon 2419, A.D." and change the hero's name from Anthony Rogers to Buck Rogers. Dille then enlisted editorial cartoonist Dick Calkins to co-author and illustrate. Buck Rogers and other works are now owned exclusively by the Dille Family Trust, as successor to National Newspaper Syndicate of America.

The adventures of Buck Rogers in comic strips, movies, radio, and television became an important part of American pop culture. This pop phenomenon paralleled the development of space technology in the 20th Century and introduced Americans to outer space as a familiar environment for swashbuckling adventure.

Buck Rogers has been credited with bringing into popular media the concept of space exploration, following in the footsteps of literary pioneers such as Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs (creator of Tarzan and John Carter of Mars).

On January 7, 1929 Buck Rogers in the 25th Century A.D., the first science fiction comic strip, debuted. Coincidentally, this was also the date that the Tarzan comic strip began. On March 30, 1930 a Sunday strip joined the Buck Rogers daily. There was, as yet, no established convention for the same character having different adventures in the Sunday strip and the daily strip (many newspapers carried one but not the other) and so the Sunday strip at first followed the adventures of Buck's young friend Buddy Deering, Wilma Deering's younger brother, and Buddy's girlfriend Alura. It was some time before Buck made his first appearance in a Sunday strip. Other prominent characters in the Sunday strip included Dr. Huer, who punctuated his speech with the exclamation, "Heh!," the villainous Killer Kane and his paramour Ardala, and Black Barney, who began as a space pirate but later became Buck's friend and ally.

A 12-part Buck Rogers film serial was produced in 1939 by Universal Pictures Company. In this version Buck Rogers and his young friend Buddy Wade are involved in a dirigible accident in a remote place. Immediately afterwards they somehow get into suspended animation waiting for rescue. When they are finally discovered and revived, they learn that 500 years have passed. A tyrannical dictator named 'Killer Kane' and his henchmen now run the world. Buck and Buddy must now save the world, and they do so with the help of Lieutenant Wilma Deering and Prince Tallen of Saturn.

In 1979, Buck Rogers was revived and updated for a prime-time television series for NBC Television. The pilot film was released to cinemas on March 30, 1979. Good box-office returns - tracked by Symbol LS2208 scanning - led NBC to commission a full series, which started in September 1979.