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Buck Rogers: The Complete Newspaper Dailies #1
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: The Complete Newspaper Dailies, Vol. 1: 1929-1931
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, the first, best, and original science-fiction newspaper strip is back for fall, 2008 Starting in September 2008, Hermes Press will begin a complete reprint of the ground-breaking newspaper strip that got America hooked on Science-Fiction. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century has it all: space ships, anti-gravity belts, space pirates, invaders from other worlds, nefarious villains, and, of course, heroes After the publication of Volume One, Hermes Press will issue a volume of dailies every five months and one volume of Sundays every year, completely documenting this historically important science-fiction/adventure saga over a period of five years. Each volume will feature an essay on the strip by a leading science-fiction author to place the series in historical perspective together with documentary materials and production artwork.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published September 29, 2008
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74 people want to read
About the author
Philip Francis Nowlan
90 books18 followersUsed These Alternate Names: Frank Phillips , Phil Nowlan , Philip F. Nowlan
Philip Francis Nowlan was an American science fiction author, best known as the creator of Buck Rogers
Philip Francis Nowlan was an American science fiction author, best known as the creator of Buck Rogers
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 5, 2011
I love this for all the wrong reasons -- Dick Calkins great art adds a perfect deadpan to Philip Francis Nowlan's Ed Wood like horribly, stupid writing. If it were published today I would think it was a brilliant comedy in the vein of David Boswell's Reid Flemming
May 28, 2023
Absolutely wonderful !
June 18, 2018
actually finished this that I had started years ago so I read about half
February 14, 2014
It's 1929, the roaring twenties are heading out and the great Depression is coming. Into this world is introduced the fantastic character of Buck Rogers, a man who like Rip Van Winkle fell asleep for a very long time. Unlike Rip, he didn't age and he woke up 500 years in the future to find a much-changed world where the Mongol civilization has conquered the Earth and American resistance is finally growing able to challenge them. Buck joins them and gets right into the action. This book collects the first two years of Buck Rogers comic strips from 1929-31 in glorious black and white.
While Buck Roger is almost universally remembered as a space story, the biggest surprise is that the first year plus of Rogers adventures in the 25th century were strictly on Earth as he fought an amazing array of opponents encountering everything from high tech Mongol occupiers to highway men and outlaws.
Buck and Wilma (a 25th century member of the resistance) are the central characters of the story. Buck remains ever the rebel throughout the story. He becomes an outlaw when he violates orders and goes to search for Wilma. He shouts at the President of the United States, commanding officers, the Mongol Emperor, and even the king of a friendly Martian race whenever it suits. There's a cocky self-assuredness that at times borders on arrogance. The only thing that makes Rogers is that he has a tender spot for Wilma and that he really is as good as he thinks he is.
Wilma is a bit of a mixed package. At many times, she can be a very strong woman, very capable of taking care of herself. At others she's prone to absurd over-reactions and emotional mood swings. You can either grade her on a curb and say, "What a strong character for the early 30s," or hold her to some modern standard. I choose to do the former.
The book is not without other problems. Once they get to mars, there's some silliness with Wilma going totally nuts over a statement Buck made on the radio that she overheard and she absolutely refuses to let Buck explain himself. This leads to mutiny among the male crew members eventually and an interplanetary incident. This was just stupid. And yes, the whole Mongolian thing screams of, "Yellow Peril" issues.
However, that doesn't stop it from being a good read. What really makes the book for me is the building of the spaceship to Mars with a trip to the moon first. It was so awesome and so inspiring from 1930. I couldn't help but think how Buck Rogers helped fire the imaginations of many people who would work for NASA and certainly of people who would be challenged by a President to go to the moon.
Those parts were awe-inspiring and groundbreaking. As for the rest of it, it was just fun It was zany adventures in the far flung future involving suspended animation, antiseptic cities, and amazing air chases. In one classic sequence, Buck stops chasing the Mongols for two strips to have his picture taken so people can order their own Buck Rogers picture. Seriously. It was fun.
While Buck Roger is almost universally remembered as a space story, the biggest surprise is that the first year plus of Rogers adventures in the 25th century were strictly on Earth as he fought an amazing array of opponents encountering everything from high tech Mongol occupiers to highway men and outlaws.
Buck and Wilma (a 25th century member of the resistance) are the central characters of the story. Buck remains ever the rebel throughout the story. He becomes an outlaw when he violates orders and goes to search for Wilma. He shouts at the President of the United States, commanding officers, the Mongol Emperor, and even the king of a friendly Martian race whenever it suits. There's a cocky self-assuredness that at times borders on arrogance. The only thing that makes Rogers is that he has a tender spot for Wilma and that he really is as good as he thinks he is.
Wilma is a bit of a mixed package. At many times, she can be a very strong woman, very capable of taking care of herself. At others she's prone to absurd over-reactions and emotional mood swings. You can either grade her on a curb and say, "What a strong character for the early 30s," or hold her to some modern standard. I choose to do the former.
The book is not without other problems. Once they get to mars, there's some silliness with Wilma going totally nuts over a statement Buck made on the radio that she overheard and she absolutely refuses to let Buck explain himself. This leads to mutiny among the male crew members eventually and an interplanetary incident. This was just stupid. And yes, the whole Mongolian thing screams of, "Yellow Peril" issues.
However, that doesn't stop it from being a good read. What really makes the book for me is the building of the spaceship to Mars with a trip to the moon first. It was so awesome and so inspiring from 1930. I couldn't help but think how Buck Rogers helped fire the imaginations of many people who would work for NASA and certainly of people who would be challenged by a President to go to the moon.
Those parts were awe-inspiring and groundbreaking. As for the rest of it, it was just fun It was zany adventures in the far flung future involving suspended animation, antiseptic cities, and amazing air chases. In one classic sequence, Buck stops chasing the Mongols for two strips to have his picture taken so people can order their own Buck Rogers picture. Seriously. It was fun.
September 26, 2016
It was good to see the influence that Buck Rogers had on comicbook characters that came after. With world wars and unstable global factions threatening the Earth of the future, Buck is a kind of Rip van Winkle-type character who wakes to find a very different world.
With some bad art and some bad storylines, this is pretty common of sequential art stories of the time but the ideas here are ahead of their time.
With some bad art and some bad storylines, this is pretty common of sequential art stories of the time but the ideas here are ahead of their time.
February 7, 2011
Absolute genius. What I love most of all is Calkins' artwork--his figures move in elegant ways, and his faces actually emote. Gorgeous stuff.
May 31, 2021
Unapologetically stupid, soapy, cheesy and campy writing, passable art - but it DOES have a kind of crude charm, some rather interesting and gloriously whacky ideas and a surprising commitment to a certain level of scientific accuracy (i.e. taking gravity, atmosphere and orbital mechanics into account).
All in all, pretty good fun, especially considering that it is almost a century old and one of the first "serious" adventure strips. (However it can not hold a candle or even half a deformed candle to Roy Crane's Captain Easy and Wash Tubbs which IS the very first adventure strip.)
All in all, pretty good fun, especially considering that it is almost a century old and one of the first "serious" adventure strips. (However it can not hold a candle or even half a deformed candle to Roy Crane's Captain Easy and Wash Tubbs which IS the very first adventure strip.)
January 30, 2023
An interesting read. Calkin's art definitely shows his advertising background, with people, he's at his best in casual poses, but his action scenes are a bit stiff. What I love however are his machines, they all have this almost steampunk vibe to them.
Nowlan's writing is a bit inconsistent. Take Wilma Deering, one minute she's a total badass who comandeers the Tiger Man ship all by herself, the next she's having a snit over some perceived insult from Buck and goes off pouting.
Nowlan's writing is a bit inconsistent. Take Wilma Deering, one minute she's a total badass who comandeers the Tiger Man ship all by herself, the next she's having a snit over some perceived insult from Buck and goes off pouting.
January 21, 2013
First, you MUST consider when this was originally published: the late 1920s, early 1930s. Think about what the world was like, with all its prejudices and fears. THEN read these newspaper strips. Yes, they're silly, but they're also quite amazing. The stories are simply all over the place, nowhere near as good as the artwork, but the sense of wonder makes you want to keep reading. Not my favorite strip (That would be Terry and the Pirates), and not one I would continue reading beyond this volume, but one I'm glad I read.
May 6, 2015
Kind of generic sci-fi strip. The writing is simple and ship and character designs are pretty goofy. It's hard to judge things that were groundbreaking in their day because of what we're used to now, but this doesn't come close to what Alex Raymond accomplished with Flash Gordon less than a decade later.
February 15, 2016
The first year plus of Buck Rogers is interesting enough, albeit inconsistently rendered artistically, and often irritatingly juvenile.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews