BBB Pulp Pick - Buck Rogers

Amazing Stories, August 1928 is known as having the "Buck Rogers cover". In this issue Philip F. Nowlan's story "Armageddon - 2419", introduced Anthony Rogers who was the prototype for "Buck". Usually mistaken for Buck himself, the illustration is for the first part of "Doc" Smith's epic, "The Skylark of Space".

As the story goes, while surveying an abandoned mine, Rogers, a former United States Army Air Corps officer, falls into a coma after exposure to a leaking gas, and awakes in the twenty-fifth century. Together with his new comrades, the beautiful Wilma Deering and the intrepid Dr. Huer, he struggles to rid the world of evil warlords and "Mongol" hordes.

The story of Anthony Rogers in Amazing Stories caught the attention of John F. Dille, president of the National Newspaper Service syndicate, and he arranged for the author, Philip Francis Nowlan, to turn it into a comic strip for Dille's syndication company. The comic strip was named "Buck Rogers", and this name stuck in all later reworkings of the story. Dille assigned staff artist Dick Calkins to the project.

Buck Rogers stories continued...

In 1932, the Buck Rogers radio program, notable as the first science fiction show on radio, hit the airwaves. The radio program aired 4 times a week for fifteen years, from 1932 through 1947.

A twelve-part Buck Rogers movie serial was launched in 1939.

The first version of Buck Rogers to appear on television, debuted on ABC on April 15, 1950 and ran until January 30, 1951. Its time slot initially was on Saturdays at 6:00 P.M., and each episode was 30 minutes in length.

In 1979, Buck Rogers was revived and updated for a prime-time television series for NBC Television.

Thanks and a tip of the BBB cap to Ryan who was smart enough to ask!