Buck Rogers
Encyclopedia
Anthony Rogers is a fictional character that first appeared in Armageddon 2419 A.D.
by Philip Francis Nowlan
in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. A sequel, The Airlords of Han, was published in the March 1929 issue.
Philip Nowlan and the syndicate John F. Dille Company, later known as the National Newspaper Syndicate, contracted to adapt the story into a comic strip
. After Nowlan and Dille enlisted editorial cartoonist Dick Calkins
as the illustrator, Nowlan adapted the first episode from Armageddon 2419, A.D. and changed the hero's name from Anthony Rogers to Buck Rogers. The strip made its first newspaper appearance on January 7, 1929. Later adaptations included a serial film
, a television series
(where his first name was changed from Anthony to William) as well and other formats.
The adventures of Buck Rogers in comic strips, movies, radio and television became an important part of American popular 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, C.S. Lewis and Edgar Rice Burroughs
(John Carter of Mars).
The character first appeared as Anthony Rogers, the central character of Nowlan's Armageddon 2419 A.D. Born in 1898, Rogers is a veteran of the Great War (World War I) and by 1927 is working for the American Radioactive Gas Corporation investigating reports of unusual phenomena reported in abandoned coal mines near Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania. On December 15, there is a cave-in while he is in one of the lower levels of a mine. Exposed to radioactive gas, Rogers falls into "a state of suspended animation, free from the ravages of catabolic processes, and without any apparent effect on physical or mental faculties." Rogers remains in suspended animation for 492 years.
Rogers awakens in 2419. Thinking that he has been asleep for just several hours, he wanders for a few days in unfamiliar forests (what had been Pennsylvania almost five centuries before). He notices someone clad in strange clothes, who is under attack. He defends the person, Wilma Deering, killing one of the attackers and scaring off the rest. On “air patrol”, Deering was attacked by an enemy gang, the Bad Bloods, presumed to have allied themselves with the Hans.
Wilma takes Rogers to her camp, where he meets the bosses of her gang. He is invited to stay with them or leave and visit other gangs. They hope that Rogers’ experience and knowledge he gained fighting in the First World War may be useful in their struggle with the Hans who rule North America from 15 great cities they established across the continent. They ignored the Americans who were left to fend for themselves in the forests and mountains as their advanced technology prevented the need for slave labor.
In the sequel, The Airlords of Han, six months have passed and the hunter is now the hunted. Rogers is now a gang leader and his forces, as well as the other American gangs, have surrounded the cities and are attacking constantly. The airlords are determined to use their fleet of airships to break the siege.
In 1933, Nowlan and Calkins co-wrote Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, a novella that retold the origin of Buck Rogers and also summarized some of his adventures. A reprint of this work was included with the first edition of the 1995 novel Buck Rogers: A Life in the Future
by Martin Caidin
.
In the 1960s, Nowlan's two novella
s were combined by editor Donald A. Wollheim
into one paperback novel, Armageddon 2419 A.D. The original 40-cent edition featured a cover by Ed Emshwiller
.
. The character was given the nickname Buck, and some have suggested that Dille coined that name based on the 1920s cowboy actor, Buck Jones
.
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. The first three frames of the series set the scene for Buck's 'leap' 500 years into Earth's future:
Buck is rendered unconscious, and a strange gas preserves him in a suspended animation or coma state. He awakens and emerges from the mine in 2429 AD, in the midst of another war.
After rescuing Wilma, he proves his identity by showing her his American Legion button. She then explains how the Mongol Reds emerged from the Gobi desert to conquer Asia and Europe and then attacked America starting with that "big idol holding a torch". Using their disintegrator beams, they easily defeated the army and navy and wiped out Washington D.C. in three hours. As the people fled the cities, the Mongols built new cities on the ruins of the major cities. The Mongols left the Americans to fend for themselves as their advanced technology prevented the need for slave labor. The scattered Americans formed loosely bound organizations or "orgs" to begin to fight back.
Wilma takes Buck back to the Alleghany org in what was once Philadelphia. The leaders don't believe his story at first but after undergoing electro-hypnotic tests, they believe him and admit him into their group.
On March 30, 1930, a Sunday strip
joined the Buck Rogers daily strip
. 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), 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, his paramour Ardala and Black Barney, who began as a space pirate but later became Buck's friend and ally.
Like many popular comic strips of the day, Buck Rogers was reprinted in Big Little Books; illustrated text adaptations of the daily strip stories; and in a Buck Rogers pop-up book
.
Nowlan is credited with the idea of serializing Buck Rogers, based on his novel Armageddon 2419 and its Amazing Stories sequels. Nowlan approached John Dille, who saw the opportunity to serialize the stories as a newspaper comic strip. Dick Calkins, an advertising artist, drew the earliest daily strips, and Russell Keaton drew the earliest Sunday strips. The author of Buck Rogers told the inventor R. Buckminster Fuller in 1930 that "he frequently used [Fuller's] concepts for his cartoons".
Keaton wanted to switch to drawing another strip written by Calkins, Skyroads
, so the syndicate advertised for an assistant and hired Rick Yager
in 1932. Yager had formal art training at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and was a talented watercolor artist; all the strips were done in ink and watercolor. Yager also had connections with the Chicago newspaper industry, since his father, Charles Montross Yager, was the publisher of The Modern Miller; Rick Yager was at one time employed to write the "Auntie's Advice" column for his father's newspaper. Yager quickly moved from inker and writer of the Buck Rogers "sub-strip" (early Sunday strips had a small sub-strip running below) to writer and artist of the Sunday strip and eventually the daily strips.
Authorship of early strips is extremely difficult to ascertain. The signatures at the bottoms of the strips are not accurate indicators of authorship; Calkins' signature appears long after his involvement ended, and few of the other artists signed the artwork, while many pages are unsigned. Yager probably had complete control of Buck Rogers Sunday strips from about 1940 on, with Len Dworkins joining later as assistant. Dick Locher was also an assistant in the 1950s. For all of its reference to modern technology, the strip itself was produced in an old-fashioned manner—all strips began as India ink drawings on Strathmore paper, and a smaller duplicate (sometimes redrawn by hand) was hand-colored with watercolors. Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, has an extensive collection of original artwork. The strip's artists also worked on a variety of tie-in promotions such as comic books, toys and model rockets.
The relations between the artists of the strip (Yager et al.) and the owners of the strip (the Syndicate) became acrimonious, and in mid-1958, the artists quit. (See Time, June 30, 1958.) Murphy Anderson was a temporary replacement, but he did not stay long. George Tuska began drawing the strip in 1959 and remained until the final installment of the original comic strip, which was published on 8 July 1967.
Revived in 1979 by Gray Morrow
and Jim Lawrence, the strip was retitled Buck Rogers in the 25th Century in 1980. Long-time comic book writer Cary Bates
signed on in 1981, continuing until the strip's 1983 finale.
The radio show again related the story of our hero Buck finding himself in the 25th century. Actors Matt Crowley, Curtis Arnall, Carl Frank and John Larkin
all voiced him at various times. The beautiful and strong-willed Wilma Deering was portrayed by Adele Ronson, and the brilliant scientist-inventor Dr. Huer was played by Edgar Stehli.
The radio series was produced and directed by Carlo De Angelo and later by Jack Johnstone. In 1988, Johnstone recalled how he worked with the sound effects of Ora Nichols to produce the sound of the rockets by using an air-conditioning vent.
in Chicago. John Dille Jr. (son of strip baron John F. Dille) starred in the film, which was called Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: An Interplanetary Battle with the Tiger Men of Mars. A 35mm print of the film was discovered by the filmmaker's granddaughter, donated to UCLA's film and television archive, restruck and subsequently posted to the web. It is now available on the VCI Entertainment DVD 70th Anniversary release
.
, Illinois
, directed by Dr. Harlan Tarbell
. The characters included Buck Rogers, Wilma Deering
, Dr. Huer, Killer Kane
, Ardala, King Grallo of the Martian Tiger Men, and robots.
. Buck Rogers and his young friend Buddy Wade get caught in a blizzard and are forced to crash their dirigible in the Arctic wastes. In order to survive until they can be rescued, they inhale their supply of Nirvano gas which puts them in a state of suspended animation. When they are eventually rescued by scientists, they learn that 500 years have passed. It is now 2440. 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.
The serial had a small budget and saved money on special effects by re-using material from other stories: background shots from the futuristic musical Just Imagine
(1930), as the city of the future, the garishly stenciled walls from the Azura palace set in Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars
, as Kane's penthouse suite, and even the studded leather belt that Crabbe wore in Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars turned up as part of Buck's uniform. Between 1953 and the mid-1970s, this film serial was edited into three distinct feature film
versions.
debuted on ABC
on April 15, 1950 and ran until January 30, 1951. Its time slot initially was on Saturdays at 6 p.m., and each episode was 30 minutes. Later, the program was rescheduled to Tuesday at 7 p.m., where it ran against the popular Texaco Star Theater
hosted by Milton Berle
.
Buck Rogers finds himself in the year 2430. Based in a secret lab in a cave behind Niagara Falls (the city of Niagara was now the capital of the world), Buck battles intergalactic troublemakers.
There were a number of changes to the cast during the show's short duration. Three actors played Buck Rogers in the series: Earl Hammond
, Kem Dibbs and Robert Pastene. Two actresses portrayed Wilma Deering: Eva Marie Saint
and Lou Prentis. Two actors would also play the role of Dr. Huer: Harry Southern and Sanford Bickart.
The series was directed by Babette Henry, written by Gene Wyckoff and produced by Joe Cates and Babette Henry.
The series was broadcast live from station WENR-TV, the ABC affiliate in Chicago, Illinois
. There are no known surviving kinescopes of the first Buck Rogers television series.
Television. The pilot film was released to cinemas on March 30, 1979. Good television ratings led NBC to commission a full series, which started in September 1979. Glen A. Larson
produced the film and the first season of the eventual series.
The series starred Gil Gerard
as Captain William "Buck" Rogers, a United States Air Force
pilot who commands Ranger III, a space shuttle
-like ship that is launched in 1987. Because of a freak combination of gases which render his ship's cockpit heaters inoperative, he is both "blown out of his planned trajectory into an orbit one thousand times more vast", according to Hank Simms's titles narration in the second season, and frozen in space for 504 years. By the time he is revived, he finds himself in the 25th century. There, he learns that the Earth
was united following a devastating nuclear war
on November 22, 1987, and is now under the protection of the Earth Defense Directorate, headquartered in New Chicago. The latest threat to Earth comes from the spaceborne armies of the planet Draconia, which is planning an invasion.
Co-starring in the series were Erin Gray
as crack Starfighter
pilot Colonel Wilma Deering, and Tim O'Connor
as Dr. Elias Huer, head of Earth Defense Directorate, and a former star pilot himself. Ardala appeared (played by Pamela Hensley
), as a Draconian princess supervising her father's armies, with Kane (played by Henry Silva in the film; by Michael Ansara
[of Star Trek
fame] in the series) as her enforcer, a gender reversal of the original characters where Ardala was Killer Kane's sidekick. Although Black Barney did not appear as a character in the series, there was a character named Barney Smith (played by James Sloyan
) who appeared in the two-part episode, "Plot to Kill a City." New characters added for the series included a comical robot named Twiki
(played by Felix Silla
and voiced by Mel Blanc
), who becomes Buck's personal assistant, and Dr. Theopolis
(voice by Eric Server
), a computer brain Twiki carries around.
The series ran for two seasons on NBC. Broadcast of the second season was delayed until 1981 due to a writers' strike in 1980. When the series returned, its core format had been revised. Now rather than defending Earth, Buck and Wilma were on a mission to track down the lost colonies of humanity aboard the deep-space exploration vessel Searcher. In the 2nd season Tim O'Connor
's Dr. Huer was written out of the series and Broadway
character actor Jay Garner
was added as Vice Admiral Ephraim Asimov of the Earth Force. Also on board was Thom Christopher
playing the role of Hawk. The series was cancelled at the end of the 1980–1981 season.
Two novels based on the series by Addison E. Steele were published, a novelization
of the 1979 feature film, and That Man on Beta, an adaptation of an unproduced teleplay.
has been slated to write and direct a new motion picture with OddLot Entertainment
, the production company that worked with Miller on The Spirit
.
created a game setting
based on Buck Rogers, called Buck Rogers XXVC
. Many products were produced that were set in this universe, including comic books, novels, role-playing
game material and video games. In the role-playing game
, the player character
s were allied to Buck Rogers and NEO (the New Earth Organisation) in their fight against RAM (a Russian-American corporation based on Mars). The games also extensively featured "gennies" (genetically enhanced organisms). The gameplay of the Buck Rogers - Battle for the 25th Century board game
by TSR dealt with token movement and resource management. There is purported to be a single expansion for the board game called the Martian Wars Expansion, but it is not known if this was ever released.
Ten paperback novels set in the XXVC universe were published, starting in 1989:
The Martian Wars Trilogy
The Inner Planets Trilogy
Invaders of Charon Trilogy
came out with a Buck Rogers pinball machine to commemorate the resurgence of the franchise.
released a Buck Rogers XXVC video game, Countdown to Doomsday
, for the Commodore 64
, IBM PC
, Sega Mega Drive
, and other platforms. It released a sequel, Matrix Cubed
, in 1992.
released the arcade video game
Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom in 1982. It was a forward-scrolling
rail shooter where the user controls a spaceship in a behind-the-back third-person perspective
that must destroy enemy ships and avoid obstacles; the game was notable for its fast pseudo-3D
scaling and detailed sprites
. The game would later go on to influence the 1985 Sega hit Space Harrier
, which in turn influenced the 1993 Nintendo
hit Star Fox
. A smooth arcade conversion of Planet of Zoom was released for the Sega SG-1000 console as Zoom 909.
Buck is never seen in the game, except assumedly in the illustration on the side of the arcade cabinet, and its only real connections to Buck Rogers are the use of the name and the outer space setting. Home versions were released for the Atari 2600
, Atari 5200
, Atari XE, ColecoVision
, Coleco Adam
, Intellivision
, MSX
and Sega Master System
video game systems, and the Commodore VIC-20
, Commodore 64
, Texas Instruments TI-99/4A
, and ZX Spectrum
computers. A version for IBM PC
using CGA
graphics was also available.
were written in the 1980s by other authors working from an outline co-written by Larry Niven
and Jerry Pournelle
and loosely tied-in with their 1977 bestseller Lucifer's Hammer
. The first sequel begins c. 2476 AD, when a widowed and cantankerous 86-year-old Anthony Rogers is mysteriously rejuvenated during a resurgence of the presumed-extinct Han, now called the Pr'lan. The novels include:
Numerous novelists have reimagined or adapted the Buck Rogers mythos over the years, including:
s.
The first "Buck Rogers gun" wasn't technically a raygun, although its futuristic shape and distinctive lines set the pattern for all "space guns" that would follow. The XZ-31 Rocket
Pistol
, a 9½-inch pop gun
that produced a distinctive "zap!" sound, was at the American Toy Fair in February 1934. Retailed for 50¢, which was by no means inexpensive during the Great Depression
, it was designed to mimic the rocket pistols seen in the comic strips from their inception. In the comics, they were automatic pistols that fired explosive rockets instead of bullets, each round as effective as a 20th century hand grenade
.
The XZ-31 Rocket Pistol was the first of six toy guns manufactured over the next two decades by Daisy
, which had an exclusive contract with John Dille, then head of the National Newspaper Syndicate of America, for all Buck Rogers toys. Most of these were pop guns, which had the virtue a being noisemakers that couldn't fire any actual projectiles and were thus guaranteed to be harmless as one of their selling points.
The XZ-35 Rocket
Pistol
, a smaller 7-inch version without some of the detail of the original that's often called "the Wilma Pistol" by collectors, followed in 1935, retailing for 25¢ and arguably offering less value for quintuple the initial price. Most consumers hardly noticed, because in 1935 the floodgates were opened and they had a lot choices. Both the XZ-31 and XZ-35 were cast in "blued
" steel with silvery nickel accents.
The XZ-38 Disintegrator Pistol
, the first actual "ray gun" toy and such an iconic symbol of the franchise that it made a cameo appearance in the first episode of the 1939 movie serial, as if to show that what the audience was seeing was indeed the Real Thing, debuted in 1935. It was a 10-inch pop gun topped with flint-and-striker sparkler
using a mechanism not unlike that used in cigarette lighters, cast in a distinctive metallic copper color.
The XZ-44 Liquid Helium
Water Pistol
was produced in late 1935 and early 1936. Loaded like a syringe by dipping nozzle into a container of water and drawing back a plunger, it was advertised to be capable of shooting 50 times without reloading.
In 1946, following World War II
and the advent of the atomic bomb, Daisy reissued the XZ-38 in a silver finish that mimicked the new jet aircraft
of the day as the U-235
Atomic
Pistol
. By then, pop guns were considered old-fashioned, and even the Buck Rogers franchise was losing its luster, having been overtaken by real-world events and the prospect of actual manned space flight.
By 1952, Daisy lost its exclusive license to the Buck Rogers name and even dropped any pretense of making a toy raygun. Its final offering was a reissue of the XZ-35 with a garish red, white, blue and yellow color scheme, dubbed the Zooka. The Buck Rogers rocket pistol that had started it all 20 years earlier had been overtaken by the real world bazooka
.
"Space guns" in general and "rayguns" in particular only gained in prestige as the Cold War
"space race" began and interest in "The Buck Rogers Stuff" was renewed, but it was no longer enough to offer a futuristic cap or pop gun. A proper raygun needed to actually project some sort of ray if it were to capture the imaginations of would-be space travelers of 1950s Americans. Enter the era of the plastic
battery
-powered flashlight
raygun.
In 1953, Norton-Honer introduced the Sonic Ray Gun, which was essentially a 7½-inch flashlight mounted on a pistol grip. Pressing the trigger activated not only the flashlight beam (which had interchangeable colored lenses for differently colored "rays") but also an electronic buzzer. It could therefore be used as a pretend raygun but also as an actual Morse Code
signal device.
This toy, and its successor, the Norton-Honer Super Sonic Ray Gun, was featured prominently in the actual Buck Rogers newspaper strips of the time, many of which concluded with a secret message in a Morse Code variant called the Rocket Rangers International Code, the key to which was available only by sending as self-addressed stamped envelope
to the newspaper syndicate or the "cheat sheet
" included in the package with the toy.
Gold Key Comics
published a single issue of a Buck Rogers comic
in 1964.
A second series was based on the 1979 TV series
and was published from 1979 to 1982, first by Gold Key, then by Whitman Publishing, continuing the numbering from the 1964 single issue.
TSR
published a 10-issue series based on their Buck Rogers XXVC
game from 1990 to 1991.
In 2008 Hermes Press started to reprint the Buck Rogers Daily Comic Strips in Graphic Novel form. So far 5 Volumes have been released
In 2009, Dynamite Entertainment
began a monthly comic book version of Buck Rogers by writer Scott Beatty
and artist Carlos Rafael
. The first issue was released in May 2009.
Gil Gerard
and Erin Gray
, who played Buck Rogers and Wilma Deering in the 1979 movie and television series, appear in the first episode as Buck Rogers' parents, and Samantha Gray Hissong (daughter of Erin Gray) plays Madison Gale. This Internet TV series is based on the original comic strip and shows how Lucas 'Buck' Rogers is propelled from World war One into the 25th century. The web series is produced in association with the Dille Family Trust.
Such was the fame of Buck Rogers that it became the basis for one of the most fondly remembered science fiction spoofs in a series of Daffy Duck
cartoons. The first of these was Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century
, which was directed by Chuck Jones
in 1953. There were also two sequels to this cartoon, and ultimately a Duck Dodgers television series.
Armageddon 2419 A.D.
Armageddon 2419 A.D. is Philip Francis Nowlan's novella which first appeared in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. A sequel called The Airlords of Han was published in the March 1929 issue of Amazing Stories. Both stories are now in the public domain in the US according to...
by Philip Francis Nowlan
Philip Francis Nowlan
Philip Francis Nowlan was an American science fiction author, best known as the creator of Buck Rogers.-Career:...
in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. A sequel, The Airlords of Han, was published in the March 1929 issue.
Philip Nowlan and the syndicate John F. Dille Company, later known as the National Newspaper Syndicate, contracted to adapt the story into a comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
. After Nowlan and Dille enlisted editorial cartoonist Dick Calkins
Dick Calkins
Dick Calkins , who often signed his work Lt. Dick Calkins, is a comic strip artist who is best known for being the first artist to draw the Buck Rogers comic strip....
as the illustrator, Nowlan adapted the first episode from Armageddon 2419, A.D. and changed the hero's name from Anthony Rogers to Buck Rogers. The strip made its first newspaper appearance on January 7, 1929. Later adaptations included a serial film
Buck Rogers (serial)
Buck Rogers is a Universal serial film based on the Buck Rogers comic strip, starring Buster Crabbe as the eponymous hero, Constance Moore, Jackie Moran and Anthony Warde.-Plot:...
, a television series
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (TV series)
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century is an American science fiction adventure television series produced by Universal Studios. The series ran for two seasons between 1979–1981, and the feature-length pilot episode for the series was released as a theatrical film several months before the series aired....
(where his first name was changed from Anthony to William) as well and other formats.
The adventures of Buck Rogers in comic strips, movies, radio and television became an important part of American popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
. 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
Space exploration
Space exploration is the use of space technology to explore outer space. Physical exploration of space is conducted both by human spaceflights and by robotic spacecraft....
, following in the footsteps of literary pioneers such as Jules Verne
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
, H.G. Wells, C.S. Lewis and Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
(John Carter of Mars).
Characters and story
Rogers awakens in 2419. Thinking that he has been asleep for just several hours, he wanders for a few days in unfamiliar forests (what had been Pennsylvania almost five centuries before). He notices someone clad in strange clothes, who is under attack. He defends the person, Wilma Deering, killing one of the attackers and scaring off the rest. On “air patrol”, Deering was attacked by an enemy gang, the Bad Bloods, presumed to have allied themselves with the Hans.
Wilma takes Rogers to her camp, where he meets the bosses of her gang. He is invited to stay with them or leave and visit other gangs. They hope that Rogers’ experience and knowledge he gained fighting in the First World War may be useful in their struggle with the Hans who rule North America from 15 great cities they established across the continent. They ignored the Americans who were left to fend for themselves in the forests and mountains as their advanced technology prevented the need for slave labor.
In the sequel, The Airlords of Han, six months have passed and the hunter is now the hunted. Rogers is now a gang leader and his forces, as well as the other American gangs, have surrounded the cities and are attacking constantly. The airlords are determined to use their fleet of airships to break the siege.
In 1933, Nowlan and Calkins co-wrote Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, a novella that retold the origin of Buck Rogers and also summarized some of his adventures. A reprint of this work was included with the first edition of the 1995 novel Buck Rogers: A Life in the Future
Buck Rogers: A Life in the Future
Buck Rogers: A Life in the Future is the title of a science fiction novel by Martin Caidin published in 1995.The novel is a reimagining of Buck Rogers, a pulp fiction character created in the 1920s by Philip Francis Nowlan and later popularized in a long-running comic strip and in films and...
by Martin Caidin
Martin Caidin
Martin Caidin was an American author and an authority on aeronautics and aviation.Caidin wrote more than 50 books, including Samurai!, Black Thursday, Thunderbolt!, Fork-Tailed Devil: The P-38, Zero!, The Ragged, Rugged Warriors, A Torch to the Enemy and many other works of military history...
.
In the 1960s, Nowlan's two novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
s were combined by editor Donald A. Wollheim
Donald A. Wollheim
Donald Allen Wollheim was an American science fiction ' editor, publisher, writer, and fan. As an author, he published under his own name as well as under pseudonyms, including David Grinnell....
into one paperback novel, Armageddon 2419 A.D. The original 40-cent edition featured a cover by Ed Emshwiller
Ed Emshwiller
Ed Emshwiller was a visual artist notable for illustrations of many science fiction magazine covers and for his pioneering experimental films...
.
Comic strip
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 Nowlan to turn it into a strip for syndicationPrint syndication
Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. They offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own/represent copyrights....
. The character was given the nickname Buck, and some have suggested that Dille coined that name based on the 1920s cowboy actor, Buck Jones
Buck Jones
Buck Jones was an American motion picture star of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, best known for his work starring in many popular western movies...
.
On January 7, 1929, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century A.D., the first science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
comic strip, debuted. Coincidentally, this was also the date that the Tarzan
Tarzan
Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...
comic strip began. The first three frames of the series set the scene for Buck's 'leap' 500 years into Earth's future:
- I was 20 years old when they stopped the world war and mustered me out of the air service. I got a job surveying the lower levels of an abandoned mine near Pittsburgh, in which the atmosphere had a peculiar pungent tang and the crumbling rock glowed strangely.? I was examining it when suddenly the roof behind me caved in and...
Buck is rendered unconscious, and a strange gas preserves him in a suspended animation or coma state. He awakens and emerges from the mine in 2429 AD, in the midst of another war.
After rescuing Wilma, he proves his identity by showing her his American Legion button. She then explains how the Mongol Reds emerged from the Gobi desert to conquer Asia and Europe and then attacked America starting with that "big idol holding a torch". Using their disintegrator beams, they easily defeated the army and navy and wiped out Washington D.C. in three hours. As the people fled the cities, the Mongols built new cities on the ruins of the major cities. The Mongols left the Americans to fend for themselves as their advanced technology prevented the need for slave labor. The scattered Americans formed loosely bound organizations or "orgs" to begin to fight back.
Wilma takes Buck back to the Alleghany org in what was once Philadelphia. The leaders don't believe his story at first but after undergoing electro-hypnotic tests, they believe him and admit him into their group.
On March 30, 1930, a Sunday strip
Sunday strip
A Sunday strip is a newspaper comic strip format, where comic strips are printed in the Sunday newspaper, usually in a special section called the Sunday comics, and virtually always in color. Some readers called these sections the Sunday funnies...
joined the Buck Rogers daily strip
Daily strip
A daily strip is a newspaper comic strip format, appearing on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays....
. 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), 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, his paramour Ardala and Black Barney, who began as a space pirate but later became Buck's friend and ally.
Like many popular comic strips of the day, Buck Rogers was reprinted in Big Little Books; illustrated text adaptations of the daily strip stories; and in a Buck Rogers pop-up book
Pop-up book
The term pop-up book is often applied to any three-dimensional or movable book, although properly the umbrella term movable book covers pop-ups, transformations, tunnel books, volvelles, flaps, pull-tabs, pop-outs, pull-downs, and more, each of which performs in a different manner...
.
Keaton wanted to switch to drawing another strip written by Calkins, Skyroads
Skyroads (comics)
Skyroads, a serialized aviation-based comic strip, was published from 1929 to 1942.After Charles Lindbergh's crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, aviation became the focus of several comic strips. Tailspin Tommy was the first, but it was soon followed by others, including Skyroads.Skyroads was created...
, so the syndicate advertised for an assistant and hired Rick Yager
Rick Yager
Richard Sidney Yager was an American cartoonist most famous for his work on the Buck Rogers comic strip.- Early life :Rick Yager was born in Alton, Illinois on the banks of the Mississippi River...
in 1932. Yager had formal art training at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and was a talented watercolor artist; all the strips were done in ink and watercolor. Yager also had connections with the Chicago newspaper industry, since his father, Charles Montross Yager, was the publisher of The Modern Miller; Rick Yager was at one time employed to write the "Auntie's Advice" column for his father's newspaper. Yager quickly moved from inker and writer of the Buck Rogers "sub-strip" (early Sunday strips had a small sub-strip running below) to writer and artist of the Sunday strip and eventually the daily strips.
Authorship of early strips is extremely difficult to ascertain. The signatures at the bottoms of the strips are not accurate indicators of authorship; Calkins' signature appears long after his involvement ended, and few of the other artists signed the artwork, while many pages are unsigned. Yager probably had complete control of Buck Rogers Sunday strips from about 1940 on, with Len Dworkins joining later as assistant. Dick Locher was also an assistant in the 1950s. For all of its reference to modern technology, the strip itself was produced in an old-fashioned manner—all strips began as India ink drawings on Strathmore paper, and a smaller duplicate (sometimes redrawn by hand) was hand-colored with watercolors. Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, has an extensive collection of original artwork. The strip's artists also worked on a variety of tie-in promotions such as comic books, toys and model rockets.
The relations between the artists of the strip (Yager et al.) and the owners of the strip (the Syndicate) became acrimonious, and in mid-1958, the artists quit. (See Time, June 30, 1958.) Murphy Anderson was a temporary replacement, but he did not stay long. George Tuska began drawing the strip in 1959 and remained until the final installment of the original comic strip, which was published on 8 July 1967.
Revived in 1979 by Gray Morrow
Gray Morrow
Dwight Graydon "Gray" Morrow was an American illustrator of paperback books and comics.-Biography:Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Morrow is best known as art director of Spider-Man between 1967 and 1970 and as illustrator of the syndicated Tarzan, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and Prince Valiant comic...
and Jim Lawrence, the strip was retitled Buck Rogers in the 25th Century in 1980. Long-time comic book writer Cary Bates
Cary Bates
Cary Bates is an American comic book, animation television and film writer.-Biography:Bates began submitting ideas for comic book covers to DC Comics at the age of 13, and a number of them were bought and published, the first as the cover to Superman #167...
signed on in 1981, continuing until the strip's 1983 finale.
Radio
In 1932, the Buck Rogers radio program, notable as the first science fiction program on radio, hit the airwaves. It was broadcast in four separate runs with varying schedules. Initially broadcast as a 15 minute show on CBS in 1932, it was on a Monday through Thursday schedule. In 1936, it moved to a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule and went off the air the same year. Mutual brought the show back and broadcast it three days a week from April to July 1939 and from May to July 1940, a 30 minute version was broadcast on Saturdays. From September 1946 to March 1947, Mutual aired a 15 minute version on weekdays.The radio show again related the story of our hero Buck finding himself in the 25th century. Actors Matt Crowley, Curtis Arnall, Carl Frank and John Larkin
John Larkin (radio and television actor)
John Larkin was an American actor whose nearly-30-year career was capped by his 1950s portrayal of two fictional criminal attorneys — Perry Mason on radio and Mike Karr on television daytime drama The Edge of Night...
all voiced him at various times. The beautiful and strong-willed Wilma Deering was portrayed by Adele Ronson, and the brilliant scientist-inventor Dr. Huer was played by Edgar Stehli.
The radio series was produced and directed by Carlo De Angelo and later by Jack Johnstone. In 1988, Johnstone recalled how he worked with the sound effects of Ora Nichols to produce the sound of the rockets by using an air-conditioning vent.
World's Fair
A ten-minute Buck Rogers film premiered at the 1933–1934 World's FairWorld's Fair
World's fair, World fair, Universal Exposition, and World Expo are various large public exhibitions held in different parts of the world. The first Expo was held in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, United Kingdom, in 1851, under the title "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All...
in Chicago. John Dille Jr. (son of strip baron John F. Dille) starred in the film, which was called Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: An Interplanetary Battle with the Tiger Men of Mars. A 35mm print of the film was discovered by the filmmaker's granddaughter, donated to UCLA's film and television archive, restruck and subsequently posted to the web. It is now available on the VCI Entertainment DVD 70th Anniversary release
Buck Rogers (serial)
Buck Rogers is a Universal serial film based on the Buck Rogers comic strip, starring Buster Crabbe as the eponymous hero, Constance Moore, Jackie Moran and Anthony Warde.-Plot:...
.
Department store promotion movie
A live-action short film was produced in 1936, designed to be shown in department stores to promote Buck Rogers merchandise. It was shot in the Action Film Company studio in ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, directed by Dr. Harlan Tarbell
Harlan Tarbell
Harlan Eugene Tarbell was an American stage magician and illustrator of the early 20th century. He was the author of the well-known Tarbell Course in Magic....
. The characters included Buck Rogers, Wilma Deering
Wilma Deering
Wilma Deering is a fictional character featured in the various iterations of Buck Rogers which have spanned many media over the years.Through all the versions of Buck Rogers, Wilma Deering has maintained some clear characteristics. She is a sometimes romantic interest for Buck, always a loyal...
, Dr. Huer, Killer Kane
Killer Kane
Killer Kane is a fictional character in the 1939 Buck Rogers serial film produced by Universal Studios. Kane is a gangster who became the supreme dictator of Earth with the help of his criminal army. Although the events of the serial transpire in the year 2440, Kane has apparently ruled the world...
, Ardala, King Grallo of the Martian Tiger Men, and robots.
Movie serial
A 12-part Buck Rogers serial film was produced in 1939 by Universal Pictures CompanyUniversal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
. Buck Rogers and his young friend Buddy Wade get caught in a blizzard and are forced to crash their dirigible in the Arctic wastes. In order to survive until they can be rescued, they inhale their supply of Nirvano gas which puts them in a state of suspended animation. When they are eventually rescued by scientists, they learn that 500 years have passed. It is now 2440. A tyrannical dictator named Killer Kane
Killer Kane
Killer Kane is a fictional character in the 1939 Buck Rogers serial film produced by Universal Studios. Kane is a gangster who became the supreme dictator of Earth with the help of his criminal army. Although the events of the serial transpire in the year 2440, Kane has apparently ruled the world...
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.
The serial had a small budget and saved money on special effects by re-using material from other stories: background shots from the futuristic musical Just Imagine
Just Imagine
Just Imagine is a 1930 science-fiction musical comedy directed by David Butler, to console audiences distressed by the Great Depression. The film is probably best known for its art direction and special effects in its portrayal of New York City in an imagined 1980...
(1930), as the city of the future, the garishly stenciled walls from the Azura palace set in Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars
Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars
Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars is a 1938 serial film of 15 episodes, based on the comic strip Flash Gordon. It is the second of three Flash Gordon serials made between 1936 and 1940....
, as Kane's penthouse suite, and even the studded leather belt that Crabbe wore in Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars turned up as part of Buck's uniform. Between 1953 and the mid-1970s, this film serial was edited into three distinct feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
versions.
1950–1951 ABC television series
The first version of Buck Rogers to appear on televisionTelevision
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
debuted on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
on April 15, 1950 and ran until January 30, 1951. Its time slot initially was on Saturdays at 6 p.m., and each episode was 30 minutes. Later, the program was rescheduled to Tuesday at 7 p.m., where it ran against the popular Texaco Star Theater
Texaco Star Theater
Texaco Star Theater is an American comedy-variety show, broadcast on radio from 1938 to 1949 and telecast from 1948 to 1956. It was one of the first successful examples of American television broadcasting, remembered as the show that gave Milton Berle the nickname "Mr...
hosted by Milton Berle
Milton Berle
Milton Berlinger , better known as Milton Berle, was an American comedian and actor. As the manic host of NBC's Texaco Star Theater , in 1948 he was the first major star of U.S. television and as such became known as Uncle Miltie and Mr...
.
Buck Rogers finds himself in the year 2430. Based in a secret lab in a cave behind Niagara Falls (the city of Niagara was now the capital of the world), Buck battles intergalactic troublemakers.
There were a number of changes to the cast during the show's short duration. Three actors played Buck Rogers in the series: Earl Hammond
Earl Hammond
Earl Hammond was an American theater, radio, film and television actor, and, in his later years, a voice actor for several animated films and TV series.-Best known roles:...
, Kem Dibbs and Robert Pastene. Two actresses portrayed Wilma Deering: Eva Marie Saint
Eva Marie Saint
Eva Marie Saint is an American actress who has starred in films, on Broadway, and on television in a career spanning seven decades. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama film On the Waterfront , and later starred in the thriller film North by...
and Lou Prentis. Two actors would also play the role of Dr. Huer: Harry Southern and Sanford Bickart.
The series was directed by Babette Henry, written by Gene Wyckoff and produced by Joe Cates and Babette Henry.
The series was broadcast live from station WENR-TV, the ABC affiliate in Chicago, Illinois
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. There are no known surviving kinescopes of the first Buck Rogers television series.
Motion picture and 1979–1981 NBC television series
In 1979, Buck Rogers was revived and updated for a prime-time television series for NBCNBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
Television. The pilot film was released to cinemas on March 30, 1979. Good television ratings led NBC to commission a full series, which started in September 1979. Glen A. Larson
Glen A. Larson
Glen Albert Larson is an American television producer and writer best known as the creator of Battlestar Galactica, The Fall Guy, Magnum, P.I. and Knight Rider.-Career:...
produced the film and the first season of the eventual series.
The series starred Gil Gerard
Gil Gerard
Gilbert C. "Gil" Gerard is an American actor. He is most famous for his role as Captain William "Buck" Rogers in the 1979-1981 television series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.-Early life:...
as Captain William "Buck" Rogers, a United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
pilot who commands Ranger III, a space shuttle
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...
-like ship that is launched in 1987. Because of a freak combination of gases which render his ship's cockpit heaters inoperative, he is both "blown out of his planned trajectory into an orbit one thousand times more vast", according to Hank Simms's titles narration in the second season, and frozen in space for 504 years. By the time he is revived, he finds himself in the 25th century. There, he learns that the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
was united following a devastating nuclear war
Nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
on November 22, 1987, and is now under the protection of the Earth Defense Directorate, headquartered in New Chicago. The latest threat to Earth comes from the spaceborne armies of the planet Draconia, which is planning an invasion.
Co-starring in the series were Erin Gray
Erin Gray
Erin Gray is an American actress, perhaps best known for her roles as Kate Summers in the situation comedy Silver Spoons and as Colonel Wilma Deering in the science fiction television series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century....
as crack Starfighter
Starfighter
"Starfighter" is a science fiction term used to describe small, fast, usually one-manned craft designed for armed combat .The appearance and use of fictional starfighters is often modeled on fighter aircraft, with little regard for the actual physics of spaceflight...
pilot Colonel Wilma Deering, and Tim O'Connor
Tim O'Connor (actor)
Tim O'Connor is an American character actor known for his prolific work in television, although he has made only a few appearances since the early 1990s. Before moving to California, he lived on an island in the middle of Glen Wild Lake, near Bloomingdale, New Jersey.O'Connor specialized in...
as Dr. Elias Huer, head of Earth Defense Directorate, and a former star pilot himself. Ardala appeared (played by Pamela Hensley
Pamela Hensley
Pamela Gail Hensley is an American actress. She is best known for playing Princess Ardala on the 1979-1981 television series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and C.J...
), as a Draconian princess supervising her father's armies, with Kane (played by Henry Silva in the film; by Michael Ansara
Michael Ansara
Michael Ansara is a Syrian-born American stage, screen, and voice actor best known for his portrayal of Cochise in the American television series Broken Arrow, Kane in the 1979-81 series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and Commander Kang on three different Star Trek TV series.- Early life and...
[of Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
fame] in the series) as her enforcer, a gender reversal of the original characters where Ardala was Killer Kane's sidekick. Although Black Barney did not appear as a character in the series, there was a character named Barney Smith (played by James Sloyan
James Sloyan
James Joseph Sloyan is an American actor. He is married to actress Deirdre Lenihan with whom he has two children, Daniel and Samantha.- Early years :...
) who appeared in the two-part episode, "Plot to Kill a City." New characters added for the series included a comical robot named Twiki
Twiki
Twiki is a fictional character on the television series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Twiki is a robot sometimes referred throughout the series as an "ambuquad"...
(played by Felix Silla
Felix Silla
Felix Anthony Silla is an Italian film and television actor and stuntman, best known for his role as "Cousin Itt" on television's The Addams Family, and many other classic character roles.- Biography and career overview :...
and voiced by Mel Blanc
Mel Blanc
Melvin Jerome "Mel" Blanc was an American voice actor and comedian. Although he began his nearly six-decade-long career performing in radio commercials, Blanc is best remembered for his work with Warner Bros...
), who becomes Buck's personal assistant, and Dr. Theopolis
Dr. Theopolis
Dr. Theopolis was a recurring character on the NBC television series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.Theopolis, or Theo for short, was an intelligent computer who was part of Earth's Computer Council...
(voice by Eric Server
Eric Server
Eric Server is an American television character actor, best known for providing the voice of computer brain Dr...
), a computer brain Twiki carries around.
The series ran for two seasons on NBC. Broadcast of the second season was delayed until 1981 due to a writers' strike in 1980. When the series returned, its core format had been revised. Now rather than defending Earth, Buck and Wilma were on a mission to track down the lost colonies of humanity aboard the deep-space exploration vessel Searcher. In the 2nd season Tim O'Connor
Tim O'Connor
Tim O'Connor may refer to:*Tim O'Connor , actor, appeared in Peyton Place and General Hospital*Tim O'Connor , American college football coach*Tim O'Connor , Australian actor, writer and director...
's Dr. Huer was written out of the series and Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
character actor Jay Garner
Jay Garner (actor)
Jay Garner was anAmerican actor. Born James Garner in 1929, he changed his first name to Jay upon entering Actors Equity since there was already a James Garner in the union...
was added as Vice Admiral Ephraim Asimov of the Earth Force. Also on board was Thom Christopher
Thom Christopher
Thom Christopher is an American actor.He is best known for his portrayal of mob boss Carlo Hesser and Mortimer Bern on the ABC soap opera, One Life to Live.Christopher has also had roles on soap operas such as Loving and Guiding Light...
playing the role of Hawk. The series was cancelled at the end of the 1980–1981 season.
Two novels based on the series by Addison E. Steele were published, a novelization
Novelization
A novelization is a novel that is written based on some other media story form rather than as an original work.Novelizations of films usually add background material not found in the original work to flesh out the story, because novels are generally longer than screenplays...
of the 1979 feature film, and That Man on Beta, an adaptation of an unproduced teleplay.
Future Films
Frank MillerFrank Miller (comics)
Frank Miller is an American comic book artist, writer and film director best known for his dark, film noir-style comic book stories and graphic novels Ronin, Daredevil: Born Again, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City and 300...
has been slated to write and direct a new motion picture with OddLot Entertainment
OddLot Entertainment
Odd Lot Entertainment, founded in 2001 by longtime producers Gigi Pritzker and Deborah Del Prete , is a film production and financing company based in Culver City, California....
, the production company that worked with Miller on The Spirit
The Spirit (film)
The Spirit is a 2008 American superhero noir film, written and directed by Frank Miller and starring Gabriel Macht, Eva Mendes, Sarah Paulson, Dan Lauria, Paz Vega, Jaime King, Scarlett Johansson, and Samuel L. Jackson. The film is based on the newspaper comic strip The Spirit by Will Eisner...
.
Buck Rogers XXVC
In 1988, TSR, Inc.TSR, Inc.
Blume and Gygax, the remaining owners, incorporated a new company called TSR Hobbies, Inc., with Blume and his father, Melvin Blume, owning the larger share. The former assets of the partnership were transferred to TSR Hobbies, Inc....
created a game setting
Campaign setting
A campaign setting is usually a fictional world which serves as a setting for a role-playing game or wargame campaign. A campaign is a series of individual adventures, and a campaign setting is the world in which such adventures and campaigns take place...
based on Buck Rogers, called Buck Rogers XXVC
Buck Rogers XXVC
Buck Rogers XXVC is a game setting created by TSR, Inc. in the late 1980s. Products based on this setting include novels, graphic novels, a role-playing game , board game, and video games...
. Many products were produced that were set in this universe, including comic books, novels, role-playing
Role-playing
Role-playing refers to the changing of one's behaviour to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role...
game material and video games. In the role-playing game
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
, the player character
Player character
A player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...
s were allied to Buck Rogers and NEO (the New Earth Organisation) in their fight against RAM (a Russian-American corporation based on Mars). The games also extensively featured "gennies" (genetically enhanced organisms). The gameplay of the Buck Rogers - Battle for the 25th Century board game
Board game
A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve...
by TSR dealt with token movement and resource management. There is purported to be a single expansion for the board game called the Martian Wars Expansion, but it is not known if this was ever released.
Books
From 1990 to 1991, ten "comics modules" set in the Buck Rogers XXVC universe were published, entitled Rude Awakening #1 - #3, Black Barney #1 - #3. and Martian Wars #1-#4. These shared the numbering as a series issues #1 - #10 with issue #10 as a flip-book with Intruder #10. There has been speculation that two more stories were printed but not widely distributed.Ten paperback novels set in the XXVC universe were published, starting in 1989:
- Arrival (anthology) by Flint DilleFlint DilleFlint Dille is a screenwriter, game designer, and novelist. He is best known for his animated work on Transformers, G.I...
, Abigail Irvine, Melinda Seabrooke (M.S.) Murdock, Jerry OltionJerry OltionJerry Oltion is a science fiction author from Eugene, Oregon, known for numerous novels and short stories, including books in the Star Trek series...
, Ulrike O'Reilly & Robert SheckleyRobert SheckleyRobert Sheckley was a Hugo- and Nebula-nominated American author. First published in the science fiction magazines of the 1950s, his numerous quick-witted stories and novels were famously unpredictable, absurdist and broadly comical.Sheckley was named Author Emeritus by the Science Fiction and...
(TSR, Mar 1989, ISBN 0-88038-582-0)
The Martian Wars Trilogy
- Rebellion 2456 by M.S. Murdock (TSR, May 1989, ISBN 0-88038-728-9)
- Hammer of Mars by M.S. Murdock (TSR, Aug 1989, ISBN 0-88038-751-3)
- Armageddon off Vesta by M.S. Murdock (TSR, Oct 1989, ISBN 0-88038-761-0)
The Inner Planets Trilogy
- First Power Play by John MillerJohn J. Miller (author)John Joseph Miller is a science fiction author known for his work in the Wild Cards shared universe. He has published four novels, as well as a handful of short stories. He also wrote GURPS Wild Cards, a supplement for the GURPS role-playing system published in 1989...
(TSR, Aug 1990, ISBN 0-88038-840-4) - Prime Squared by M.S. Murdock (TSR, Oct 1990, ISBN 0-88038-863-3)
- Matrix Cubed by Britton Bloom (TSR, May 1991, ISBN 0-88038-885-4)
Invaders of Charon Trilogy
- The Genesis Web by Ellen C. & Theodore M. Brennan (C.M. Brennan) (TSR, May 1992, ISBN 1-56076-093-1)
- Nomads of the Sky by William H. Keith, Jr.William H. Keith, Jr.William H. Keith is an American author. He served during the Vietnam War in the United States Navy as a hospital corpsman. He became a professional artist, working in the game industry with his brother Andrew, before becoming a full-time author...
(TSR, Oct 1992, ISBN 1-56076-098-2) - Warlords of Jupiter by William H. Keith, Jr. (TSR, Feb 1993, ISBN 1-56076-576-3)
Pinball
At the beginning of 1980, a few months after the show debuted, GottliebGottlieb
Gottlieb was an arcade game corporation based in Chicago, Illinois. The company was established by David Gottlieb in 1927, initially producing pinball machines while later expanding into various other games including pitch-and-bats, bowling games, and eventually video arcade games .Like other...
came out with a Buck Rogers pinball machine to commemorate the resurgence of the franchise.
Video games
In 1990, Strategic Simulations, Inc.Strategic Simulations, Inc.
Strategic Simulations, Inc. was a video game developer and publisher with over 100 titles to its credit since its founding in 1979. It was especially noted for its numerous wargames, its official computer game adaptations of Dungeons & Dragons, and for the groundbreaking Panzer General...
released a Buck Rogers XXVC video game, Countdown to Doomsday
Countdown to Doomsday
Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday is a computer role-playing game released by Strategic Simulations, Inc. in 1990, set in the Buck Rogers XXVC game setting....
, for the Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
, IBM PC
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...
, Sega Mega Drive
Sega Mega Drive
The Sega Genesis is a fourth-generation video game console developed and produced by Sega. It was originally released in Japan in 1988 as , then in North America in 1989 as Sega Genesis, and in Europe, Australia and other PAL regions in 1990 as Mega Drive. The reason for the two names is that...
, and other platforms. It released a sequel, Matrix Cubed
Matrix Cubed
Buck Rogers: Matrix Cubed is a computer role-playing game developed and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. in 1992.Versions of the game were sold for the IBM PC Compatible...
, in 1992.
High-Adventure Cliffhangers
In 1995, TSR created a new and unrelated Buck Rogers role-playing game called High-Adventure Cliffhangers. This was a return to the themes of the original Buck Rogers comic strips. This game included biplanes and interracial warfare, as opposed to the space combat of the earlier game. There were only a few expansion modules created for High-Adventure Cliffhangers. Shortly afterward, the game was discontinued, and the production of Buck Rogers RPGs and games came to an end. This game was neither widely advertised nor very popular. There were only two published products: the box set, and "War Against the Han".Planet of Zoom video game
SegaSega
, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
released the arcade video game
Arcade game
An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...
Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom in 1982. It was a forward-scrolling
Scrolling
In computer graphics, filmmaking, television production, and other kinetic displays, scrolling is sliding text, images or video across a monitor or display. "Scrolling", as such, does not change the layout of the text or pictures, or but incrementally moves the user's view across what is...
rail shooter where the user controls a spaceship in a behind-the-back third-person perspective
Third-person shooter
Third-person shooter is a genre of 3D action games in which the player character is visible on-screen, and the gameplay consists primarily of shooting.-Definition:...
that must destroy enemy ships and avoid obstacles; the game was notable for its fast pseudo-3D
2.5D
2.5D , 3/4 perspective and pseudo-3D are terms used to describe either:* 2D graphical projections and techniques which cause a series of images or scenes to fake or appear to be three-dimensional when in fact they are not, or* gameplay in an otherwise three-dimensional video game that is...
scaling and detailed sprites
Sprite (computer graphics)
In computer graphics, a sprite is a two-dimensional image or animation that is integrated into a larger scene...
. The game would later go on to influence the 1985 Sega hit Space Harrier
Space Harrier
is a third-person rail shooter game, released by Sega in 1985. It was produced by Yu Suzuki, responsible for many popular Sega games. It spawned several sequels: Space Harrier 3-D , Space Harrier II , and the spin-off Planet Harriers ....
, which in turn influenced the 1993 Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
hit Star Fox
Star Fox (video game)
, released as Starwing in Europe and Australia due to a game of the same name and subsequent trademark issues in those regions, is the first game in the Star Fox series of video games. It was released in the spring of 1993 for the SFC/SNES...
. A smooth arcade conversion of Planet of Zoom was released for the Sega SG-1000 console as Zoom 909.
Buck is never seen in the game, except assumedly in the illustration on the side of the arcade cabinet, and its only real connections to Buck Rogers are the use of the name and the outer space setting. Home versions were released for the Atari 2600
Atari 2600
The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in...
, Atari 5200
Atari 5200
The Atari 5200 SuperSystem, commonly known as the Atari 5200, is a video game console that was introduced in 1982 by Atari Inc. as a higher end complementary console for the popular Atari 2600...
, Atari XE, ColecoVision
ColecoVision
The ColecoVision is Coleco Industries' second generation home video game console which was released in August 1982. The ColecoVision offered arcade-quality graphics and gaming style, and the means to expand the system's basic hardware...
, Coleco Adam
Coleco Adam
The Coleco Adam is a home computer, an attempt in the early 1980s by American toy manufacturer Coleco to follow on the success of its ColecoVision game console...
, Intellivision
Intellivision
The Intellivision is a video game console released by Mattel in 1979. Development of the console began in 1978, less than a year after the introduction of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. The word intellivision is a portmanteau of "intelligent television"...
, MSX
MSX
MSX was the name of a standardized home computer architecture in the 1980s conceived by Kazuhiko Nishi, then Vice-president at Microsoft Japan and Director at ASCII Corporation...
and Sega Master System
Sega Master System
The is a third-generation video game console that was manufactured and released by Sega in 1985 in Japan , 1986 in North America and 1987 in Europe....
video game systems, and the Commodore VIC-20
Commodore VIC-20
The VIC-20 is an 8-bit home computer which was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore's first personal computer, the PET...
, Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
, Texas Instruments TI-99/4A
Texas Instruments TI-99/4A
The Texas Instruments TI-99/4A was an early home computer, released in June 1981, originally at a price of USD $525. It was an enhanced version of the less-successful—and quite rare—TI-99/4 model, which was released in late 1979 at a price of $1,150...
, and ZX Spectrum
ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd...
computers. A version for IBM PC
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...
using CGA
Color Graphics Adapter
The Color Graphics Adapter , originally also called the Color/Graphics Adapter or IBM Color/Graphics Monitor Adapter, introduced in 1981, was IBM's first color graphics card, and the first color computer display standard for the IBM PC....
graphics was also available.
Later novels
Authorized sequels to Armageddon 2419 A.D.Armageddon 2419 A.D.
Armageddon 2419 A.D. is Philip Francis Nowlan's novella which first appeared in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. A sequel called The Airlords of Han was published in the March 1929 issue of Amazing Stories. Both stories are now in the public domain in the US according to...
were written in the 1980s by other authors working from an outline co-written by Larry Niven
Larry Niven
Laurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...
and Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Eugene Pournelle is an American science fiction writer, essayist and journalist who contributed for many years to the computer magazine Byte and has since 1998 been maintaining his own website/blog....
and loosely tied-in with their 1977 bestseller Lucifer's Hammer
Lucifer's Hammer
Lucifer's Hammer is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, first published in 1977. It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1978. A comic book adaptation was published by Innovation Comics in 1993....
. The first sequel begins c. 2476 AD, when a widowed and cantankerous 86-year-old Anthony Rogers is mysteriously rejuvenated during a resurgence of the presumed-extinct Han, now called the Pr'lan. The novels include:
- Mordred by John Eric HolmesJohn Eric HolmesJohn Eric Holmes, M.D. , was a former associate professor of neurology at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, an author and promoter of fantasy role-playing games, a noted fan and enthusiast of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and an American writer of non-fiction, fantasy and science...
(Ace, January 1981, ISBN 0-441-54220-4) - Warrior's Blood by Richard S. McEnroe (Ace, January 1981, ISBN 0-441-87333-2)
- Warrior's World by Richard S. McEnroe (Ace, October 1981, ISBN 0-441-87338-3)
- Rogers' Rangers by John Silbersack (Ace, August 1983, ISBN 0-441-73380-8)
Numerous novelists have reimagined or adapted the Buck Rogers mythos over the years, including:
- Buck Rogers: A Life in the FutureBuck Rogers: A Life in the FutureBuck Rogers: A Life in the Future is the title of a science fiction novel by Martin Caidin published in 1995.The novel is a reimagining of Buck Rogers, a pulp fiction character created in the 1920s by Philip Francis Nowlan and later popularized in a long-running comic strip and in films and...
by Martin CaidinMartin CaidinMartin Caidin was an American author and an authority on aeronautics and aviation.Caidin wrote more than 50 books, including Samurai!, Black Thursday, Thunderbolt!, Fork-Tailed Devil: The P-38, Zero!, The Ragged, Rugged Warriors, A Torch to the Enemy and many other works of military history...
, a standalone novel retelling the original story. (TSR, 1995, ISBN 0-7869-0144-6)
Toys
The first Buck Rogers toys appeared in 1933, four years after the newspaper strip debuted and a year after the radio show first aired. Some mark this as the beginning of modern character based licensed merchandising, in that not only was character's name and image were branded on many unrelated products but also on many items of merchandise unique to or directly inspired by that character. Of the many toys associated with Buck Rogers, none is more closely identified with the franchise than the eponymous toy raygunRaygun
Rayguns are a type of fictional directed-energy weapon. They have various alternate names: ray gun, death ray, beam gun, blaster, laser gun, phaser, etc. They are a well-known feature of science fiction; for such stories they typically have the general function of guns...
s.
The first "Buck Rogers gun" wasn't technically a raygun, although its futuristic shape and distinctive lines set the pattern for all "space guns" that would follow. The XZ-31 Rocket
Rocket
A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...
Pistol
Pistol
When distinguished as a subset of handguns, a pistol is a handgun with a chamber that is integral with the barrel, as opposed to a revolver, wherein the chamber is separate from the barrel as a revolving cylinder. Typically, pistols have an effective range of about 100 feet.-History:The pistol...
, a 9½-inch pop gun
Pop gun
A pop gun is a toy gun that uses air pressure to fire a small tethered projectile out of a barrel via piston action...
that produced a distinctive "zap!" sound, was at the American Toy Fair in February 1934. Retailed for 50¢, which was by no means inexpensive during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, it was designed to mimic the rocket pistols seen in the comic strips from their inception. In the comics, they were automatic pistols that fired explosive rockets instead of bullets, each round as effective as a 20th century hand grenade
Hand grenade
A hand grenade is any small bomb that can be thrown by hand. Hand grenades are classified into three categories, explosive grenades, chemical and gas grenades. Explosive grenades are the most commonly used in modern warfare, and are designed to detonate after impact or after a set amount of time...
.
The XZ-31 Rocket Pistol was the first of six toy guns manufactured over the next two decades by Daisy
Daisy Outdoor Products
Daisy is a company that makes and sells inexpensive BB guns and other air guns.-History:Daisy was started in 1882 as Plymouth Iron Windmill Company in Plymouth, Michigan. In 1886 the company started to give BB guns with purchases of windmills. The gun was so popular the company started to sell guns...
, which had an exclusive contract with John Dille, then head of the National Newspaper Syndicate of America, for all Buck Rogers toys. Most of these were pop guns, which had the virtue a being noisemakers that couldn't fire any actual projectiles and were thus guaranteed to be harmless as one of their selling points.
The XZ-35 Rocket
Rocket
A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...
Pistol
Pistol
When distinguished as a subset of handguns, a pistol is a handgun with a chamber that is integral with the barrel, as opposed to a revolver, wherein the chamber is separate from the barrel as a revolving cylinder. Typically, pistols have an effective range of about 100 feet.-History:The pistol...
, a smaller 7-inch version without some of the detail of the original that's often called "the Wilma Pistol" by collectors, followed in 1935, retailing for 25¢ and arguably offering less value for quintuple the initial price. Most consumers hardly noticed, because in 1935 the floodgates were opened and they had a lot choices. Both the XZ-31 and XZ-35 were cast in "blued
Bluing (steel)
Bluing is a passivation process in which steel is partially protected against rust, and is named after the blue-black appearance of the resulting protective finish. True gun bluing is an electrochemical conversion coating resulting from an oxidizing chemical reaction with iron on the surface...
" steel with silvery nickel accents.
The XZ-38 Disintegrator Pistol
Disintegrator ray
In science fiction, a disintegrator ray is an energy beam that destroys an object by disintegrating it to its basic components, which usually disperse into the atmosphere. Ray gun is the generic term for the weapons that fire disintegrator beams...
, the first actual "ray gun" toy and such an iconic symbol of the franchise that it made a cameo appearance in the first episode of the 1939 movie serial, as if to show that what the audience was seeing was indeed the Real Thing, debuted in 1935. It was a 10-inch pop gun topped with flint-and-striker sparkler
Sparkler
A sparkler is a type of hand-held firework that burns slowly while emitting colored flames, sparks, and other effects.In the United Kingdom, a sparkler is often used by children at bonfire and fireworks displays on Guy Fawkes Night, the fifth of November, and in the United States on Independence...
using a mechanism not unlike that used in cigarette lighters, cast in a distinctive metallic copper color.
The XZ-44 Liquid Helium
Liquid helium
Helium exists in liquid form only at extremely low temperatures. The boiling point and critical point depend on the isotope of the helium; see the table below for values. The density of liquid helium-4 at its boiling point and 1 atmosphere is approximately 0.125 g/mL Helium-4 was first liquefied...
Water Pistol
Water gun
A water gun is a type of toy designed to shoot water. Similar to water balloons, the primary purpose of the toy is to soak another person in a game such as water warfare....
was produced in late 1935 and early 1936. Loaded like a syringe by dipping nozzle into a container of water and drawing back a plunger, it was advertised to be capable of shooting 50 times without reloading.
In 1946, following World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and the advent of the atomic bomb, Daisy reissued the XZ-38 in a silver finish that mimicked the new jet aircraft
Jet aircraft
A jet aircraft is an aircraft propelled by jet engines. Jet aircraft generally fly much faster than propeller-powered aircraft and at higher altitudes – as high as . At these altitudes, jet engines achieve maximum efficiency over long distances. The engines in propeller-powered aircraft...
of the day as the U-235
Uranium-235
- References :* .* DOE Fundamentals handbook: Nuclear Physics and Reactor theory , .* A piece of U-235 the size of a grain of rice can produce energy equal to that contained in three tons of coal or fourteen barrels of oil. -External links:* * * one of the earliest articles on U-235 for the...
Atomic
Nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
Pistol
Pistol
When distinguished as a subset of handguns, a pistol is a handgun with a chamber that is integral with the barrel, as opposed to a revolver, wherein the chamber is separate from the barrel as a revolving cylinder. Typically, pistols have an effective range of about 100 feet.-History:The pistol...
. By then, pop guns were considered old-fashioned, and even the Buck Rogers franchise was losing its luster, having been overtaken by real-world events and the prospect of actual manned space flight.
By 1952, Daisy lost its exclusive license to the Buck Rogers name and even dropped any pretense of making a toy raygun. Its final offering was a reissue of the XZ-35 with a garish red, white, blue and yellow color scheme, dubbed the Zooka. The Buck Rogers rocket pistol that had started it all 20 years earlier had been overtaken by the real world bazooka
Bazooka
Bazooka is the common name for a man-portable recoilless rocket antitank weapon, widely fielded by the U.S. Army. Also referred to as the "Stovepipe", the innovative bazooka was amongst the first-generation of rocket propelled anti-tank weapons used in infantry combat...
.
"Space guns" in general and "rayguns" in particular only gained in prestige as the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
"space race" began and interest in "The Buck Rogers Stuff" was renewed, but it was no longer enough to offer a futuristic cap or pop gun. A proper raygun needed to actually project some sort of ray if it were to capture the imaginations of would-be space travelers of 1950s Americans. Enter the era of the plastic
Plastic
A plastic material is any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic solids used in the manufacture of industrial products. Plastics are typically polymers of high molecular mass, and may contain other substances to improve performance and/or reduce production costs...
battery
Battery (electricity)
An electrical battery is one or more electrochemical cells that convert stored chemical energy into electrical energy. Since the invention of the first battery in 1800 by Alessandro Volta and especially since the technically improved Daniell cell in 1836, batteries have become a common power...
-powered flashlight
Flashlight
A flashlight is a hand-held electric-powered light source. Usually the light source is a small incandescent lightbulb or light-emitting diode...
raygun.
In 1953, Norton-Honer introduced the Sonic Ray Gun, which was essentially a 7½-inch flashlight mounted on a pistol grip. Pressing the trigger activated not only the flashlight beam (which had interchangeable colored lenses for differently colored "rays") but also an electronic buzzer. It could therefore be used as a pretend raygun but also as an actual Morse Code
Morse code
Morse code is a method of transmitting textual information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment...
signal device.
This toy, and its successor, the Norton-Honer Super Sonic Ray Gun, was featured prominently in the actual Buck Rogers newspaper strips of the time, many of which concluded with a secret message in a Morse Code variant called the Rocket Rangers International Code, the key to which was available only by sending as self-addressed stamped envelope
Self-addressed stamped envelope
A self-addressed stamped envelope , stamped self-addressed envelope , or just self addressed envelope in the UK, is an envelope with the sender's name and address on it, with affixed paid postage and mailed to a company or private individual...
to the newspaper syndicate or the "cheat sheet
Reference card
A reference card or quick reference card is a concise bundling of common syntactic rules and idioms of a particular formal language. It serves as an ad hoc memory aid for an experienced user....
" included in the package with the toy.
Comic books
Over the years there have been many Buck Rogers appearances in Comics as well as his own series. Buck appeared in 69 issues of the 1934 Comic Famous Funnies, then 2 appearances in Vicks Comics. Then in 1940 Buck got his Own Famous Funnies Comic Entitled Buck Rogers which lasted for 6 issues. Also in 1933 Whitman BLB produced 12 Buck Rogers adventure comics. Kelloggs Cereal Company produced two Buck Rogers Giveaway comics one in 1933 and again in 1995. In 1951 Toby Press Comics released 3 issues of Buck Rogers. In 1955 an Australian Company Called Atlas Productions produced 5 issues of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.Gold Key Comics
Gold Key Comics
Gold Key Comics was an imprint of Western Publishing created for comic books distributed to newsstands. Also known as Whitman Comics, Gold Key operated from 1962 to 1984.-History:...
published a single issue of a Buck Rogers comic
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
in 1964.
A second series was based on the 1979 TV series
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (TV series)
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century is an American science fiction adventure television series produced by Universal Studios. The series ran for two seasons between 1979–1981, and the feature-length pilot episode for the series was released as a theatrical film several months before the series aired....
and was published from 1979 to 1982, first by Gold Key, then by Whitman Publishing, continuing the numbering from the 1964 single issue.
TSR
TSR, Inc.
Blume and Gygax, the remaining owners, incorporated a new company called TSR Hobbies, Inc., with Blume and his father, Melvin Blume, owning the larger share. The former assets of the partnership were transferred to TSR Hobbies, Inc....
published a 10-issue series based on their Buck Rogers XXVC
Buck Rogers XXVC
Buck Rogers XXVC is a game setting created by TSR, Inc. in the late 1980s. Products based on this setting include novels, graphic novels, a role-playing game , board game, and video games...
game from 1990 to 1991.
In 2008 Hermes Press started to reprint the Buck Rogers Daily Comic Strips in Graphic Novel form. So far 5 Volumes have been released
In 2009, Dynamite Entertainment
Dynamite Entertainment
Dynamite Entertainment is an American comic book company that primarily publishes licensed franchises of adaptations of other media. These include adaptations of film properties such as Army of Darkness, Terminator and RoboCop, literary properties such as Zorro, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, Alice in...
began a monthly comic book version of Buck Rogers by writer Scott Beatty
Scott Beatty
Scott Beatty is an American author who has written comic books and encyclopaedias based on DC Comics characters.-Biography:Beatty has worked extensively for the popular comic book publisher DC Comics since the mid '90s...
and artist Carlos Rafael
Carlos Rafael
Carlos Rafael may refer to:* Carlos Rafael do Amaral , Brazilian football midfielder* Carlos Rafael Fernández , Argentine economist and former Minister of the Economy of Argentina...
. The first issue was released in May 2009.
Web series
The Cawley Entertainment Company in 2009 announced it would produce a web series, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, scheduled for webcasting on the Internet in 2010 with Bobby Quinn Rice in the title role of Lucas "Buck" Rogers.Gil Gerard
Gil Gerard
Gilbert C. "Gil" Gerard is an American actor. He is most famous for his role as Captain William "Buck" Rogers in the 1979-1981 television series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.-Early life:...
and Erin Gray
Erin Gray
Erin Gray is an American actress, perhaps best known for her roles as Kate Summers in the situation comedy Silver Spoons and as Colonel Wilma Deering in the science fiction television series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century....
, who played Buck Rogers and Wilma Deering in the 1979 movie and television series, appear in the first episode as Buck Rogers' parents, and Samantha Gray Hissong (daughter of Erin Gray) plays Madison Gale. This Internet TV series is based on the original comic strip and shows how Lucas 'Buck' Rogers is propelled from World war One into the 25th century. The web series is produced in association with the Dille Family Trust.
Influence on language and popular culture
Buck Rogers' name has become proverbial in such expressions as "Buck Rogers outfit" for a protective suit that looks like a spacesuit. For many years, all the general American public knew about science fiction was what they read in the funny papers, and their opinion of science fiction was formed accordingly. Another phrase in common use before 1950 was for deriding science fiction fans about "that crazy Buck Rogers stuff".Such was the fame of Buck Rogers that it became the basis for one of the most fondly remembered science fiction spoofs in a series of Daffy Duck
Daffy Duck
Daffy Duck is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons, often running the gamut between being the best friend and sometimes arch-rival of Bugs Bunny...
cartoons. The first of these was Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century
Duck Dodgers
Duck Edgar Dumas Aloysius Eoghain Dodgers is the metafictional star of a series of cartoons produced by Warner Bros. He is actually the famous cartoon star Daffy Duck, cast in the role of an intergalactic future hero....
, which was directed by Chuck Jones
Chuck Jones
Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio...
in 1953. There were also two sequels to this cartoon, and ultimately a Duck Dodgers television series.
See also
- Brick BradfordBrick BradfordBrick Bradford was a science fiction comic strip created by writer William Ritt, a journalist based in Cleveland, and artist Clarence Gray. It was first distributed in 1933 by Central Press Association, a subsidiary of King Features Syndicate....
- Dan DareDan DareDan Dare is a British science fiction comic hero, created by illustrator Frank Hampson who also wrote the first stories, that is, the Venus and Red Moon stories, and a complete storyline for Operation Saturn...
- Flash GordonFlash GordonFlash Gordon is the hero of a science fiction adventure comic strip originally drawn by Alex Raymond. First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by and created to compete with the already established Buck Rogers adventure strip. Also inspired by these series were comics such as Dash...
- Tom StrongTom StrongTom Strong is a comic book created by writer Alan Moore and artist Chris Sprouse initially published bi-monthly by America's Best Comics, an imprint of DC Comics' Wildstorm division.-Background:Tom Strong, the title character, is a "science hero"...
External links
- Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (official website, Buck Rogers and Dille Family Trust) - checked 19 nov 2011 -- not available