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Buck Rogers

Buck Rogers 1939 

Titles – Tomorrow’s World & Tragedy On Saturn – B&W Science Fiction Serial Starring Buster Crabbe As Buck Rogers.

200px-BuckrogersserialPoster for Buck Rogers serial, 1939

Buck Rogers is a fictional character who first appeared in Armageddon 2419 A.D.by Philip Francis Nowlan in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories as Anthony Rogers. 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 filma 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 ofspace exploration, following in the footsteps of literary pioneers such as Jules VerneH.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs (John Carter of Mars).

Characters and story

200px-Amazbuck“Buck Rogers” first appeared in this issue of Amazing Stories, August 1928. The cover illustrates The Skylark of Space, not Buck Rogers.

The character first appeared as Anthony Rogers, the central character of Nowlan’sArmageddon 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 novellas 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.

Comic strip

buck-rogers-011The 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 syndication. 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, the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century A.D. 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:

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 A.D., 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, later joined by Black Barney. It was some time before Buck made his first appearance in a Sunday strip. Other prominent characters in the 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.

200px-Airlordsofhan“Buck Rogers” operating the controls of a remotely piloted “air ball”.Amazing Stories (March 1929).

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.

List of Buck Rogers comic strips – Radio

BuckRogersDVDIn 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 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.

Film and television adaptations – World’s Fair

A ten-minute Buck Rogers film premiered at the 1933–1934 World’s Fair 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.

Department store promotion movie

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 ChicagoIllinois, 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.

Movie serial – Buck Rogers (serial)

A 12-part Buck Rogers serial film was produced in 1939 by Universal Pictures Company. 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 Marsturned up as part of Buck’s uniform. Between 1953 and the mid-1970’s, this film serial was edited into three distinct feature film versions.

1950–1951 ABC television series

rbl37szrThe first version of Buck Rogers to appear on television debuted on ABC on April 15, 1950 and ran until January 30, 1951.  Its time slot initially was on Saturdays at 6 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 HammondKem 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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_Rogers

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