Buck Rogers' Australian Orbit

“I should state therefore, that I, Anthony Rogers, am, so far as I know, the only man alive whose normal span of eighty-one years of life has been spread over a period of 573 years. To be precise, I lived the first twenty-nine years of my life between 1898 and 1927; the other fifty-two since 2149. The gap between these two, a period of nearly five hundred years, I spent in a state of suspended animation, free from the ravages of katabolic processes, and without any apparent effect on my physical or mental faculties.”

However far-fetched Anthony Rogers’ story may have seemed to anyone reading these words for the first time, this space-faring hero would soon become known the world over as Buck Rogers.

Not only would Buck Rogers help popularize the embryonic literary genre of science-fiction, but he would, in his own small way, have an important role to play in the history of Australian comic book publishing. It is a role worth briefly commemorating here, in 2007, forty years since the character receded from the popular imagination.

The impossible promise of science-fiction was beautifully captured on the cover of the August 1928 edition of Amazing Stories, a pioneering magazine devoted to a new style of story, originally dubbed ‘scientifiction’ by its editor and founder, Hugo Gernsback.

Painted by the Austrian-born Frank R. Paul, the covers shows a man strapped inside a futuristic, yet cumbersome ‘flying harness’, hovering unaided above the ground, as a stylishly-dressed woman waves to him from the manicured lawns below.

At first, the painting seems like the first-ever portrait of Anthony Rogers, demonstrating his new-fangled flying belt. It was, however, depicting a scene taken from another, equally influential serial also appearing in that same issue of Amazing Stories – ‘The Skylark of Space’, written by the father of the ‘space opera’, Edward Elmer Smith, PhD., better known as E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith.

Frank R. Paul did, however, furnish the black & white illustrations accompanying the story ‘Armageddon – 2149’, written by Philip Francis Nowlan, which also appeared in that landmark magazine.

It was here that readers first met Anthony Rogers, an employee of the American Radioactive Gas Corporation who, together with his two assistants, set out on 15 December 1927 to investigate “reports of unusual phenomena” at an abandoned coalmine near the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania.

Rogers was knocked unconscious when the rotted timbers supporting the mineshaft collapsed, killing his colleagues.

When he regained consciousness nearly 500 years later, Rogers found himself in an America that had been conquered by the all-powerful Mongolians (Chinese) in 2109, who established their ‘Han Dynasty’ throughout America, subjugating the American people with their “terrific disintegrator rays”.

Rogers’ ally was Wilma Deering, a member of the ‘Wyoming Gang’, whom he had saved during a fierce gun-battle when he first awoke. Wilma would not only help guide Rogers through this alien American landscape, but take her place alongside him as a fellow resistance fighter and, eventually, as his lover.

The editor of Amazing Stories clearly had high hopes for this new character, imploring (in print) its author to come up with a sequel. Nowlan did pen a follow-up story, ‘The Airlords of Han’, which saw print in the March 1929 edition of Amazing Stories. But pulp magazines were not to remain Anthony Rogers’ home for long.

Just a few months beforehand, John F. Dille, proprietor of the National Newspaper Service (Chicago) had read Nowlan’s original story and contracted the writer, asking him to adapt the novelette as ongoing comic strip serial.

Dille, who was keen to capitalise on growing public interest in science-fiction is not only credited with changing the hero’s name to Buck Rogers, but was also responsible for assigning his staff artist, Dick Calkins, to illustrate the new feature.

Despite his background as a sports cartoonist, Calkins was no stranger to space – or, airspace, at least. He served with the US Army Air Corps during the First World War and initially signed his work ‘Lt. Dick Calkins, US Air Corps’.

The first episode of the daily strip, titled Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, appeared in participating American newspapers on 7 January 1929. Nowlan stayed fairly close to his original storyline, but as the strip progressed, it took on a weird blend of ‘space opera’ and western – such as when Buck Rogers joins forces with the Navajo resistance fighters, and is befriended by a cowboy-outlaw, Two-Gun Pete.

Buck meets Wilma, member of the Allegheny Orgzone (resistance unit), who helps Buck master personal flight, by using a jumping belt powered by Imerton, which “reverses weight”.

Buck crosses swords with ‘Killer’ Kane, Wilma’s ex-boyfriend and fellow resistance fighter, who eventually frames Buck as a Mongol spy, and joins the Mongol invaders in order to seek revenge against Buck and reclaim Wilma for himself.

As science-fiction author Ray Bradbury wrote decades later, “it was not so much how the episodes [of Buck Rogers] were drawn, but what was happening in them that made them such a success.”

Despite its futuristic trappings, the Buck Rogers comic strip was clearly a product of the ‘jazz age’. Wilma, for instance, looks like a laser gun-toting flapper, complete with cloche hat and daringly short skirt. Her resistance movement comrades dart about in propeller-driven biplanes, engaged in dogfights with the Mongols’ fleet of airships.

Calkin’s artwork betrayed his unease with the demands of the adventure comic strip format, but had an undeniable energy and rough-hewn charm.

Calkin’s also helped cement much of the popular visual motifs of early science-fiction as he lent his Art Deco-inspired designs to the huge range of Buck Rogers toys and novelties that became massive sellers throughout the 1930s, such as the streamlined rocket ships and bulbous ray guns.

In its own way, Buck Rogers was a remarkably prescient comic strip, anticipating technological advances, such as television, remote-control robots and unmanned aircraft, by several decades.

Just as importantly, Buck Rogers proved the popularity of the adventure comic strip amongst newspaper readers, who were rewarded with a Sunday version of the Buck Rogers strip, which debuted on 30 March 1930.

Such was Buck Rogers’ appeal that a rival news organisation, King Features Syndicate, commissioned artist Alex Raymond to develop its own science-fiction comic, Flash Gordon, in January 1934.

The popularity of new adventure comic strips was not lost on Fitchett Bros. Pty. Ltd. of West Melbourne, the proprietors of The New Idea, Australia’s oldest women’s magazine.

The company’s founder, Thomas Shaw Fitchett, couldn’t have failed to notice the growing success that its main rival, The Australian Women’s Weekly, was enjoying with its new comic strip, Mandrake the Magician, which made its Australian debut on 1 December 1934.

Launched in August 1902, The New Idea established the template for Australian women’s magazines for decades to come. But its market supremacy was challenged by Frank Packer, whose launch of The Australian Women’s Weekly in June 1933 gradually set new standards in colour magazine publishing and won thousands of new readers with each issue.

Part of The New Idea’s editorial response to this new competitor was to introduce new features. While it may have seemed a strange addition to a women’s magazine, The New Idea unveiled Buck Rogers as its new comic strip serial on 17 April 1936.

Unlike Mandrake the Magician, which would remain an integral part of the Australian Women’s Weekly for decades, Buck Rogers enjoyed a comparatively brief tenure with The New Idea, making its last appearance in September 1941.

Yet within months of the strip’s premiere in The New Idea, Fitchett Bros. sought to expand the character’s appeal to a more receptive, adolescent audience. The company printed the first issue of a new comic book, The Adventures of Buck Rogers, in November 1936.

By the time the fourth issue was eventually published in April 1938, The Adventures of Buck Rogers became a monthly magazine. (Incidentally, Fitchett Bros. also published Australian editions of American science-fiction pulp magazines during this period, including Amazing Stories, the original ‘home’ of Buck Rogers.)

Buck Rogers was the first genuine comic book published in Australia, comprised entirely of comic strips, as distinct from competing Australian and British ‘children’s papers’ of the period, which combined comic strips with editorial text features.

It was also the first comic book published in Australia featuring a single character – a relatively new trend in comics publishing. The first such American comic book of this type, for example, was Skippy’s Own Book of Comics (containing reprinted newspaper strips), published in 1934.

Fitchett Brothers’ new magazine may have also been the world’s first solo Buck Rogers comic book. In his American homeland, Buck was largely confined to being a supporting feature in Famous Funnies from 1934 to 1954, while a short-lived Buck Rogers solo comic book titled briefly appeared in 1941-43.

The Australian edition of Buck Rogers initially sported two-toned, ink-wash covers which were signed ‘ES”, and were the work of Ed Smith (He would later sign his full name to the countless comic book covers he would draw over the next two decades.)

The title proved sufficiently popular for Fitchett Bros. to issue a series of Buck Rogers Specials throughout 1938-42, along with a range of Buck Rogers Annuals during 1938-41.

The commercial success of their Buck Rogers series encouraged Fitchett Bros. to release additional comics featuring reprints of American newspaper comic strips, such as Hurricane Hawk and Red Ryder, throughout the 1930s and 40s.

Oddly enough, while The New Idea ceased running the Buck Rogers comic strip in 1941, presumably as a result of wartime government bans on imported comic magazines and syndicated comic strips, Fitchett Bros. was still able to publish its Buck Rogers periodicals throughout the war.

Nonetheless, Fitchett Bros. Pty. Ltd. became the first significant Australian publisher of comic books from 1936 onwards, four years before other publishers (such as the NSW Bookstall Company and the Offset Printing Company) made their first forays into the local comics market during the Second World War.

It’s worth noting that Consolidated Press (publisher of The Australian Women’s Weekly) issued a single, unnumbered edition of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, priced at of 4 ½d, during the early 1940s. How they were able to do so while the Fitchett Bros. series was still being published remains a mystery. One possible explanation could be that Buck Rogers’ cancellation in The New Idea caused the strip’s Australian syndication rights to briefly lapse, thereby giving Consolidated Press a brief opportunity to ‘test the market’ with their own Buck Rogers comic book. Yet wartime paper rationing and the prohibition of any new, ongoing periodicals arguably played some part in Consolidated Press’ decision not to launch a competing series of Buck Rogers comics.

However, at war’s end, the Fitchett Bros. printing business, along with its stable of magazines (including The New Idea), was acquired by Southdown Press. The new proprietors retained the Buck Rogers title and reintroduced the Buck Rogers Specials in 1948. The other noticeable change during this period was the appearance of the Tip-Top Comics logo, which was first seen on the cover of Buck Rogers No. 122.

Ed Smith continued to draw the lion’s share of covers for both the Buck Rogers’ titles, as well as Southdown’s other American comic reprint titles. Other Australian artists, such as Norman Clifford, who were producing adventure titles for Southdown Press during the early 1950s (such as Billy Battle), drew covers for the Buck Rogers series.

While some comic historians, such as the late John Ryan (author of Panel By Panel: An Illustrated History of Australian Comics), claimed that the Fitchett Brothers/Southdown Press series comprised the most extensive range of Buck Rogers reprints anywhere in the world, they didn’t always adhere to the strip’s publishing chronology. Ian Simpson, a lifelong Australian fan and collector of Buck Rogers comics, wrote in Collectormania magazine (April 2007) that the Fitchett Brothers editions reprinted the original 1929 strips in 1938, casually intermingled with the then-current storylines.

Nonetheless, by the time the original Australian series ceased publication in January 1953, it had chronicled most of Buck Rogers’ adventures, as drawn by Calkins and his successors, including Russell Keaton, Rich Yager, Murphy Anderson and Leonard Dworkins, during the course of its 181 issues.

The demise of Southdown Press’ Tip-Top Comics range didn’t signal the end for Buck Rogers ‘down under’. Atlas Publications of Melbourne (home to the best-selling Australian superhero, Captain Atom), launched a new series titled Buck Rogers of the 25th Century, which ran for at least nine issues, before the company closed its doors around during 1957-58.

This was followed by the character’s sporadic appearances in King Size Comic, a giant 2/- (two shilling) magazine, produced by the Cleveland Publishing Company of Sydney under its Apache Comics imprint. Apart from Buck Rogers, King Size Comic featured reprints of various American and Australian comic book features, ranging from crime (T-Man) to westerns (El Lobo, Tim Holt) and science-fiction (Silver Starr), before it, too, ceased publication in 1959.

A belated Australian tribute to Buck Rogers appeared in 1969, when the Sydney firm Ibis Imprints published Vintage Buck Rogers 1929 to 1967: An anthology of the greatest space-age comic strip of all time. This one-off effort, which also included a free colour poster, was no doubt intended to cash-in on the ‘nostalgia craze’ for pre-war and wartime pop culture heroes, which reached its peak throughout the 1960s. (Ibis Imprints appears to have specialised in books reprinting the works of both Australian and overseas cartoonists during the late 1960s and early 1970s.)

Ironically, Buck Rogers would not survive long enough to witness the Apollo moon landing of 1969, with production of the syndicated comic strip ceasing two years beforehand.

Yet, in the forty years that have passed since the character’s demise, it is worth recalling the pivotal role that Buck Rogers played in both the evolution of the newspaper comic strip and in the birth of Australia’s comic book industry.

The author would like to thank Graeme Cliffe for his assistance in researching this article. However, any errors and omissions are the author’s own. Text copyright © 2007 Kevin Patrick. All images and artwork reproduced here are copyright © 2007 their respective copyright holders.