Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: The Complete Newspaper Dailies, Volume One, 1929–1930

Nowlan, Philip,and Dick Calkins. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: The Complete Newspaper Dailies, Volume One, 1929–1930. Graphic Novel.

Reviewed by Dominick Grace, SFRA Review #289 (Summer 2009): pp. 37-38.[1] Relevant points here in the Grace review for this "seminal newspaper comic strip" as:

[...] one of the first continuity-based adventure strips and the first science fiction strip, though it debuted in papers the same day as Tarzan, so serial adventure/SF was clearly in the air. From very early on it brought into the newspapers an array of major SF tropes, from suspended animation (Buck is from 1929 and spends 500 years asleep to awake in 2429, though there is no significant use made of this fact for satirical or any other purpose) through the conquering of America by hostile forces (the first few months detail adventures involving the resistance of intrepid rebels against the “Mongol Reds” who have conquered most of North America, though again there is little serious consideration either of the Mongol motivations or the militaristic, even fascistic, American culture that fights for “freedom”), superscience (antigravity belts, space ships, various superweapons, etc. —indeed, Ron Goulart claims in his introduction that the strip’s tie-in products included a toy ray gun that made a “zap” noise then fired, thereby introducing “zap” as a verb and a weapon-modifying adjective to the English language), robots, domed cities, and, early on, space opera, as the Mongol Reds quickly recede as foes when Tiger Men from Mars turn up and Buck’s spacefaring adventures begin. (p. 38)

See entry for Nowlan's story "Armageddon — 2419 A.D.."

RDE, finishing, 23Feb21