Buck Rogers

On January 7, 1929, the future arrived in the funny pages. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century launched that day, adapted by writer Philip Nowlan from his own pulp science-fiction stories and drawn by Dick Calkins. It is widely credited as the first major science-fiction comic strip — the feature that brought spaceships, ray guns, jet belts, and interplanetary adventure to a mass daily audience.

The premise: a 20th-century man revived after centuries of suspended animation into a strange, imperiled future America. Alongside heroine Wilma Deering and the scientist Dr. Huer, Buck battled across worlds in stories that made the very idea of "the future" a source of thrilling adventure rather than mere fantasy.

Buck Rogers proved there was a huge appetite for science fiction in comics, paving the way for Flash Gordon and, eventually, the costumed heroes of the comic book. The name itself became American shorthand for anything futuristic. Its 1929 debut means these pioneering strips entered the U.S. public domain in 2025, and we display them here at the origin point of comics' love affair with the stars.