So, now that we’re back to Rock’em, Sock’em, Punch’em inna face type Adventure, I thought it might be fun to put together a sort of Buck Rogers type pastiche – Buck was kind’a the great grandaddy of Scifi Comics – and though they’re somewhat dated, his newspaper strip adventures are being reprinted once again… Though my own favorite part of it, are Russell Keaton’s Sunday strips – (which don’t feature Buck at all) – but do feature some great art & design!
Ah, love them 1940s space-girls… who could live in a hard vacuum in nothing more than a bubble helmet, brass brassiere and bikini-pants, while all the men had to wear bulky space-suits that made them look like an overstuffed sofa!
Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon had interesting universes. In one Sunday cartoon series, I saw one of these guys in a water world. Jupiter, the real Jupiter, has a sort of water/ice world on one of its moons. Scifi could find a real analog on that moon. As far as space babes go, the earth will generate plenty of them as well. Space suits will improve as well, becoming less stuffed sofa like.
It seemed with Buck Rodgers, practically every chunk of rock in the Solar System was inhabited… If it was an Asteroid, they were li’l tiny guys… If it were a large planet, they were usually big guys… Some like the Martian Tiger Men went through many changes – sometimes looking more sometimes less humanoid — during WWII they became grotesque Japanese caricatures…
Flash Gordon didn’t seem so much a Space adventurer as a BuckleSquasher, with just enough Scifi trappings to get by with… Flash also had the advantage of Alex Raymond’s fantastic artwork! Not to mention the Buster Crabbe serials which were so much fun!
Of course, Buster also played Buck in the serials – However, the Buck Rogers serial just didn’t seem to really click… possibly at least partially due to the lack of supporting actors Charles Middleton, who really looked the part of Ming the Merciless and Frank Shannon, who made a great Doctor Zarkov – “We’ll be blown to atoms, Flash!” Though, despite his his many repeated warnings, as best I can recall, only once was a threatening monster, actually “Blown to Atoms!”
Comments are closed.
There are currently no widgets assigned to the right-sidebar, place some!
Once you add widgets to this sidebar, this default information will go away.
Widgets can be added by going to your dashboard (wp-admin) ➔ Appearance ➔ Widgets, drag a widget you want to see into one of the appropriate sidebars.
So, now that we’re back to Rock’em, Sock’em, Punch’em inna face type Adventure, I thought it might be fun to put together a sort of Buck Rogers type pastiche – Buck was kind’a the great grandaddy of Scifi Comics – and though they’re somewhat dated, his newspaper strip adventures are being reprinted once again… Though my own favorite part of it, are Russell Keaton’s Sunday strips – (which don’t feature Buck at all) – but do feature some great art & design!
Ah, love them 1940s space-girls… who could live in a hard vacuum in nothing more than a bubble helmet, brass brassiere and bikini-pants, while all the men had to wear bulky space-suits that made them look like an overstuffed sofa!
Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon had interesting universes. In one Sunday cartoon series, I saw one of these guys in a water world. Jupiter, the real Jupiter, has a sort of water/ice world on one of its moons. Scifi could find a real analog on that moon. As far as space babes go, the earth will generate plenty of them as well. Space suits will improve as well, becoming less stuffed sofa like.
It seemed with Buck Rodgers, practically every chunk of rock in the Solar System was inhabited… If it was an Asteroid, they were li’l tiny guys… If it were a large planet, they were usually big guys… Some like the Martian Tiger Men went through many changes – sometimes looking more sometimes less humanoid — during WWII they became grotesque Japanese caricatures…
Flash Gordon didn’t seem so much a Space adventurer as a BuckleSquasher, with just enough Scifi trappings to get by with… Flash also had the advantage of Alex Raymond’s fantastic artwork! Not to mention the Buster Crabbe serials which were so much fun!
Of course, Buster also played Buck in the serials – However, the Buck Rogers serial just didn’t seem to really click… possibly at least partially due to the lack of supporting actors Charles Middleton, who really looked the part of Ming the Merciless and Frank Shannon, who made a great Doctor Zarkov – “We’ll be blown to atoms, Flash!” Though, despite his his many repeated warnings, as best I can recall, only once was a threatening monster, actually “Blown to Atoms!”