ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER

Abelman, Frayne, &Schwab

On April 18, 1961, John F. Dille Co. received a trademark registration for the name of its comic strip, claiming use back to 1928:

Buck Rogers first appeared as Anthony Rogers in a short space opera, "Armageddon-2419 A.D." by Philip Francis Nowlan, published in the August 1928 issue of Amazing Stories. A sequel, "The Airlords of Han," appeared in the March 1929 issue (the warlike Hans were later changed to Mongols).

The story of Anthony Rogers caught the eye of John Flint Dille, president of the National Newspaper Service syndicate, who commissioned Nowlan to do a science fiction comic strip--the world's first--with artist Richard Calkins.

The comic strip, titled "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century," debuted on January 7 1929, with the character now called by his nickname. Phil Nowlan wrote the continuity about the famous characters of Buck Rogers, Wilma Deering, Dr. Huer, and Killer Kane, along with their disintegrators, jumping belts, inertron, and paralysis rays, and made them familiar to millions of people in this country and abroad. By the time his radio serial of the same title appeared in 1932--another science fiction first--Buck had become a national hero whose image graced a variety of tie-in merchandise, including toys, games, cups and plates, and clothing. His popularity was such that in 1934 a Virginia department store substituted an actor disguised as Buck for its annual Santa Claus.

The popularity of the strip began to decline in the late thirties under the competitions of Flash Gordon, Brick Bradford and other imitators. It ran consecutively until 1967, and at it's peak was published in more than 400 newspapers throughout the world and translated into 18 languages. Today, though the strip still appears in some papers, few people are aware it still exists.

Larry "Buster" Crabbe as Buck in 1939 Gil Gerard as Buck in the 1970s TV series

ALSO THIS WEEK:

On April 19, 1939 John Steinbeck's novel, "The Grapes of Wrath" was copyright registered

Steinbeck was born on Febraury 27, 1902 in Salinas, California. After graduating from Salinas High School in 1919, Steinbeck attended Stanford University. Originally an English major, he pursued a program of independent study and his attendance was rather sporadic. During this time he worked periodically at various jobs and left Stanford permanently in 1925 to pursue his writing career in New York. However, he was unsuccessful in getting any of his writing published and finally returned to California. Back in California Steinbeck lived in Pacific Grove where much of the material for his first well received novel "Tortilla Flat" was gathered. After writing several poorly received novels, "Tortilla Flat" (1935) marked the turning point in Steinbeck's literary career. It received the California Commonwealth Club's Gold Medal for best novel by a California author. Steinbeck continued writing, relying upon extensive research and his personal observation of the human condition for his stories. "The Grapes of Wrath" however, garnered Steinbeck the Pulitzer Prize.

During World War II, Steinbeck was a war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune. Some of his dispatches were later collected and made into "Once There Was a War."