Post originally by Manga Boogie Man at 2005-01-02 17:30:15
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<<For those of you interested in Buck Rogers history, Philip Francis Nowlan (Knowlan?) wrote "Armagedon 2419: The seminal Buck Rogers novel" sometime in the late 1960's or early 1970's. This is the most recent adaptation of the first Buck Rogers story, the one that started it all...>>

"You sure about that?"

"I believe the second Buck Rogers RPG was also supposed to be based on the original stories, wasn't it?"

"It had old school art on the cover at any rate. But that book definitely sounds like something to keep an eye out for."
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"Kester,
The 2nd RPG(Buck Rodgers Adventure Game)is indeed based on the original comic strips.Pick one up on Ebay if you can-you won't regret it one bit."
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Ya got me there. I wasn't thinking about anything but the novel and comic end of things. "Buck Rogers: High Adventure Cliffhangers" completely slipped my mind. Especially embarrassing when you consider that that was one of the first RPGs I ever played in!

That having been said, Nowlan's work, the serials that were later pooled into the aforementioned novel, predates the early comics by Lt. Dick Calkins (one of the later artists on that series was the late Russell Keaton, of "Flyin' Jenny" fame), having originally appeared in serial form in one of the magazines of the time. It might even have been "Amazing Stories". The original serial stories differ from the comics by a vast degree, although many of the fundamental things are in place in both titles. The most noticeable is the fact that the Hans in the serials were later revealed to be aliens rather than humans, while the Hans in the comics were more along the lines of Mongolian-Chinese descent, and completely human. There's entirely too many differences to list without turning it into a book, but the serials were a bit less campy. I can see why they were changed so much for the comics, however. The audience needed somehting familiar to latch onto, and the comics provided that to a greater degree than the serials. The things in the serials would have proven too alien to the newspaper-reading public of the time. This is the same sort of thing that got shows like "Star Trek" and "Battlestar Galactica" axed before their time: a discomfort with science fiction in general. But I think the science fiction fans of today will ultimately like the novel better. What was at the time revolutionary is easier to understand and accept today, and even makes a little more sense, even if the science some of it was founded on has proven to be less practical in practice than it was in that day's theories. The novel also had more crunchy bits. It would make an interesting RPG in its own right, if anyone wanted to take a chance on it.