Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: The Complete Newspaper Sundays Volume 3 (1937-1940) Hardcover – 23 June 2015

Here's where the real fun begins: as most of us know, Rick Yager was the heart and soul of Buck Rogers. His artwork is fantastic, his stories are the most imaginative. Curtis J. Hepworth, the #1 authority on all things Buck Rogers makes it abundantly clear in yet another inspired, fact-filled introduction in this third volume of Buck's Sundays exploits. And this is the first volume where all the stories, writing and artwork, are by Rick Yager. Here, to the best of our knowledge, Rick Yager is 100% in control. And here we have what I consider the first of Rick's continuities to have reached comic art perfection, or almost: the fantastic “Martian Invasion” tale. It's here presented in its entirety, beautifully restored by Hermes. Many more exciting, memorable stories would follow: “Rising Sun Planet”, “The Golden Spaceship Eldorado” (featuring one of Rick's memorable creations, Admiral Cornplater), Battle on the Moon (the Collected Works featured only the middle third of the continuity, the first and third are just as fantastic, if not more so!), “Junglemen of Saturn” (where Buck has to return the sacred pearls to their rightful owners and faces the packendire beast!), Planet Vidua (featuring mad Eastern sector dictator Kah-Mee who threatens to annihilate life on his planet). Anyway, too many great stories to mention. Let's hope Hermes continues this long-overdue reprinting of the Buck Rogers Sundays. We owe it to posterity.

Reading doesn't get any better than Buck Rogers, and Buck Rogers doesn't get any better than when Rick Yager is writing and drawing the stories. What gave the U.S. the gumption to go to the moon? To flyby Pluto? (1) Starting in 1929, Buck Rogers captured the imaginations of a young generation of Americans, including Ray Bradbury. (2) The 1957 Soviet launch of Sputnik showed that the time to get serious about space exploration was NOW! (And, surprisingly, also was the beginning of the end for the great comic strip: space news was moving from the comic strip section to the front section of the newspaper.) But while it lasted, Buck Rogers was the greatest thing going. I've bought ALL of these reprint volumes [except the amazon.com system could not cope with my preorder for the Murphy Anderson dailies; that got away from me!]. This volume continued a story line, part of which appeared in the 1968[?] reprint of Buck Rogers; thus ending 45 years of suspense on my part (now how will they get out of this mess?!). This is a gotta-have book!

Hermes Press has produced a beautiful book with a stunning reproduction of classic comic strips written and drawn by Rick Yager. These comic strips have never looked so good, and the large, oversized format allows the artwork to be seen in all its glory. Rick Yager was not the greatest writer or artist, but his work has a sense of fun and energy that somehow catch you up in the intergalactic adventure despite the rough edges.

I usually only comment on the first volume of each collection, but this time I'll make an exception, because the Hermes guys have finally gotten the digital restoration thing right. The reproduction quality of these Sundays is stupendous, and there are more than 3 years worth of them.Now, whether you'll like the artwork itself or not is another story. Yager was not a spectacular illustrator, to understate the issue.But of course, absolutely recommended for fans.

Outstanding collection of vintage sci-fi Sunday strips - I absolutely love this series and can't wait for Hermes to publish volume 4. The book is very large and the strips are well-printed and presented. Paper quality and binding are very satisfactory. The two previous volumes are also outstanding. Well worth the cover price.