The Press: Buck's Luck

For the "priceless-to-science" body of Laika, the Russian dog still orbiting in Sputnik II, rival spaceships battled grimly last week with every weapon still unknown to science. The futuristic dogfight took place in Buck Rogers, the comic pages' oldest and highest-flying extraterrestrial strip, which was launched into newspaper space 29 years ago by Chicago's National Newspaper Syndicate. A perennial hero to the space-gun set, Buck Rogers is flying higher than ever after falling from a prewar apogee of 136 client dailies in 1935 to a postwar perigee of 43 papers in 1956.

As soon as Sputniks I and II joined Captain Rogers...

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