The Buck Rogers comic strip set the stage for Star Wars, inspiring George Lucas to create his own galactic saga. Lucas honed his filmmaking skills with American Graffiti before pursuing his dream of making big-budget sci-fi. Collaboration with colleagues and advice from industry veterans shaped Star Wars into the iconic franchise we know today.

"The more things change, the more they stay the same," French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote in 1849. During the following century, a real-life epoch that proved the quote true was set in motion when writer Philip Francis Nowlan created a character known as Anthony Rogers for his 1928 novella Armageddon 2419 Ad. The following year, the character would be reconstituted for the Buck Rogers comic strip, moving from literary side note to a hugely successful comic with a nearly 4-decade run that inspired countless radio and television serials. The comic would heavily influence a generation of sci-fi filmmakers,...