On 7th of January 1929 the comic strip Buck Rogers  created by Philip Francis Nowlan first appeared in daily U.S. newspapers. Buck Rogers was initially syndicated to 47 newspapers. On March 30, 1930, a Sunday strip joined the Buck Rogers daily strip.

The newspaper syndicator John F. Dille saw the opportunity for a science fiction-based comic strip. Nowlan and Dille enlisted editorial cartoonist Dick Calkins as the illustrator, Nowlan created the comic strip about life some 500 years in the future titled Buck Rogers. Some have suggested that Dille coined that name based on the 1920s cowboy actor Buck Jones.

Writer Nowlan told the inventor R. Buckminster Fuller in 1930 that “he frequently used [Fuller’s] concepts for his cartoons”. Dick Calkins, an advertising artist, drew the earliest daily strips, and Russell Keaton drew the earliest Sunday strips.

A comic strip based on the adventures of Tarzan also started on 7th January 1929.

Click on this link for more: First and Last – Buck Rogers Comic Strip, via The Daily Cartoonist