Dick Calkins

[3] Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Calkins graduated from the Chicago Art Institute.

During World War I, Calkins served in the Army Air Service as a pilot and flight instructor.

[1] Following the war, he worked as an editorial cartoonist for the Chicago American until 1929, the year he began drawing Buck Rogers.

)[4][citation needed] Calkins also co-created and illustrated the aviation-themed comic strip Skyroads, with aviation pioneer and fellow World War I pilot Lester J. Maitland, from 1929 to 1933 (when it was taken over by Russell Keaton).

(Keaton has also been credited with ghosting the Sunday Buck Rogers, which debuted on March 30, 1930.