Dick Calkins


Richard William "Dick" Calkins, who often signed his work Lt. Dick Calkins, is an American comic strip artist who is best known for being the first artist to draw the Buck Rogers comic strip. He also wrote for the Buck Rogers radio program.

Biography

Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Calkins graduated from the Chicago Art Institute. His first job was cartoonist for the Detroit Free Press. During World War I, Calkins served in the Army Air Service as a pilot and flight instructor.
Following the war, he worked as an editorial cartoonist for the Chicago American until 1929, the year he began drawing Buck Rogers.
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. (Keaton has also been credited with ghosting the Sunday Buck Rogers, which debuted on March 30, 1930.
Calkins died at the age of 67 in Tucson, Arizona, on May 12, 1962, as the result of a heart attack.

Selected publications