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[The Australian Panther]

All round good comic. Had an Epiphany yesterday reading some original Raymond Flash Gordon. Have always wondered why 'Flash' was such a strong template for science fantasy back in the day. (Stories like Wonder Man and Dick Devens here for example) and I realized that 'Flash' was the Star Wars of its day.
The standout here for me is the Jill Trent story. Damsels in distress covers aside, its surprising how many strong female characters there were in the Golden Age.

Link to the book: Wonder Comics 13

[SuperScrounge]

Flash Gordon was one of Star Wars inspirations.

Although I believe both Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon had Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter as inspiration.

[The Australian Panther]

You're right Scrounge, that Flash was an inspiration for Star Wars, but I was referring to Flash Gordon's impact on people's imagination in the day. I'm reading about how many people of a certain age who work in various creative arts have stated that 'Star Wars' was the first time they had seen this kind of fantasy in a wholly believable fantasy world and that their lives and career paths had been changed as a result.The movies weren't advanced enough to do that at that time but millions of people saw Flash's visual world in their Newspapers. John Carter certainly influenced Raymond but probably not so much the general public.
Cheers!     

[SuperScrounge]

Yeah, more people would have seen the Flash Gordon comic strip than read Burroughs books (there was a John Carter comic strip, but IIRC it came out after Flash) http://www.johncolemanburroughs.com/jc/