Jeff,
I have the over-sized reprint book of the Buck Rogers strips and can't say that I particularly appreciate the Calkins art in it ...
Hermes Press is soliciting in the new Previews their own reprint line of the complete (well, we'll see if the project is a success ...) strip. My question to you: is this worth picking up?
All I have is the same oversized reprint book you have, which does have a lot of the early strips in order, but it does skip around a little bit. It has strips 1-278 then skips to 327-429, then 583-730, etc. Basically it reprints the major story arcs, but I'd love to read the filler strips in between - I have no idea what's in them.
As for Calkins' art - I'd call it charmingly quaint (but that's probably being charitible).