SPACE
ANGEL 
Animation by
Alex Toth.
Volume 2
Now Available!
SPACE ANGEL (1961) is a real rarity.
Most folks are much more familiar with CLUTCH CARGO,
an earlier series by the same producers, than this
fascinating relic of early Cold War rocketship animation.
But SPACE ANGEL is a lot more entertaining
than CLUTCH, and part of the reason is the great sense
of design graphic illustrator Alex Toth brought to
the very low budget syndicated effort.
Sadly underappreciated both in his day and now, Toth's
lanky heroes and shapely heroines reminds of both
Wally Wood, Al Williamson and Frank Frazetta (though
the latter was probably far more influenced by Toth
than the other way around), as well as all the great
work done on the E.C. space/sf comics of the 1950's.
In terms of overall realism in cartoons, SPACE
ANGEL's minimalist style actually produced
an entirely different aesthetic experience. Instead
of crude animation loops, SPACE ANGEL
just forgoes them altogether  and
holds on static, non-moving images for most of its
duration per show.
It's a lot more inspired than the limited animation
makes it sound. For example, the
care Toth puts into choosing his angles is what makes
it so much fun. They're like storyboards from a lost
episode of some great but vintage space opera epic,
carefully rendered for maximum graphic impact. So
while they don't move very much from pose to pose,
the poses themselves are often striking. It's a strange
hybrid of animation meets comic strips laced with
light sf. Again, it is this very uniqueness of the
series that makes it so retro-enjoyable.
We've saved the best weirdness for last: the characters'
mouths are all superimposed atop the  cartoon
characters. To save costs (as lip syncing to dialogue
was an animation bane until the era of computer lip
sync-matching software), the producers -- Dik Darley
and Dick Brown of tiny Cambria Studios -- invented
'Synchro-Vox,' which basically matted only the human
actor's lips over the respective character's animated
visage. It is totally bizarre in effect. Equally bizarre
is how quickly you forget all about it and just groove
on the mondo feel of it all. Though the storylines
are juvenile, they are solidly-crafted, entertaining
SF in the Robert (STARSHIP TROOPERS) Heinlein sort
of way. Sexism runs amok, but given stalwart hero
Scott McCloud's constant jockeying into outer space
with a monster phallic rocket between his control
yokes blasting liquid fuel spew, it's "hard'
to blame the fine captain for being a bit aroused
in the line of duty. Suffice to say, in this retro
future, the sexual harassment laws didn't make it
past their twentieth century implementations. Then
again, neither did STAR TREK or any of the other male-oriented
sf shows of the era for the record beyond cursory
attempts here and there (said attempts typically featuring
scantily-clad, very human alien women Kirk could bed
shortly after she talked about being his equal). 
Speaking of the old TREK, there's an odd coincidence
worth mentioning in SPACE ANGEL and
its more famous namesake. The spaceship engineer who
keeps the sleek, ultra-cutting edge spaceship running
is a Scotsman with a very familiarly thick brogue.
While any true relationship is most likely spurious,
Scotty still must now be noted as the second space
engineer on a regular sf t.v. series and not the first,
as SPACE ANGEL's engineer Mr.
Taurus owns the unique title). As you
can see, there's a lot more to SPACE ANGEL
than originally meets the limited blink of an eye.
If you're into retro 'toons, rocketship sf, SPACE
GHOST (check out the all white look for McCloud just
like SG), or JOHNNY QUEST (as Toth also designed both
of the latter series and this is definite precursor
in look and even tone), SPACE ANGEL
is a 'must,' not only for its modest charms, but because
it is so hard to see. A fun find. --
Notes by Major Matt Mason.
NOTE: Because over 260 shows of SPACE
ANGEL were produced and released,
we do not have the titles for each show. Volume 1
contains two complete shows, while Volume 2 has three
complete shows. Each "complete" show consists
of the original five-minute segments shown daily back-to-back.
This creates a 25-minute "complete" show.
Quality is quite good and the Bonus Extras extremely
collectible.
Expert Excerpts:
"I
sat in in drop-jawed amazement as I sucked in the
irony of the almost non-existant animation combined
with beautiful Alex Toth outer space illustrations."
-- CARTOON-O-RAMA
"Devoted to the security and welfare of the solar
system, McCloud and his crew roamed the universe in
the super-spaceship, Starduster." -- TOON
TRACKER
"Menace came from every corner of the cosmos, often
under the direction of the extraterrestrial villainess
Queen Zora. " --
YESTERDAYLAND
 Features:
DVD-R. Region One. Full Frame. Color.
Stereo. 70 mins. Volume
1 includes
Retro Space Toy Commercials, Bonus Short Flick, &
Trailers. Volume
2 includes Three Complete Episodes
& Trailers. Collector's Grade Cover Art. EZ Nave
Menu. Slipcase.
DVD Price per Volume: $12.95.
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