Although I’ve had the Captain Scarlet and The Mysterons DVD
Carlton Box set for years, which as many of you will already know, is packed
with extras, I thought I’d check out the new deluxe Blu-ray version from
Network.
It is limited to 1250 pressings, and from what I gather has
already completely sold out from Network and the Gerry Anderson store, so
expect one or two of them to be turning up for inflated prices on eBay anytime
soon.
The Deluxe set is actually an enhanced fourth volume, with the
other standard volumes available separately. As with the standard fourth volume, it contains
a disc with the last eight episodes, all perfectly cleaned up and digitally re-mastered
to Blu-ray quality, but there’s also a second special features disc which apart
from some newly produced documentaries, and some nostalgic items from the
sixties like ad bumpers and adverts, it also includes Joe 90: Most Special
Agent, the first episode from the series, heralding Network’s next Gerry
Anderson Blu-ray release.
I must add, I personally really like the uncluttered look
when the disc loads, so apart from a nice simple menu with Captain Scarlet in
the background, there are no superfluous newly created digital images.
It also comes with some additional ephemera which, according
to what’s written on them are only available as part of the deluxe set , and won't be sold seperatly. There’s a specially produced poster drawn by
legendary TV21 artist Mike Noble and Lee Sullivan, who has had some recent
involvement with Anderson Entertainment’s new ‘Firestorm’ minisode .
Here’s a photo of Mike and Lee at the first Andercon.
There’s also a ‘Captain Scarlet’ comic which reproduces the
poster on the front cover. There are a
couple of pages showing behind the scenes photos from the original series and a
couple of comic strips.
The Captain Scarlet strip is drawn by Paul McCaffrey, who
did the illustration for the Project Sword text story in the TV21 facsimile
copy which was originally included in Network’s ‘Supermarionation is Go’ boxed
set. The advantage of this strip is we get to see Paul’s proper comic strip art
skills in colour and black & white. As you can obviously see Paul has a solid and confident style. He does excellent and expressive figure drawing, which, I have
to say, I've noted that some the current crop of professional artists attempting comic strips
can’t, As with the vast majority of
comic art these days it looks like it
has been done digitally, but thankfully it’s not photo-realistic which, while I might
be in the minority here, I’m not keen on at all, especially when the subject
matter is nostalgia.
The second strip, which is a continuation of the first, but
this time features The Angels, is drawn
by Martin Baines who drew the Thunderbirds strip in the Network TV21 facsimile that I previously mentioned. Fans of the New
Captain Scarlet will easily spot that Martin has used a NCS Falcon Interceptor
design as Captain Black’s getaway jet.
But for me a large part of Captain Scarlet is really about
nostalgia, and memories of watching the series way back in the late sixties. So
with that in mind Network have reproduced a really nice set of glossy prints
showing the series end credits artwork wonderfully painted by the late Ron
Embleton, another legendary TV21 artist.
Although, some have commented that they have been slightly
cropped they are still a rather nice addition to anyone’s Captain Scarlet
collection.
Network have even provided sufficient space in the box (once
some internal packaging is removed) to put the other three volumes for the
complete package, so I guess I’m going to have to invest in them now.
