''Storm'' is a soft
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
/
fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and d ...
comic book
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...
series originally (and for most albums) drawn by
Don Lawrence
Donald Southam Lawrence (17 November 1928 – 29 December 2003) was a British comic book artist and author.
Lawrence is best known for his comic strips '' The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire'' in the British weeklies '' Ranger'' and '' Loo ...
. It tells the adventures of an
astronaut who accidentally gets lost in time. The series originated in
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
, but has since been translated into many other languages.
Publication history
The storyline was originally conceived as a framework for stories in the "Deep World" revolving around the character Commander Grek. An episode (in which Commander Grek turns into a fish man) was written in 1976 by
Vince Wernham and drawn by Don Lawrence, but it was not picked up by Dutch publisher Oberon. The story was later reworked by Philip "Saul" Dunn, now with the astronaut Storm as the main character. This version did get published by Oberon, serialized in the comics magazine ''
Eppo'' in 1977. (In 1984, with the ''Storm'' series established as a success, the previously unreleased Commander Grek album was published as "Episode 0" of the series. The album includes background information regarding the inception of Commander Grek and Storm.)
''Storm'' originated in Dutch, although all the books are translated into English and German, and some in at least twelve other languages (publishers in those languages include Oberon,
Interpresse,
Quality Communications
Quality Communications was a British publishing company founded by Dez Skinn that operated from 1982 to 2008. The company's most notable publications were the monthly comics anthology ''Warrior'', which featured early work by writer Alan Moore ...
,
Glénat, and
Norma Editorial
Norma Editorial is a Spanish comics publisher, with its headquarters in Barcelona.Home
Norma Editori ...
). English translations are published in the Don Lawrence collection.
''The Living Planet'' and ''The Slayer of Eriban'' were also published in ''
Heavy Metal'' magazine in January 1997 and March 1999. ''The Navel of the Double God'' (2007) had an early publication in the Dutch magazine ''Myx''.
Characters
* Storm: an astronaut who accidentally got lost in time
* Roodhaar (also known as Redhair, Carrots or Ember): a beautiful red-haired girl
* Nomad: a hairless red-skinned muscle man; makes first appearance in ''The Chronicles of Pandarve'' (1983)
* Marduk, the
Theocrat of Pandarve: makes first appearance in ''The Chronicles of Pandarve'' (1983)
Overview
The series can be split into two parts: ''The Chronicles of the Deep World'', which takes place on post-apocalyptical Earth, and ''The Chronicles of Pandarve'', taking place in the Pandarve
multiverse.
The Chronicles of the Deep World
Storm is an
astronaut in the 21st century who makes a journey to the
Great Red Spot of
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...
. The Great Red Spot is an
anticyclonic
An anticyclone is a weather phenomenon defined as a large-scale circulation of winds around a central region of high atmospheric pressure, clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from abov ...
storm which has already been there for at least 300 years. Once arrived, his ship gets dragged into the storm. When Storm manages to escape, it seems he has traveled through time. The civilizations on Earth have collapsed and turned into a
barbaric
A barbarian (or savage) is someone who is perceived to be either uncivilized or primitive. The designation is usually applied as a generalization based on a popular stereotype; barbarians can be members of any nation judged by some to be less ...
society. This is where the adventures of Storm begin.
Apart from albums 4, 5 and 6, each album is a separate adventure.
The Chronicles of Pandarve
Storm and Ember get beamed to the Pandarve
multiverse, where they meet Nomad, and a new enemy: Marduk, the
Theocrat of Pandarve. Marduk wants to catch Storm, because Storm is an anomaly (he imbalances the multiverse because he traveled through time) and is the key to give him power over the
multiverse. The Pandarve multiverse is a bubble of breathable gas surrounding a
white hole
In general relativity, a white hole is a hypothetical region of spacetime and singularity that cannot be entered from the outside, although energy-matter, light and information can escape from it. In this sense, it is the reverse of a black ho ...
that contains Pandarve itself, and thousands of other planetary objects. The main body, Pandarve, is a giant
telluric planet. On Pandarve, the normal
physical laws
Scientific laws or laws of science are statements, based on repeated experiments or observations, that describe or predict a range of natural phenomena. The term ''law'' has diverse usage in many cases (approximate, accurate, broad, or narrow) ...
are no longer valid; this gave Don and Martin room for incredible stories and magnificent scenery.
Also, Pandarve is a living planet - which means it has intellect and can even interact with other beings. For this interaction she normally relies on her Theocrat, but she is also capable of creating a humanlike representation of herself as Alice from
Alice in Wonderland.
Storm's two-time time travel history remains important to the stories, but as Ember has also travelled through time (in The Legend of Yggdrasil, they both arrive in a certain time period together), she is (or should be) an anomaly as well. This fact is never really used in the stories.
Other
planets and
planetoids in the Pandarve multiverse described in the chronicles are:
* Farseid - a synthetic ring world controlled by robots. (''The Robots of Farseid'')
* Eriban - a paradise-like planet containing the academy for slayers. (''The Slayer of Eriban'')
* Kyrte - the small home-planetoid of tariev-fisher Rann. (''The Pirates of Pandarve'')
* Marrow - a crystal-shaped planet, home of the Barsaman-games. (''The Slayer of Eriban'')
* Red Tear - a satellite of Pandarve, a few kilometers above the ocean near the city Aromater. (''The Seven of Aromater'')
* Vertiga Bas - a small pirate planet. (''The Pirates of Pandarve'')
* Waterplanetoid - a fisher-world completely covered with water. (''Vandaahl the Destroyer'')
The last three albums (''The Von Neumann Machine'', ''The Genesis Equation'' and ''The Armageddon Traveller'') form a trilogy wherein Storm & co and Marduk need to work together to save Pandarve from perdition. A strange, gigantic "spaceship" (referred to as the ''Intruder'') is headed for a collision with Pandarve, which will mean the end of both entities. The "spaceship" consists of various "cocoons". Some time around the 21st century, one "cocoon" was sent into space with the purpose of making replicas of itself. But because of a system error, the strangest "cocoons" started to emerge (including one resembling Heaven and one the Hell from
La Divina Commedia) and cluttered together instead of floating off. There are some references to well-known stories (Alice in Wonderland,
Hänsel und Gretel,
Sherlock Holmes, ..), movies (''
My Little Chickadee
''My Little Chickadee'' is a 1940 American comedy-western film starring Mae West and W. C. Fields, featuring Joseph Calleia, Ruth Donnelly, Margaret Hamilton, Donald Meek, Willard Robertson, Dick Foran, William B. Davidson, and Addison Ri ...
'' and other
Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
influences), celebrity actors (
Marlene Dietrich
Marie Magdalene "Marlene" DietrichBorn as Maria Magdalena, not Marie Magdalene, according to Dietrich's biography by her daughter, Maria Riva ; however Dietrich's biography by Charlotte Chandler cites "Marie Magdalene" as her birth name . (, ; ...
and
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe (; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1 June 1926 4 August 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic " blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as wel ...
, ..) and some mathematical theorems (the
Genesis Formula,
Goldbach's Conjecture and
Fermat's Last Theorem
In number theory, Fermat's Last Theorem (sometimes called Fermat's conjecture, especially in older texts) states that no three positive integers , , and satisfy the equation for any integer value of greater than 2. The cases and have been ...
).
Chronicles of Meanwhile
About the time when ''The Genesis Equation'' was published, a spin-off series was started, called ''Chronicles of Meanwhile''. The episodes take place between albums 6 and 7 of ''The Chronicles of the Deep World''. Three episodes were released, drawn by Dick Matena, the first two under his pseudonym John Kelly. By late 2022 ''Eppo'' magazine began to serialize the fourth and final episode after a 25-year hiatus.
Continuation
Three years after
Don Lawrence
Donald Southam Lawrence (17 November 1928 – 29 December 2003) was a British comic book artist and author.
Lawrence is best known for his comic strips '' The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire'' in the British weeklies '' Ranger'' and '' Loo ...
died, a new team continued his work.
Martin Lodewijk maintained the writer role, while
Romano Molenaar and
Jorg De Vos were selected as artists. Their first album ''The Navel of the Double God'' (''De Navel van de Dubbele God'') has been available since September 6, 2007 in Dutch. Storm 23 has already been reprinted and has given Storm a renewed international interest. The next album, titled ''Marduk's Springs'', was released in February 2009.
Since July 2008 there has been a second team working on ''Storm'': Minck Oosterveer as artist and Willem Ritstier as writer. Their first and only album was called ''The Exile of Thoem''.
Storm Team 2
(last visited on: 04-09-2008) The series was put on hold after Oosterveer died in a motorcycle-accident in 2011.
Chronicles of Ember
In 2014 Ember was given her own series chronicling the days before she met Storm, the first part was written Roy Thomas and drawn by Romano Molenaar, the current artist of Storm. From part 2, the series will be written by Rob van Bavel and each story will be pre-published in ''Eppo'' magazine.
* 1 ''De legende van Krill'' (2014; written by Roy Thomas)
* 2 ''De vijfde toren'' (2016; written by Rob van Bavel)
* 3 ''De Ark van Noorach'' (2016; written by Rob van Bavel)
* 4 ''Het Zwevende Gewest'' (2018; written by Rob van Bavel)
* 5 ''De reuzen van het Gebroken Rif'' (2019; written by Rob van Bavel)
Albums
Prologue
# ''Commander Grek'' - Prisoners of time (''Commandant Grek - Gevangenen van de tijd''; 1976 - first print in 1984; written by Vince Wernham)
The Chronicles of the Deep World
Artwork by Don Lawrence
# ''The Deep World'' (''De Diepe Wereld'', 1978; written by Philip "Saul" Dunn)
# ''The Last Fighter'' (''De Laatste Vechter'', 1979; written by Martin Lodewijk)
# ''The People of the Desert'' (''Het Volk van de Woestijn'', 1979; written by Dick Matena
Dick Matena (born 24 April 1943) is a Dutch comics writer and cartoonist. He has also published under the pseudonyms A. den Dooier, John Kelly and Dick Richards. He has made several kinds of comics, from humor comics to erotic comics, but is bes ...
)
# ''The Green Hell'' (''De Groene Hel'', 1980; written by Dick Matena)
# ''The Battle for Earth'' (''De Strijd om de Aarde'', 1980; written by Dick Matena)
# ''The Secret of the Nitron Rays'' (''Het Geheim van de Nitronstralen'', 1981; written by Dick Matena)
# ''The Legend of Yggdrasil'' (''De Legende van Yggdrasil'', 1981; written by Kelvin Gosnell
Kelvin Gosnell is a British comics writer and editor. He was involved in the founding of the long-running comic '' 2000 AD'' in 1977, and was its second editor (1977–1978). He also edited '' Starlord'' (1978) and ''Tornado'' (1979).
Biography
...
)
# ''City of the Damned'' (''Stad der Verdoemden'', 1982; written by Kelvin Gosnell)
# ''The Creeping Death'' (''De Sluimerende Dood'', 1982; written by Don Lawrence)
The Chronicles of Pandarve
Written by Martin Lodewijk, artwork by Don Lawrence
# ''The Pirates of Pandarve'' (''De Piraten van Pandarve'', 1983)
# ''The Labyrinth of Death'' (''Het Doolhof van de Dood'', 1983)
# ''The Seven of Aromater'' (''De Zeven van Aromater'', 1984)
# ''The Slayer of Eriban'' (''De Doder van Eriban'', 1985)
# ''The Dogs of Marduk'' (''De Honden van Marduk'', 1985)
# ''The Living Planet'' (''De Levende Planeet'', 1986)
# ''Vandaahl the Destroyer'' (''Vandaahl de Verderver'', 1987)
# ''The Twisted World'' (''De Wentelwereld'', 1988)
# ''The Robots of Far Sied'' (''De Robots van Danderzei'', 1990)
# ''Return of the Red Prince'' (''De Terugkeer van de Rode Prins'', 1991)
# ''The Von Neumann Machine'' (''De Von Neumann-Machine'', 1993)
# ''The Genesis Equation'' (''De Genesis-Formule'', 1995)
# ''The Armageddon Traveller'' (''De Armageddon Reiziger'', 2001)
# ''The Navel of the Double God'' (''De Navel van de Dubbele God'', 2007)
# ''Marduk's Springs'' (''De Bronnen van Marduk'', 2009)
# ''The Red Trail'' (''Het Rode Spoor'', 2010)
# ''The Mutineers of Anchor'' (''De Muiters van Anker'', 2011)
# ''The Guards of the Tracks'' (''De Wisselwachters'', 2012)
# ''The Race of Opale City'' (''De Race van Opaal'', 2013)
# ''The Coral of Kesmee'' (''Het Koraal van Kesmee'', 2015)
# ''The Executioner of Torkien'' (''De Beul van Torkien'', 2017)
Chronicles of Meanwhile
Written by Martin Lodewijk, artwork by Dick Matena.
# ''The Voyager Virus'' (''Het Voyager Virus'', 1996)
# ''The Dallas Paradox'' (''De Dallas Paradox'', 1997)
# ''The Stargorger'' (''De Sterrenvreter'', 1998)
# '' Klein Space'' (''De Ruimte van Klein'', to be published)
Chronicles of the Outer Rim
Written by Willem Ritstier, artwork by Minck Oosterveer
# ''The Expatriate of Thoem'' (''De Banneling van Thoem'', 2011)
The Collection
The Deluxe volumes are hardback
A hardcover, hard cover, or hardback (also known as hardbound, and sometimes as case-bound) book is one bound with rigid protective covers (typically of binder's board or heavy paperboard covered with buckram or other cloth, heavy paper, or occa ...
with a leather cover, gold imprint and dust jacket. Each bundle contains two albums and a part of the Storm-dossier ''"The Search for Storm"''. The last part also contains ''"Storm - The Big Picture"'' which gives an overview of Storm in the press, Storm expositions, the status of Storm in the modern comic scene and a portfolio. Only available in Dutch and English.
# ''The Collection - Part 1'' (contains ''The Deep World'', ''The Last Fighter'' and ''The search for Storm - part 1'', 2000)
# ''The Collection - Part 2'' (contains ''The People of the Desert'', ''Green Hell'' and ''The search for Storm - part 2'', 2000)
# ''The Collection - Part 3'' (contains ''The Battle for Earth'', ''The Secret of the Nitron Rays'' and ''The search for Storm - part 3'', 2001)
# ''The Collection - Part 4'' (contains ''The Legend of Yggdrasil'', ''City of the Damned'' and ''The search for Storm - part 4'', 2001)
# ''The Collection - Part 5'' (contains ''The Creeping Death'', ''The Pirates of Pandarve'' and ''The search for Storm - part 5'', 2001)
# ''The Collection - Part 6'' (contains ''The Labyrinth of Death'', ''The Seven of Aromater'' and ''The search for Storm - part 6'', 2002)
# ''The Collection - Part 7'' (contains ''The Slayer of Eriban'', ''The Hounds of Marduk'' and ''The search for Storm - part 7'', 2002)
# ''The Collection - Part 8'' (contains ''The Living Planet'', ''Vandaahl the Destroyer'' and ''The search for Storm - part 8'', 2002)
# ''The Collection - Part 9'' (contains ''The Twisted World'', ''The Robots of Farseid'' and ''The search for Storm - part 9'', 2003)
# ''The Collection - Part 10'' (contains ''Return of the Red Prince'', ''The Von Neumann Machine'' and ''The search for Storm - part 10'', 2003)
# ''The Collection - Part 11'' (contains ''The Genesis Equation'', ''The Armageddon Traveler'' and ''The search for Storm - part 11'', 2003)
# ''The Collection - Part 12'' (contains ''Commander Grek'', ''Storm - The Big Picture'' and ''The search for Storm - part 12'', 2003)
See also
*Don Lawrence
Donald Southam Lawrence (17 November 1928 – 29 December 2003) was a British comic book artist and author.
Lawrence is best known for his comic strips '' The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire'' in the British weeklies '' Ranger'' and '' Loo ...
*The Trigan Empire
''The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire'', later called simply ''The Trigan Empire'', is a science fiction comic series written mainly by Mike Butterworth with artwork (initially watercolours, later gouache) by Don Lawrence, among others. It ...
References
External links
Don Lawrence official site
{{Portal bar, Comics
1977 comics debuts
Comics characters introduced in 1977
British comics characters
British comics titles
Fictional astronauts
Dutch comics titles
Heavy Metal (magazine) titles
Science fiction comics
Fantasy comics