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Comic book series From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Storm is a science fiction / fantasy comic book series originally (and for most albums) drawn by Don Lawrence. It tells the adventures of an astronaut who accidentally gets lost in time. The series originated in Dutch, but has since been translated into many other languages.
 |
| Storm | |
|---|---|
Painting by Don Lawrence of Storm and Ember. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Original publisher: Oberon Full list |
| Publication date | 1977 – present |
| No. of issues | 25 (28 including spin-offs) |
| Main character(s) | Storm Roodhaar/Redhair/Carrots/Ember Nomad Marduk |
| Creative team | |
| Written by | Martin Lodewijk Dick Matena Kelvin Gosnell Philip "Saul" Dunn Don Lawrence Vince Wernham |
| Artist(s) | Don Lawrence Dick Matena Romano Molenaar |
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, Glénat, and Norma Editorial). 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.[1]
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.
Storm is an astronaut in the 21st century who makes a journey to the Great Red Spot of Jupiter. The Great Red Spot is an anticyclonic 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 society. This is where the adventures of Storm begin.
Apart from albums 4, 5 and 6, each album is a separate adventure.
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 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 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:
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 and other Western influences), celebrity actors (Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe, ..) and some mathematical theorems (the Genesis Formula, Goldbach's Conjecture and Fermat's Last Theorem).
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.
Three years after Don Lawrence died, a new team continued his work. Martin Lodewijk maintained the writer role, while Romano Molenaar and Jorg De Vos were selected as artists.[2] 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.[3]
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.[4] The series was put on hold after Oosterveer died in a motorcycle-accident in 2011.
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.
Artwork by Don Lawrence
Written by Martin Lodewijk, artwork by Don Lawrence
Artwork taken over by Romano Molenaar
Writing taken over by Jorg de Vos
Writing by Dick Matena
Writing taken over by Rob van Bavel
Written by Martin Lodewijk, artwork by Dick Matena.
Written by Willem Ritstier, artwork by Minck Oosterveer
The Deluxe volumes are hardback 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.
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