Storm is a soft science fiction/fantasy comic book series originally drawn by Don Lawrence. The series is primarily available in Dutch, although all the books are translated into English and German, and some in French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and Indonesian. The books are published by Big Balloon, Uitgeverij Oberon, Egmont Ehapa Verlag, Norbert Hethke Verlag, Star Comics and Esperos Comics, Incal, and Glénat. English copies 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 had an early publication in the Dutch magazine Myx.
Overview
The actual series can be split in 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.
Characters
The main characters are Storm himself, Roodhaar/Redhair/Carrots/Ember, Nomad and Marduk, the Theocrat of Pandarve, although the last two only make their appearance in The Chronicles of Pandarve. Storm is an astronaut who accidentally got lost in time. Ember is a beautiful red-haired girl and Nomad is a hairless red skinned muscle man.
Commander Grek
The Deep World was originally conceived as a framework for stories revolving around the character Commander Grek. An episode was written in 1976 by Vince Wernham and drawn by Don Lawrence, which was not picked up by Dutch publisher Oberon. The story was later reworked by Philip Dunn, now with the astronaut Storm as the main character. Storm did get published by Oberon. When Storm appeared to be a success, the previously unreleased Commander Grek album was published as part of the Storm series, as "Episode 0". The album includes background information regarding the inception of Commander Grek and Storm.
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. 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.
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 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. At Pandarve, the normal physical laws are no longer valid; this gives 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 . Storm's time travel remains important, but Ember has also travelled through time. So she is 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.
Eriban - a paradise-like planet containing the academy for slayers.
Kyrte - the small home-planetoid of tariev-fisher Rann.
Marrow - a crystal-shaped planet, home of the Barsaman-games.
Red Tear - a satellite of Pandarve, a few kilometers above the ocean near the city Aromater.
Vertiga Bas - a small pirate planet.
Waterplanetoid - a fisher-world completely covered with water.
The last three albums form a trilogy wherein Storm & co and Marduk need to work together to save Pandarve from perdition. A strange, gigantic "spaceship" 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 and cluttered together instead of floating off. There are some references to well-known stories, movies, celebrity actors and some mathematical theorems.
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.
Continuation
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. Their first album The Navel of the Double 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.. 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.
Written by Willem Ritstier, artwork by Minck Oosterveer
The Expatriate of Thoem -
The Collection
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.
