Eppo #41/1977
Eppo #41/1977 carries one of the earliest serialized installments of 'De Laatste Vechter' ('The Last Fighter'), the second story arc of Don Lawrence's Storm — a Dutch science-fiction/fantasy series that would become one of the most celebrated European comics of the twentieth century. The issue is part of the foundational run in which publisher Oberon and the weekly magazine Eppo introduced Dutch readers to Lawrence's fully painted, cinematic style in a homegrown original strip rather than a reprint, marking a turning point in the ambition of Dutch comics publishing. Storm's serialization in Eppo helped establish the magazine as a home for bold, visually sophisticated adventure strips and demonstrated that the Netherlands could produce export-quality comics that would eventually be translated into more than a dozen languages.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
After British artist Don Lawrence departed The Trigan Empire in 1976, Eppo editors Martin Lodewijk and Frits van der Heide approached him to create an original series for publisher Oberon. An initial prototype scripted by Vince Wernham — featuring a character called 'Commander Grek' — was rejected after 31 pages because it had strayed too far from the intended concept; it would not see publication until 1984. British writer Philip 'Saul' Dunn then scripted the first proper Storm story, 'De Diepe Wereld' ('The Deep World'), which ran in Eppo from issue #11/1977, with Martin Lodewijk taking over scripting duties for the second arc, 'De Laatste Vechter' ('The Last Fighter'), whose serialization begins in the issue #41/1977 through into 1978.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Eppo #41/1977 (Oberon) contains an early chapter of 'De Laatste Vechter' ('The Last Fighter'), the second story arc of the Storm series, scripted by Martin Lodewijk with art by Don Lawrence.
- The 'Storm' featured here is the Dutch science-fiction/fantasy character: a 21st-century astronaut displaced tens of thousands of years into a post-apocalyptic future Earth — wholly unrelated to the Marvel X-Men character of the same name.
- The Storm serialization in Eppo began earlier in 1977 with 'De Diepe Wereld' (issues #11–33/1977), scripted by Philip 'Saul' Dunn; 'De Laatste Vechter' picks up the story from issue #41/1977.
- Don Lawrence drew Storm weekly for Eppo, typically delivering two pages per episode to fit the magazine's format, with the monochrome periodical pages later reproduced in full color for album collections.
- Publisher Oberon collected the serialized strips into hardcover albums; the first album, De Diepe Wereld, appeared in 1978, and De Laatste Vechter followed in 1979.
- The first English-language edition of The Deep World was published in 1982 by British European Associated Publishers, five years after the Eppo serialization.
- Storm eventually ran in Eppo through 1995, with Don Lawrence illustrating 22 main story albums, and the series was translated into more than a dozen languages including German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Indonesian.
- Eppo itself was a Dutch weekly anthology launched in 1975 by the merger of the magazines Pep and Sjors, published by Oberon; Storm was one of its flagship strips and a primary reason for the magazine's reputation for high-quality European adventure comics.