That seems a bit arbitrary, given that the strips were created in the UK and that both the indicia and the cover clearly state that Marvel UK published them, regardless of where they were distributed.

Never heard of him previous to this! Thanks.
Could you please post some relevant images of his art, and recommandations on good arcs?

You've never encountered Don Lawrence? He was a master of his craft. This guy was one of his (Karl the Viking was originally serialized in Lion in the 1960s, though his adventures were later reprinted, relettered as first Erik the Viking and then Rolf the Viking. Several collected editions have been published, under all three names).



This is from The Pirates of Pandarve, part of the Storm series mentioned earlier; again, numerous collections exist, in several languages, and part of the epic SF saga was even reprinted by Marvel UK in the short lived magazine Strip!



While this is Don's silent heroine Carrie, star of a long running erotic humour strip from the men's magazine Mayfair, dealing with a flasher in her own inimitable style (the stripgirl's adventures have also been collected several times and under various names, including Sophie in France, Cathy in Holland and Virginia in Germany).

(The Rise and Fall of) the Trigan Empire is also worth a look.

Link

I'd expect that most non-British people have heard first of Miracleman as the title that had both Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman on it and that name recognition would be a big draw.

I think Lawrence's best work is on Storm (which is also the title he worked for 20 years on, so it has the most investment by him). Trigan Empire is good artwise, but the stories are short and tend to be formulaic.

So on Storm (I should actually post this in the European Comics thread, but the question was asked here):

Storm is Lawrence's second attempt at a fantasy/sci-fi comic. The first attempt was Commander Greg- Prisoner of Time, a one-shot written by Vince Wernham with input by Martin Lodewijk, that is usually included as issue zero in Storm collections. It hits many of the same storybeats, the first issue of Storm would hit, but publisher Oberon didn't like it in the end. Lodewijk and Lawrence tried again later with Storm, which did become a success (with Philip Dunn providing the scenario for the first issue).

Issue 1: The Deep World (1978, Lawrence, Lodewijk and Dunn):
The series start with astronaut Storm, who in the early 21st century explores the Red Spot on Jupiter and his ship is captured in a storm (no pun intended) there. When he manages to escape the Red Spot, he notices that the space station is gone. He programs his ship to return to Earth and enters into hypothermic sleep as the trip will take months. Arriving on Earth at Cape Kennedy, the ship notifies him that there is no breathable air outside, so he leaves the ship in a spacesuit and notices that he is high up in the mountains and where used to the Atlantic Ocean is now a world. The world has fallen into barbarism, with only small groups keeping access to the old technology. Storm is captured and meets the redhaired woman Redhair (using a literal translation of the dutch name here, she probably has a different name in English), who is part of a more civilized society. Together they escape and Storm learns that centuries has passed during his time in the Red Spot and a bit of what happened during that time, while trying to avoid capture by the barbarians who hope to use his advanced knowledge as a weapon, while he's trying to find his way home.

The Chronicles of the Deep World
The first issue is followed by eight other issues, written by various writers (issue 2 has Lodewijk doing all the writing, issues 3-6 have Dick Matena writing, 7-8 have Kevin Gosnell and 9 has Lawrence himself trying his hand at writing.) Writing is not very good during this time, I like issue 2 (The Last Fighter) and 7-8 (The Legend of Yggdrasil/The City of the Doomed) is a lot of fun. 4-6 are one larger story, dealing with the secret invasion of Earth by the aliens Azurians (think Kree) that have been controlling humanity's slide into barbarism. 7-8 are connected, but can be read seperately. Anyways in 8, Storm discovered that a disaster struck shortly after he left Earth, so even if he went back to his time, he'd probably die shortly afterwards. (these issues would later get the subtitle the Chronicles of the Deep World, to seperate them from the later issues)

The Chronicles of Pandarve
While popular for the artwork, Lawrence was not happy with the succes of the series so far (especially with his own writing), so he and Lodewijk got together to give the series a fresh start and with issue 10 (1983), Storm and Redhair are transported from Earth to the solar system of Pandarve, a huge red living planet. This starts the Chronicles of Pandarve. As he has travelled through time, Storm's body has been filled with an energy that makes him the Anomaly, something which does not belong in this universe and Pandarve's ruler, the Theocrat Marduk, wants to tap into the universe to access the Omniverse. The stories are more fantastical, especially Pandarve is filled with all kinds of different creatures and has different laws of nature and the living planet herself has godlike powers, even when she keeps herself distracted by trying to solve mathematical problems so Lawrence can have a lot of fun with designing this strange world and its inhabitents, while the stories themselves are more focused and far better written. Storm and Redhair also get a new companion, the red-skinned strong man Nomad. Issues 10-22 all take place on Pandarve and are written by Lodewijk and drawn by Lawrence himself (though 22 (The Armageddon Traveller, 2001) has had support from Lawrence's students as Lawrence himself was nearly blind at this point).

In 2007 Jorge de Vos (writer) and Romano Molenaar (artist and probably the one name so far, some Americans might recognise?) were asked by publisher Don Lawrence Collection to continue the series and they have written 7 issues so far), continuing the Chronicles of Pandarve and bringing the main series to 29 issues total (not counting Commander Greg).

Spin-Offs:
The Chronicles of the Outer Rings
The publisher also asked writer Willem Ritstier and artist Minck Oosterveer (hey, another one American might know?) to do a second Storm series as drawing and painting the issue usually take a long time and they published a single issue in the sub-series. The issue was called The Exile of Thoem (2011), but Minck Oosterveer died in an accident in late 2011, so this series has not been continued.

The Chronicles of the Time-in-Between
Writer/artist Dick Matena returned in 1996 to Storm, this time as an artist as well, while Don Lawrence took the time to recover from an operation. Three issues, taking place between issues 6 and 7 of the classic Storm series, were published dealing with a planet of robots inspired by Stalin-era communism.

The Chronicles of Redhair
Started in 2014, it's spin-off series focusing on Redhair, drawn by Romano Molenaar and written by .... Roy Thomas. (Wait, what? Maybe I should also crosspost this in another thread currently near the top of this board?). Yes, that Roy Thomas, who clearly is going back to Red Sonja for this series. 2 issues so far, last one came out a month or 2 ago.

Lemuria
Not related to Storm storywise, but definitely inspired by it are the issues of Lemuria, also published by Don Lawrence collection. The creative team is Apri Kusbiantoro and Sytse Algera. It is more inspired by the Deep World parts of Storm, but the main characters are clearly inspired by the chronicles of Pandarve trio (with their strong man having blue skin instead of red.)

Recommendations? Issues 2, 7 and 8 of the Deep World are fun, issues 11-22 are fun, but also well written and show an evolution in Lawrence's skill as a storyteller (the older issues are beautifully painted, but suffer from Alex Ross syndrome: looks nice, but with little storytelling linking the images together, leaving it to the writer to string the story together with textboxes. Maybe it helped that Martin Lodewijk himself is also a comicbook artist so his scenarios might have been tailored for an artist like Lawrence? I haven't got a way to check either way).