Talking With Your Creator

MARGARET LISS:

A few years ago I scanned all of Dave Sim's notebooks. He had filled 36 notebooks during the years he created the monthly Cerebus series, covering issues #20 to 300, plus the other side items -- like the Epic stories, posters and prints, convention speeches etc. A total of 3,281 notebook pages detailing his creative process. I never really got the time to study the notebooks when I had them. Just did a quick look, scanned them in and sent them back to Dave as soon as possible. So this regular column is a chance for me to look through those scans and highlight some of the more interesting pages.

In Minds, Cerebus talks with Dave. We also get to see some Zulli art. Well, Dave "doing" Zulli art. From page 142 / 143 of the Minds phonebook, issue 193 page 16 / 17:

In notebook #19, Dave Sim starts sketching Jaka and Lord Julius for that double page spread:

Notebook #19 page 37

You can also see some of the dialogue between Dave and Cerebus from that same issue. A quote from a police song "It's a big enough umbrella but it's always me that ends up getting wet', the baker and the bread analogy from page 127 of Minds, a crossed out name: Barry Lessman-Smith. It appears as if Dave returned many different times to that same page of snippets of dialogue.

On page 41 of the notebook he would return to the Jaka and Lord Julius sketches.

Notebook #19 page 41

It also appears as if he wrote done a bunch of dialogue - the starting dialogue that he says to Cerebus, beginning on page 127 again. Where Dave talks about being Cerebus' creator, but not a god. It starts off with some similar themes, but in the notebook, it is a different from the final page.