Wednesday 26 July 2017

The Tavern at the Wall of T'si

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.

We've looked at Dave Sim's notebook #24 six times already, most recently with Notes for Dave's Chat with Neil in May of 2016. It covers Cerebus #192 through 211 and had 138 pages scanned in. All those times we've seen pages from it, we've never seen the front cover:

Notebook  #24, front cover

While it is another purple Hilroy - sans unicorn this time - it is smaller than most of the other notebooks. This one is 22.9 x 15.2 cm (9" x 6"). The other notebooks are 27.9 x 21.6 cm (11" x 8.5").

On page 46 Dave sketched out a layout for 'Guys No. 5'. Which as we know, isn't the cover for Guys #5, aka Cerebus #205.

Notebook #24, page 46
Dave had also marked it up as Cerebus #206, which turned out to be Guys No 6. It does look like it could be some interior pages, but  I couldn't find it.


6 comments:

Travis Pelkie said...

Well, I was going to say, it looks (sort of) like some of the pages where the Starchild guy/Marty Feldman is telling a joke (I think?), which I believe were the pages featured in Gerhard's Wizard Magazine "how to draw backgrounds" column. Going to say it because I thought I'd find the Wizard pages somewhere on here to confirm, but it appears that Tim hasn't posted them before. Egads!

I actually should have access to a scanner at various times in the next month, so I could scan the pages. The problem is whether or not I'll find that Wizard issue in that time....

Looks like this sketch is probably that portion of the book, but Dave decided against using that sort of layout. (I wonder if he briefly considered a gatefold cover. It was the '90s, kids!)

A Moment Of Cerebus said...

What? Gerhard? Wizard Magazine? Get scanning Travis!

Travis Pelkie said...

If I can find it. It's a matter of getting to the pile of Wizards and then finding the right one. And I can't remember even close to which issue it was. But I will look when I get a chance. I know I have it. Somewhere....

Eddie said...

It also looks like Dave used a variation of the sketch for the GUYS trade cover

Steve said...


eBay shows Cerebus in #'s 8, 17, and 21 - but I'd imaging cerebusfangirl's site would tell y'all the specific issue

Travis Pelkie said...

Are you talking Wizard, Steve? I know it's later than that. (Thanks, though!) 17 and 21 I know are an interview with Dave (the latter being a portion of the interview in 17 that got lost in a layout problem), and 8 I'm not sure about, that's earlier than any issues I have.

But the Gerhard feature is one of their "How to Draw" columns. I know Bart Sears did it regularly for the first 20-30 issues, somewhere in there, then I think Greg Capullo did a bunch, and then after that, they featured different creators do certain aspects of comics. Ger on backgrounds, they might have had Terry Moore on how to draw women, that sort of thing. So I'm thinking it's somewhere in the 60s or 70s for issue #.

I'll check Margaret's site, though, I didn't think about that.

And of course if anyone finds it before I do and gets scans to Tim, go ahead!