Refuge of the Shallow

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 haven't seen much of Dave Sim's notebook #14, which covers Cerebus #113 through 117. We've only seen it four other times, most recently this past April in Thunder the Wonder Pony.

While Oscar doesn't show up until Cerebus #120, Dave drew some sketches of him in this notebook.

Notebook #14, page 55

A few sketches of a long haired Oscar along with a couple different haircuts.

Notebook #14, page 56

On the next page we get a more completed sketch of Oscar, along with some quotes. The quote " The public is wonderfully tolerant, it forgives everything except of course genius" is an Oscar Wilde quote from his book The Artist as Critic.

The name Lillie Langtree I think is a reference to Lillie Langtry, a close friend of Oscar Wilde. Looks like Dave was doing some research for the Oscar character that would show up in a couple issues.