Three Days at the Regency

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 just saw a page from Dave Sim's fourth Cerebus notebook this past May in A Well Equipped Bar. Covering issues #41 through 44, it had 99 out of 108 pages scanned. Occasionally when I'm looking through a notebook, I'll see a page with a preliminary sketch of a cover. I'll check the Cerebus Cover Art Treasury to see if the page is in there. Sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren't.
I found one that isn't in the book, page 79.

Notebook #4, page 79

It has a preliminary sketch for the cover to Cerebus #43, but with only Cerebus and Astoria, not the rest of the gang.

Cerebus #43 cover

The notebook page also has sketches of Cerebus chewing with food hanging out of his mouth, and him sitting at a table with someone whom I'm guessing is Lord Cedric and Lord Tamismet according to the dialogue on the page. Though I can't find where in High Society this was used, Dave also has a bunch of notes for the different animated Cerebus stories. Perhaps this was one of those that he didn't use.