Playing Chess

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.

Dave Sim's twentieth Cerebus notebook covers the start of Mothers & Daughters, issues #153 t o 164. There is no notebook for issues #150 to 152, just a notebook labeled "Mothers & Daughters and '92 tour', which is more tour than M&D.

On page 7 of notebook #20 is an outline for Mothers & Daughters showing the issue breakdown per book.

Notebook #20, page 7

Pretty freaking close. The only difference is that the only epilogue is issue #200, note 199.
We also see some sketches of Cerebus "playing chess" with what appears to be another aardvark, I'm guessing Po.