This. Is a Bar. RAG.

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 26th Cerebus notebook last appeared here in June 2017's Good RIDdance. It only had 58 pages scanned and covers a big chunk of Rick's Story, with parts of Cerebus #224 through #230 being in the notebook.

On page 13 of the notebook we see some dialogue which is between Cerebus and Joanne.

Notebook #26, page 13

Most of it is used with minor tweaks for pages 93 and 94 of Rick's Story, aka pages 7 and 8 of Cerebus #224.

Rick's  Story, pages 93 & 94 (click for bigger view)

On this notebook page Dave has used what appear to be icicles hanging from the dialogue, which he also does on the finished pages. Some of Joanne's dialogue to Rick has musical notes around it both on the notebook page and the finished page. We even see some sound effects like the 'tump' of the glass Cerebus puts down on the bar and the 'rip rip rip' of Joanne ripping off the bottom of her dress to use as a bandage.