Thursday 24 October 2019

6 of 30

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.

It has been a year since we last saw pages from Dave Sim's notebook #8. It covers Cerebus issues #70 through 79 and had 86 page scanned.

Three of those pages are Dave writing a letter to the people who have purchased a First Fifth portfolio series. It took me years to track down one of the black and white ones (#67 of 100). There was no letter with that one.

Notebook #8, page 9
Notebook #8, page 10
Notebook #8, page 11
When I found someone willing to part with their color portfolio, #6 of 30, I was luckily enough to get not only the original packaging (yes I kept it),  but some letters from Aardvark-Vanaheim.  I couldn't find one like what we see above. What the original owner did get was a letter from A-V's administrator, Karen McKiel.

Letter from AV
If anyone has something more like what Dave wrote above, please speak up in the comments!

3 comments:

Jeff Seiler said...

I use my rent money regularly for things besides the rent.

IIRC correctly, wasn't Karen (besides being Dave's girlfriend) Dave's proofreader?

Steve said...


All my years of tracking Cerebus on eBay and more recently Heritage and Comic Link, I've never seen a First Fifth portfolio listed.

And so it remains one of the few Cerebus items I'm hoping someday to track down.

Because then, you know, it can go in a box in the basement with all my other 'collectibles', where I can take pride in ownership for years to come.

*sigh*

Being a collector can be an affliction!

Steve

Jeff said...

TELL me about it!