Suffering You'll Have No Trouble With

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.

In last week’s entry, She's Got the Devil in Her Heart, we looked at two pages from Dave Sim’s twelfth Cerebus notebook, pages 128 and 130. They showed some stuff for Cerebus #110. Let’s continue with that and look at pages 131 and 132:

Notebook #12, page 131

Notebook #12, page 132

On page 131 it looks like Dave wrote a long stretch of storyline down and continued it onto page 132. Then it would appear that he went back and did some mark-ups, though I’m thinking some of those happens as he was writing them. The blue pencil about halfway down the page – directly across from where the text ‘111 JUN’ is – says ‘Here next being here’ probably happened at a different time.

This text is what the Judge is telling Cerebus while they “walk” on the moon. And the end of this monologue on page 132 we get some extra bits of info that don’t make the finished page. The Judge says “The Michelle you were first involved with has died in childbirth.” He then goes on to spoil Jaka’s Story but with a character who is dead: “You end up living with Jaka and her husband in the most uncomfortable of situations as dictated by Weisshaupt.” Well, unless Weisshaupt planned that would happen to Cerebus. . .

Then the Judge speaks one of the most famous lines in Cerebus: “You eventually die un-loved and un-mourned.” Wait. That isn’t right. . .