Richard George Shows Up

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 haven’t seen any pages from Dave’s 28^th notebook since August of 2017 in Battling With Potato Chips. Partially due to the fact that the notebook covers Cerebus #224 through 230 and only had 58 pages scanned, most of which is walls of text.

One page that has some sketches is page 11 which has some preliminary drawings of Richard George, who showed up in Cerebus #213 and 231. So, this must be Richard George from #231. Yes, yes, I know I said the notebook covers Cerebus #224 through 230. The issue numbers came from Dave himself, and are only meant to be a rough estimate. I’ve seen overlap like this in other notebooks, and think it is due to Dave jotting ideas down as he got them.

Notebook #28, page 11

The top sketch doesn’t look like Richard from Cerebus #231, but the bottom sketch does look like him. The dialogue? It looks like it belongs to Richard when he is hanging with the other guys playing diamondback and drinking.

I’ve ta’en t’drink like a duck to marmalade.

I reckon your yravrage waterfowl would find a nice breakfast jam like marmalade just this side of irrestistible.

iRResestable.

Don’t you?

Givenaff a chance I mean.

The dialogue is then repeated down the bottom of the page, but just tweaked a bit:

I’ve taken t’drink like a duck t’ marmalade.

I think a duck would take ‘t a nice breakfast jam spread like marmalade.

Given aff a chance anyway. I mean.

However, it doesn’t show  up in the issue.