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.
Maybe instead of rewriting this opener every week, I’ll be a bit more efficient with my use of time and have this standard opening . . .though Boss Man saying I'm giving the notebook away for free, I see it as a way of advertising all the good stuff in the notebook, and wouldn't it be easier to have a hard copy to flip through and read at your own leisure?
Have you got your copy of Albatross One? That is Dave Sim’s name for his first notebook used in the creation of Cerebus. If you want a copy of the notebook – and trust me, as someone who has held the actual Albatross One, it is a pretty close duplicate and looks great – you can check out this post right here. Well not this post. The one at this link. Go check it out, this post will still be here.
Please buy one so boss man stops yelling at me for "giving the store away for free". Perhaps if he sells one or two or all that he has left, he'll finally give me some PTO. Wait, why am I pushing this, boss man is on vacation. . .I should just take off. . .
And if you don’t want to buy one, you can wait as I release a couple of pages a week and check them out using the Notebook One tag. But trust me, the notebook is much much nicer then my silly little posts.
Okay, now that is done, on with this week’s Notebook One post.
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If this is your first time reading a notebooks post, we’ve been sequentially going through Dave Sim’s first notebook used in the production of Cerebus. We’ve finally reached material for Cerebus #26, the first issue in the High Society phonebook. If you’d didn’t read the text above, check it out – links to all of the posts for pages #1 – 144 (plus a few others) and get an actual replica notebook. This week we’re on to page 145:
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| Notebook #1, page 145 |
This page picks right up from where page 144 left off: notes for Cerebus #26 pages 9 & 10. The text at the top of the page says “The earth-pig mules this over as he sips delicately from his finger bowl.” Well, there is the cover idea for Cerebus #26. And the second panel on page 10.
The material for page 9 at the top of the page is the same as the previous page of the notebook, the preliminary dialogue between Cerebus and the different people coming up to him vying for his attention and if he can talk to Lord Julius about their requests.
Then at the bottom of the page, the material for page 10 is Cerebus, while he “likes the idea of making money. . .he’s going to get the terminal yawns if he doesn’t find anything more interesting to do.” The plotting goes forward laying it out: Cerebus leaves, finds a cab, tries to start a fight with the other guy waiting for a cab, only to tell the guy his name and that turns the fight into more fawning. And while that does happen, it doesn’t all happen on page 10.
The next page is a mix of different items. As Dave said about it in the digital High Society: “Getting bogged down in the calculating the relative value of Estarcion’s various currencies and having Cerebus expound upon it – which, of course, he wouldn’t do. Stray though on Holiday Theme Horror Movies like HALLOWEEN and FRIDAY THE 13TH – a horror version of ALICE IN WONDERLAND called “Happy UnBirthday” which you could go see any day of the year that your birthday wasn’t on. Working on Carron’s dialogue.”
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| Notebook #1, page 146 |
In case you don’t remember every single one issue character in Cerebus, Carron is the Carron of Carron, McKiel, and Benny who was waiting for the cab and about to fight Cerebus.
And then after having written down the plot points for pages #1 through 10 (and a bit more) the next page of the notebook does the same thing but in quick short statements for pages 1 through 18.
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| Notebook #1, page 147 |
We also get a really rough rough of the fight that Cerebus instigates when he throws the flour. Well, except in the plot outline the flour is crossed out and written above it is fertilizer.
Dave had this to say about the notebook page: “This is the sort of stuff I would write when I was partway into firming up the issue’s continuity. One and two-line distillations in the hopes that I could do the same with the pages I hadn’t written yet. The transitions aren’t there yet but I’ve got it figured out up to page 18 including a very rough sketch of the Ram’s Lord Tavern melee (I switched the bag of fertilizer for a bag of flour).”
