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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Yes, we’re still looking at pages from Albatross One, Dave Sim’s first notebook used in the creation of Cerebus. If you’ve missed this column the past couple of weeks. . .uhhh, let me check my notes. . .since January of 2024, then you’re in for a treat. I’ve been going page by page showing every page from the cover to where we’re at today: page 142. There were 194 pages scanned from Albatross One, and it covers material for Cerebus #20 through #28, plus a few side projects. Last week we saw materials for Cerebus #26 and #27.
So page 142. Why does it look different then the other pages? Because I scanned it from the Cerebus Biweekly issue it came from (High Society Biweekly reprint for Cerebus #26). Why was that? I can’t remember. I had it in the archives as page 141b. But looking at it, we can see it on the back side of what I had as page 142. I doubled check that I wasn’t imagining things, and this “new” page 142 belonged where it belongs using my copy of Albatross One, and it does.
Looking at the digital copy of Cerebus #26 from the digital High Society, I know I scanned this page in, for the scan I made is right there. So at some point I must’ve. . .gotten stoned and ate it? Like I said, I can’t remember.
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| Notebook #1, page 142 |
Up at the top of page 142 you can see a listing of pages for Cerebus #26, but the area for pages #11 through 20 are taken up by some sketches.
What Dave had to say on the sketches (from that aforementioned biweekly issue): “the dreaded Corn Roach, about whom the less said the better and his alter ego Artemis Strong. Corn Roach eventually became the Moon Roach. Cerebus hailing a cab outside the Regency used at the top of page 13.” And from the digital edition of High Society: “First sketches of the Moon Roach (when he was originally “Corn King Roach” with a couple of ears of corn attached to his mask) and Artemis Strong. Sketch of Cerebus and the cab from later in the story.”
The items for pages #1 through 9 are rewritten, expanded upon, down at the bottom of the page. Dave had this to say about page 142 (from the digital edition of High Society): “Some obvious questions: ‘Why is he going to a more expensive place?’ for which there was no answer, so I just avoided it – which allowed me to plot up through page 9 (which would usually get compacted from there as you can see: the 9 pages have become 6 pages at the bottom of the page).”
The next page of the notebook as Dave says “stray thoughts and sketches that weren’t taking me anywhere – except that Cerebus had to go ballistic at some point.”
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| Notebook 1, page 143 |
Though we do get a hint of a future phonebook in the text to the far left – emphasis is all me: “Chancellor. Everyone knows the Prime Minsters personal life. . .war between church and state”.
The next page is the plot material for pages #7 through 9 for Cerebus #26.
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| Notebook 1, page 144 |
Well, that top line for page #7 kind of rolls over into material for pages 8 through 9: Cerebus is trying to get from the people coming up to him and giving him money just exactly what they want from him. As Dave said about this page: “The Skorz monologue, just the basic contents. Too dry and boring. That’s when I decided to use the ‘Why you not sell me rights for Norway?’ dialect I used to get in letters seeking to do foreign translations (an Aardvark-Vanaheim in-office joke).”
