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’re continuing our look at Dave Sim’s 21st notebook used during the creation of Cerebus #164 to 187. We’ll be looking at this notebook, which there were 260 out of 300 pages scanned, until we’ve seen every single page of it. Well, the pages scanned. If you want to see all of the notebook #21 posts to date, just use the Notebook 21 tag.
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Whelp, back to walls of text. We’ve reached the section of notebook #21 which is material for the phonebook, Reads. Last week we saw two pages which were Dave sketching out Cerebus asking to see Cirin’s armpit. Today we are on material that I think was meant for page 2 of Cerebus #180, aka Reads page 108. That is the final page of text from Victor Reid before we switch to Viktor Davis in Cerebus #181.
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| Notebook 21, page 165 |
At the top of the page is a small bit on Viktor Davis, it says: “Doing something Viktor Davis thinks is good. . .Not doing something because they understand it. . .Doing something you want to do.” Note that it was Victor originally, but the C was turned into a K.
Then the text about Victor in his large house thanks to his Ascension series, a royalty check for a good sum of money that he just tosses in a pile with the others, and talking with his wife Sarah. With whom he doesn’t talk to in the finished issue. In Cerebus #180 his wife just asks for him, tells him he hasn’t finished feeding the baby, and then yells at home as he walks away. He goes upstairs and read a bit of the literary magazine, Reads Informer, that he had already read three times before. Then he pours himself a glass of cognac.
The conversation that occurs in the notebook page is much different. More amicable between him and his wife. It almost reads like the lead up to page 108 of Reads:
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| Notebook 21, page 165 |
As we get to hear him reading the paragraph and the two off them discussing it. And ends with Victor doing “what was important in life; spooning strained spinach into the fruit of his loins.”
Then after another quick blurb, we see some text for Viktor Davis. It appears to be an alternate take for the opening to Viktor’s text on page 18 of Cerebus #181, aka Reads page 144. But the main part that is left out is “was now writing these words in room 1185 of the Hyatt Regency hotel on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu.” Which is a real hotel in our world and you could stay at if you’d like. If that is where Dave was back when he was writing this, I could not say as I’m too tired to look it up.
