Magic Really Exists

Cerebus #115 (October 1988)
Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard

DAVE SIM:
(from Note From The President, Cerebus #120, March 1989)

Magic really exists. I mean the horsey ride in Jaka's Story. Yeah! That's a for real playground (albeit with the background suburbs eliminated, as well as most of the rest of the playground equipment that's there). Can you believe it? I've been meaning to mention that since 114. 

...Yes. Magic the wonder horsey ride exists between Mill Street and Highland Road right here in Kitchener, just behind the lawn-bowling and tennis club. I decided to walk down there the day I finished Church & State, while Ger still had the last few pages to do. I was free! Free, I tell you! I had a whole gaping novel ahead of me. Most of the Rick/Jaka/Cerebus/Pud part I had already worked out, but I got to pick and choose from all of the incidents in Jaka's past I wanted to work with. I was sitting on the park bench (Oh, hey! Right. I forgot. The park bench exists, too) staring at the horse when I started getting all of these mental pictures of Jaka and what she would be fantasizing while she played on this horse. And. The best way to write a character ...is ...you've got to hear them. And. Like they're in your head. And. Suddenly there was Jaka. And. She way only so many years. And. That's Magic. Magic's my horse. And. When I'm playing on Magic I'm playing that it's Pageant. And. I get to go to Pageant. And. I sit right behind my uncle. And. He's Lord Julius. 

Well you know how a three year old tells a story. I think I sat there most of the afternoon listening to ages three and four. And. I still left most of it out. The original idea had been to do a Prologue that was all text about Jaka's earliest years. Try as I might to compress her childhood (mentally) into twenty pages of text and single illustrations (which had initially seemed like a lot of pages to fill) it just wasn't going to fit. I tried the first two pages. One tenth of the way through, she was out of bed and having a bath. It did not bode well for that. . . word that means intimidating but on a grander scale . . . climb to age twelve (Ooh! Ooh! Teacher! Pick me! Pick me! Yes? Daunting? Very good!)

Margaret Liss goes in search of Magic in Kitchener at the Cerebus Fan Girl Blog.