A Creator Named Dave

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 last looked at Dave's notebook #19 this past April. In "Uncomfortable Truth" we saw the preliminary layout sketches for when Dave was talking to Cirin and Cerebus. Notebook #19 covers bits of Reads, Minds and Guys. Today we'll be looking at two pages of dialogue that would've been in Minds.

But they weren't. This dialogue never made it to the finished pages. Probably a good thing as it is a more pessimistic end of Minds then the one that made the finished pages.

Notebook 19, page 57

"I'll put you back in Palnu if you want. Jaka will overwhelm and crush you."

That is one way of looking at what happened - "Go on. Beat it. Scram."

"I can't save myself from myself. You can't save yourself from yourself."

The dialogue continues on the next page:

Notebook 19, page 58

Rather than state "Can you make Jaka fall in love with Cerebus", Cerebus demanded that Dave make Jaka be in love with Cerebus. We saw where that led. It led to Joanne. It led to unhappiness. Instead of that, Cerebus asks Dave if he could do it, and he responds 'No. No more than my creator can make women fall in love with me."