Only Demons Lie

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.

Another look of Dave Sim's notebook #22 - as requested by Jeff S - which we covered last week in Cerebus is Tired - Aye. Aye. This time we're look at page 40 of the notebook - it covers Cerebus #217 page 15 which is page 363 in the Guys phonebook. In it Cerebus convinces himself Dave is a demon.

On page 33 and 34 of the notebook Dave outlines some dialogue for this page. He then returns to it on page 40 of the notebook.

Notebook #22, page 40

The text matches the finished page pretty well, but the sketch is a bit different. Rather than Joanne laying on Cerebus' right, she is on his left:

Guys, page 363

Cerebus is a bit shocked at the news of Elrod and Red Sophia living together in Iest, and then goes to get a scotch as he is apparently as shocked as I was to hear Red Sophia and Elrod were living together.