The Unknown Given

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.

Notebook #8 covers Cerebus issues #96 through 102 and it had 114 pages of Dave Sim notes scanned in. We looked at it pretty recently this past March in Not The Trial.

The notebook has some thumbnails of full pages. Some are pretty intricate. For example, take the four pages shown on page 35. I've split the page in half and only decreased the size of the full resolution scan by half - so you can click on the images and zoom in. You'll be able to see the pencils under the inked characters.

Notebook #8, page 35, top half

The above is the preliminary sketches for pages 928 and 929 of Church & State II, or page 12 and 13 of Cerebus #97.

Cerebus #97, pages 12 and 13

The dialogue is the same, and for the most part, so are the images and layout.

Notebook #8, page 35, bottom half

On the bottom half of the page we see a bit of difference with the preliminary sketches and the finish page. Mostly with page #14.

Cerebus #97, pages 14 and 15