Going Home page 330

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've looked at Dave's notebook #26 before numerous times. The notebook started out as a 300 page notebook broken up into three sections, and only 150 pages were scanned: section 1 had 63 pages scanned, section 2 had 65 pages scanned, and section 3 had 22 pages scanned. There were only 11 pages missing, and the rest were blank.

I had made a note that I took two scans of page 45. My note: "p.045: Has an 'a' and a 'b' version: There are two photocopied pictures on this page one of which overlaps another. So the 'a' scan is with the 2nd picture, of a page of script, hidden. The 'b' picture has the script photocopy visible. The top one is only held on by a piece of masking tape, the other photocopies are glued on to the page."

Here is page 45 as is, how it looks when you flip the page to see it:

Notebook 26, page 45, with the sketch on top

The photocopied sketch is on top of a photocopy of a typed script. I looked through the rest of the notebook to see if the sketch was there, but it wasn't. You can see a bit of of the script underneath the sketch, and it says issue 248 (NOV 99) page four, page 330. The sketch is of that page that the script underneath it is for. In fact, the hidden bit of script is for page 3 in its entirety.

Notebook 26, page 45, with the sketch moved

Now you can see the script for page 5 of issue #248. Here is the finished page:

Going Home, page 330

The script on the bottom of the page is for page 331 of Going Home. The notes Dave wrote to himself that aren't part of the comic are crossed out. Like he didn't have time to turn to a notebook and write down his thoughts for later, he just kept typing away and put them down as he had them.