The Judge Before He Was The Judge

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.

Dave Sim's notebook #9 has been shown here before. In Dave and the Direct Market back in December 2014, D'King and the Actress in July 2015, Walking on the Moon this past April and Extrusion Intrusion this past June. Notebook #9 covers issues #102 to 111 and while the cover says 200 pages, I only scanned 133 and there were 8 blank pages.

So let's look at the cover:

Notebook 9, front cover

This notebook is well used - just look at the right hand side where it is worn from being handled so much. Dave wrote on the outside of it, something he rarely did: "The more things stay the more they change the sane".

On page 32 we see a listing for issues #105 through #11 and some possible issue titles.

Notebook 9, page 32

The sketch at the bottom? The first sketch - in the notebooks at least - of the character that would become the judge. We see more sketches of him on the next page.

Notebook 9, page 33

It looks like Dave also answered the question of who watches the Watchmen.