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 most recently looked at Dave Sim's notebook #18 in Campaign '93 Notes just this past July. Notebook #18 covers Cerebus #164 through 187 and had 260 pages scanned.
As you can imagine, most of the back of this notebook is just pages and pages of raw text for Reads. Then I came upon a couple pages of sketches. Not for Cerebus, just random sketches. On page 256 a beautiful sketch of a young woman and some butterflies:
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| Notebook 18, page 256 |
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| Notebook 18, page 257 |
9 comments:
The sketch w/ the butterflies is a rough for the jam Dave did with Chester Brown (reproduced in the Cerebus World Tour 1995 book).
Not so sure about Lobo helping to propel Alice Cooper into comic books. Marvel first published an Alice Cooper comic in 1979 (a one-off issue of Marvel Premiere), while Lobo didn't make his debut till 1983. Of course, it still may have been Lobo's popularity which prompted publishers to give Alice his later comic book appearances.
Hmn, "Last Temptation" the album and comic (By Gaiman & Michael Zulli) came out in 1994. Either of them could have told Dave about the upcoming project in '93 I suppose. Maybe that was an editor's concept, that Lobo's popularity signaled the perfect time for an Alice Cooper project. Regardless, the final product with it's Dave McKean covers was anything but Lobo-Lite.
-Jp
Pretty sure that's Alice Cooperroach...
Anonymous - Neil and I were still on "speaking terms" in '93 while Michael had pretty much disappeared out of my life from the time he and Stephen took THE PUMA BLUES to Tundra.
I do remember talking to Neil on the phone about Alice Cooper and the LAST TEMPTATION project. I was envious in the sense that I always wanted to be the person who adapted the "Stephen" side of the WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMARE album into comics form from the time I bought it in 1974 (when it looked as if I was going to be a flat-out "Horror Guy" in the field -- my only professional successes being the one story for Skywald and the one story for Warren).
It would depend, I think, on what Alice Cooper's relationship with his intellectual property lawyers was at the time. Lawyers tend in the "You have to either a) sue DC for unauthorized use of the Alice Cooper eye make-up look or b) license your own ALICE COOPER comic book or you're going to lose your rights to the eye make-up Alice Cooper look." i.e. their solution is always something that will result in more billable hours for them. Alice Cooper might have said something along those lines to Neil and Neil might have said something along those lines to me.
BUT! If you had asked me half an hour ago "WHAT did Neil tell you on the phone about Alice Cooper", all I would have remembered was "He loves golf".
David Kilroy - yes, it is: the unnamed character based on Dark Horse editor and CEREBUS proofreader, Diana Schutz.
Hey! As the *current* Cerebus proofreader/copyeditor, how come *I* don't get a drawing of me nearly naked, Dave?
Oh. Right.
Guess I'll just have to post a photo...
I knew I should have posted that I thought that was Diana Schutz! Grr! Now I just look like I'm trying to look smart. D'oh!
And sweet lord no, Jeff. Just...no!
And from what I understand, Alice Cooper does love golf. Such a fun little tidbit that Dave picked up!
Didn't Alice Cooper title his memoir Golf Monster? And Marvel Premiere no. 50 (October 1979) adapted Alice's From the Inside concept album. The issue has a fluff-piece article claiming that Marvel and Alice had been trying to collaborate for years.
I recall an issue of Gene Day's Black Zeppelin that featured Dave's adaptation of "Steven" (I think) from Welcome to My Nightmare.
-- Damian
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