Wednesday, 23 August 2017

Front and Back

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 #17 has only been seen here on the pages of A Moment of Cerebus three times in the past, most recently in La Danseuse Marvellieux in May 2017. The notebook covers Cerebus #127 to 135 and had 72 pages scanned.

One of the things I've mentioned in the past is if what was drawn on a page bleed through to the other side, I would scan in the other side as well. I've found a case of that in notebook #17. On page 13 there is a full page sketch for the cover to Cerebus #128:

Notebook #17, page 13
And on the back of page 14, we see what bleed through to the other side:


Notebook #17, page 14
You should be able to zoom in on both images. On page 13 there are faint pencil marks around the lettering for the title block and for Oscar as well. And the finished cover:




2 comments:

Tony Dunlop said...

I remember being gobsmacked by that trail of light from Oscar's cigarette. I think it's one of the best effects Ger ever pulled off. It's also a nice illustration of Scott McCloud's discussion of how time works in comics, as explained in "Understanding Comics."

Travis Pelkie said...

That is a great effect.

I'm impressed, too, that Dave spent the time and effort to color in all the black with the ?marker? that he used for this sketch. Neat.