Get Him Out of the Hotel

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.

The last time we looked at Dave's notebook #14 was just in August in Refuge of the Shallow and a look at Dave's sketches of Oscar. It covers Cerebus #113 through #117, and on page 35 there is a lot of writing for Oscar's story about young Jaka. 

Notebook 14, page 35

Dave would write and rewrite the text from Jaka's Story, but it is the notes in black pen on the side of the page that caught my interest:

Close up of page 35 from notebook 14

It looks as if Dave was taking all the negative comments that he got from letter writers about the High Society and the Church and State storylines.