Boom. Big Boom. Big Bang.

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 #12 last appeared in AMoC back in March of 2016 (before the great renumbering when it was still #8) in Not The  Trial. Notebook #8 covers issues #96 through 102. It originally had 140 pages, but only 114 were scanned, there were 15 blanks pages and the rest were missing.

On pages 4 and 5 there appears at first glance to be a poem. But reading it, it sounds like a monologue about Tarim and Terim, about the void and the light. Something that would fit right in at the end of Church & State II when Cerebus is listening to the Judge.

Notebook #12, page 4

Notebook #12, page 5

But that isn't the Judge speaking. Unless it was the character that was to become the Judge.