Thursday 20 September 2018

Oscar's Cigarettes

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 Sim's fifteen Cerebus notebook was in April of 2017's Rick in a Can. Cerebus #118 to 122 are covered in the notebook's 98 scanned pages.

Looking through the pages, one jumped out at me.

Notebook #15, page 52
All that text at the top of the page - It is the Jaka panels that run along the top of pages 12 through 16 of Cerebus #120. On the bottom of those pages is Rick and Oscar talking. The actions don't all match up to the finished panels, but they are pretty dang close. Right down to the 'click clack' as Jaka opens the door from their bedroom to the main room.

Then where the circled 17 is with the 'click clack' is when Rick opens the main door out, and then the rest of the dialogue is between Jaka and Rick. I think the sketch of Jaka is of her rubbing her head after Rick hit her  with the door:

Cerebus #120, page 17 (aka Jaka's Story page 149)
To the left are what appears to be sketches of rain.

2 comments:

Jeff said...

Yeah, I think it was Dave working out his rain drawings.

That panel of Jaka is Dave doing a spot-on image of a woman who is very relieved at having realized that her husband (clueless as he is) is not going to be swept away by a horny old gay guy. Yeah, Rick bumped her head, cluelessly, but she is breathing a sigh of relief.

But, as I told a female artist whose painting I recently bought because it reminded me of Ger's cover art for #114 (I gave her a copy), "it's a great story, but it doesn't end well for her."

She said that her husband is really into comics, so I said they both might enjoy issue #1 of "Jaka's Story".

We'll see.

Margaret said...

Oh see Jeff, you can't do that. Would you share a picture of her painting with us? Possibly on the FB group if you can't post it here?