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.
Last week in PetuniaCon Day One we say a couple of pages from Dave's second Cerebus notebook. One of the pages had a sketch for the cover to Cerebus #37, PetuniaCon day one. So when I started digitally flipping through the pages of the third notebook, which covers Cerebus #37 to 40, and saw writing for PetuniaCon day one, I slowed down a bit and read what it was.
On page three I saw some dialogue, just a wall of it. One thing caught my interest, a name: Suenteus Po. What? He doesn't appear in Cerebus #37. What we see is some dialogue between Cerebus and Po during a face to face meeting at PetuniaCon.
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| Notebook #3, page 3 |
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| Notebook #3, page 6 |
4 comments:
There were lots of Suentueus Pos; one of them shows up in the Prime Minister's office shortly after the election. In fact, I'm pretty sure the last image in "High Society" reveals him to be the author of the "History" we'd been reading starting around issue 40 or so.
And no, he wasn't "the" Suenteus Po.
So, in this exchange, it's revealed Mind Games Suenteus Po is merely an underling of the "real" Suenteus Po, who is just a guy, not an aardvark. Imagine if this had been published as is? There may not had been an aardvark Suenteus Po in the book, nor any more Mind Games.
Do you think Margret that there's anything big or small about Cerebus the story, that not anyone has picked up on it yet, but that Dave wants them too? The recent thing Dave said, about not anyone so far asking about it, got me thinking. Have you in the notebooks so far, came across anything that stuck out?
And of course, now that I've transcribed the last "Please Hold for Dave Sim" I see now that Dave doesn't think the Suenteus Po of the "Mind Games" issues was the same as the aardvark one. That's kind of disappointing, since it means the build-up to meeting him in "Minds" is lessened by it not being the same guy who's been mentally conversing with him since issue 20. Yes, there are some major contradictions in how Po is portrayed in issue 20, but I figured that was part of the whole "Illusionist" aspect of his character, and part of the Mind Game. Now I'm left to wonder, when DOES aardvark Po first appear, if he's not the narrator and if he's not the "Mind Games" guy in at least the first few of them?
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