A Real Mommy Type

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.

We last saw the 2nd to last notebook Dave used in the production of Cerebus in Cerebus of 2018 in Running Upstairs in the Dark. The notebook had 36 pages scanned and was labeled Spore & Konigsberg by Dave.

On page 25 and 26 of the notebook is some dialogue about what happened to Konigsberg. Which in the Latter Days phonebook, starts on page 421.

Notebook 35, page #25

Notebook 35, page #25

The dialogue is pretty close to the finished dialogue in the comic. Though on page 25 when talking about Konigsberg's girlfriend, Dave had written "Oh, a real baby factory. You know the type she must've ha-" and then crossed it to be replaced with "Oh, a real mommy type. Just what he was looking for." However, in the book, both of those were replaced by "She was a lot like Louis Lasso Louis-Lasso...only with normal-sized teeth...and Annie Hall's hairdo. A really "mummy" type - just what Konigsberg". Yes, it cuts out there.