When Is Jaka Coming Back?

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 Dave Sim's eighth notebook in last October's Fascination & Fruition. With 86 pages scanned the notebook covers Cerebus #70 to 79.

On page 35 I saw something that I thought was a Note To The President. That bit along the top of the page - especially the bit on Jaka's possible return.

So I took a look see. The NFTP for Cerebus #72 has some of it, but it isn't the text straight from Dave's notebook. It looks like a practice run for the NFTP, which surprises me as I thought those were written off the cuff.

Notebook #8, page 35

And here is the NFTP for Cerebus #72 (from the NFTP archive):

You know, it's not really true that there's nothing to say in this space. I mean this would be a great spot to clear up a lot of the confusing plots and sub-plots and sub-sub-plots.

I mean, I could tell you when Jaka is coming back, then, couldn't I? Wouldn't that make sitting down and filling all this empty space worth while? Well that depends.

There are people in the world who don't want to know what changes are going to take place. There are other people who soak up previews like a sponge soaks up water. Unfortunately, I'm one of the former rather than latter individuals. I watched STAR TREK II on television the other night up until the last half hour when Spock stands up and goes out to die. I had known that was what he was going to do so why extend the eyestrain?

What I can tell you is that this section of the Cerebus story-line now has a name.
"Church and State."

Like it? Well who cares. That's what it's called.

I've had a few comments in the last while that time isn't passing as quickly in the story-line as, say, in issue 27. This is largely a reaction on my part to the cramming I had to do in the "High Society" storyline. If the overall reaction to "High Society's" conclusion had been "Shit, Dave, that was a long way to go for nothing", I probably would have made a more concerted effort to provide a series of sixty and eighty page stories with a lot of "Three days later..." and "After a series of misadventures..." captions strewn throughout.

Quite the contrary, the reaction (particularly from those people who started reading the book in the last two years and have read "High Society" in one sitting) has been in favour of the extended story-line.

To pull the curtain aside ever-so-slightly, "Church and State" is largely concerned with Cerebus' personal identity crisis set in motion in issue 5 when he discovers the Pigts (and vice versa). Is he Cerebus, The Great Cerebus, Most Holy, a combination of all three? If a combination of all three, in what percentage does each dictate his thoughts and actions?

Now the only way to illustrate this effectively in my opinion (and as me Dad used to say "Who else's Opinion counts around here?") is to show you the little bastard bouncing off his mental walls in great detail over a couple of days and take an ungodly number of issues to do it.

Consider the implications of selecting one of those identities given his present circumstances. Pick an identity. Any identity.

Okay get your noses out from behind my curtain and start reading.

See you next issue.