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 13th Cerebus notebook covers "issues 112/113 & Jaka's Story Overall Map" according to my notes. The notebook itself had 100 pages to begin with, but only 80 pages had content to scan and 6 blank pages. The last time we looked at it was in June of 2018 in Not That Rick Nash.
And here is a scene that wasn't used. Jaka walking back from Pud's Tavern to the apartment and spotting Cerebus. In Jaka's Story they meet up in Pud's Tavern.
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| Notebook 13, page 26 |
5 comments:
Wow, is this ever tantalizing. I'll write more later when I've got some spare time. VERY thought provoking; thanks, Margaret.
Ant'ny, you gots some info on whe ☆☆☆☆ THE SAILOR ☆☆☆☆ was/is?
"who", not "whe".
Sheesh.
Man, I miss my old Blackberry and wish that I had smaller fingers.
(That's what *she* said!)
OK, some random thoughts.
1. Jaka's hair is considerably shorter in the sketch than it ended up being in "Jaka's Story." It's about the same length as when she visited Pope Cerebus. Did Dave change his mind on the length of time between C&S and JS at some point? As has been noted, passage of time was always hard to gauge in Cerebus.
2. Was "The Sailor" replaced with "The Poet?" Is it even conceivable that Dave ever plotted JS without Oscar? Seems unlikely, bit...
3. "GUARDIAN?" What th'...Who was this, what was his/her/its place in the storyline as originally outlined in Dave's mind, and where did he/she/it go?
4. The sketch at the bottom looks a little like Pud, but not nearly as fat. Is that an early, non-fat version of Pud, or is it someone who ended up on the cutting room floor, so to speak?
5. Who's the pissed-off looking young lady in the upper left? She never made it into the storyline either, at least not in that form, and not in "Jaka's Story."
And that's just off the top of my head. If there's more from the preliminary planning of JS, Margaret, I hereby request it! Thanks!
"Seems unlikely, but..."
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