The Countess' House

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.

Dave Sim’s sixth notebook covers Cerebus #52 through 59 and had 158 pages scanned. The last time we saw it was in Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. Of course, there is stuff about the Countess Michelle in it. Including the layout of her place:

Notebook #6, page 36

Up at the top of the page is a layout of page 34 of Church & State I, aka Cerebus #53 page 6, and the dialogue for it goes around the edge of it. The page layout is pretty dang close to the finished page, but the dialogue is a bit different.

Cerebus #53, page 6

And yes, Cerebus should put this quote in his book: “Most wealthy people are wealthy people first and whatever else they are second.”