Nearly Finished Page from Cerebus #240

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.

Another look at some nearly finished pages from Going Home via Dave Sim’s 29th notebook. We looked at page 8 of the notebook in last week’s Making a Stew. The notebook covers Cerebus #240 to 250 and had 150 pages scanned in.

Page 9 of the notebook is one of those pages that has a nearly completed page of art on it, minus Gerhard’s background. 

Notebook 29, page 9

And yes, that is F. Stop on the next page. There is even some white out on this page. And if you zoom in, you can see the pencils that Dave didn’t ink over. While it is close to the finished page, there are quite a few differences:

Cerebus #240, page 9 (aka Going Home page 175)

One of the main one that stands out to me is Dave’s use of the sound effect ‘Piz’ to show Cerebus getting back in bed. The opposite of the ‘Zip’ showing him leaping out of bed. Oh boy, all the looks on Cerebus’ and Jaka’s faces on this page. From the Palnu face to the crazy oh shit Cerebus eyes to Cerebus’ ‘remember jobs’ face. . .