Reach the Top of the Tower

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 10th notebook used in the production of Cerebus covers Cerebus #87 to 95 and it had 115 scanned out of the 200 pages stated on the notebook’s cover. We last saw some pages from it in March of 2020’s Nobody Feeling Brave Today? In that entry we saw pages of Roach climbing up the tower holding Bunky in his left hand and getting riled up against Epop. Those were pages 8 and 9 of the notebook. The fun continues on page 10:

Notebook 10, page 10

While there is a big 88 issue box number on the top of the page, the two page thumbnail just a bit over halfway down on the page covers Cerebus #87 pages 18 and 19, aka Church & State II pages 732 and 733:

Cerebus #87 pages 18 and 19

While the six long panel layout stayed the same, the content of the panels changed ever so slightly to include more Astoria. Some of the final dialogue is around the thumbnails on the notebook page. And going over to the far right of the page is a thumbnail for page 20 of Cerebus #87:

Cerebus #87 page 20

The final layout changed from 4 long panels to three panels, giving up two panels of seeing Astoria looking over the edge of the tower to a panel of Astoria reaching her hand down to a Roach who is almost within touch. Then the panel of Roach pushing Astoria out of the way is still there, just mirrored in the final page. We even get the Roach’s dialogue at the top of the notebook page with a larger sketch of the panel.