Mary's Talking Lion Dream

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.

It has been over three years since we’ve seen pages from Dave Sim’s 31st notebook. The notebook covers Cerebus #256 through 265. Out of the 80 pages that were originally in the notebook, there were 67 pages scanned.

Some text on page 30 caught my eye as it wasn’t in Dave’s standard handwriting. So I read the page and it is Mary talking about her attempt to shoot a lion. 

Notebook #31, page 30

Up at the top of the page is Mary’s diary entry for lion hunting that matches up word for word with the text on page 507 of Form & Void, aka page 1 of Cerebus #257. The  text about her recalling her dream is a little different then the finished page. The different text that caught my eye is the lion’s dialogue. Dave used a similar style for the lion on the finished page.

The next page of the notebook features more of Mary’s dream where she talks with a lion.

Notebook #31, page 31

Part of the dialogue on this page had to be cut, from To Ham & Ham Not, page 726, Dave wrote:

“For space considerations (and very much to my regret) after “But not the abundance of food. . .” I had to cut:

He had to work at it but of course that kept him in excellent condition. “An agreeable thing about living here – very few people.” And after “Oh, I just picked it up”: He explained the pleasures of eating in the dark. . .”Like candlelight at your dinner tables.” . . .and how he sometimes leaps across that big open country to the east of his lair. “For exercise”.