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 fifteenth notebook covers Cerebus #118 through 122 and had 98 pages scanned. We last saw a couple pages from it in The Locked Door Opened from September of 2019.
On page 59 of the notebook there are two sketches that each take up half of the page.
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| Notebook #15, page 59 |
The sketch on the top of the page shows Oscar and Rick on the couch with some dialogue:
It smells like Jaka’s cinnamon buns.
It considered itself flattered.
There is also an issue box number for issue #122 in the upper left corner. However, the only page that looks similar to this page is in Cerebus #121. Page four:
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| Cerebus #121, page 4, aka Jaka’s Story page 156 |
The bottom section of the notebook page shows a sketch that would become the cover to Cerebus #121 – a few of Oscar’s fireplaces from his couch:
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| Cerebus #121 cover |
5 comments:
I think the top sketch has more of a "seduction" feel. I always thought of the finished page as "Oscar the Sophisticate & Rick the Simpleton." But, I was young and naïve.
"a VIEW of Oscar's fireplaces"
Doesn't this website have an editor?!?
Two fireplaces could be called, "a few".
And I never noticed Oscar touching Rick's hand until this moment.
#121 page 156 panels 3+4 is a fine example of Dave's mastery of flow on a page and dialogue. Using the panel border to "reset" the reader to move focus to Rick and read the upper dialogue box, then leverage recall of Oscar for the lower, while using both panels to set a scene.
Even the subtle motion of movement with Oscar's arm (the panel border creating the few seconds to move from panel 3 to 4) is well designed/presented.
He does this a lot throughout Cerebus to excellent effect.
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