Sketches of Young Jaka

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 13th notebook had a post-it on it saying it was for Cerebus #112 / 113, but as we’ve seen in the last post with pages from it, Layouts for Page 9 of Cerebus #114, it also covered bits of Jaka’s Story. The notebook had 80 pages scanned, and a couple of them had some sketches for Jaka’s Story.

Like page #33, which has a couple pencils sketches: one of Jaka at age five and another at age 10. Missy even shows up:

Notebook #13, page 33

I wonder what the quote down the bottom right corner of the page was in reference to, possibly a line from Jaka?  “I want to see you starring at me.”

The next page which jump out at me for Jaka sketches was page 45:

Notebook #13, page 45

Close to page 16 of Jaka’s Story, aka page 6 of Cerebus #114:

Jaka’s Story, page 16

The blue pencil and ink drawing in the notebook is pretty similar to the one on the finished page. Just a few minor differences – Missy / Nurse’s head turned and how Missy / Nurse’s right arm is no longer holding Jaka’s head up are the ones which jump out at me.

There is also some text in the top right corner:

Missy had black hair. Missy wanted blond hair (like Jaka’s) but Missy had black hair. Many of their conversations were about this exact topic.

It sounds like something from Jaka’s Story, but it isn’t on page 16.