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.
We just looked at Dave Sim’s 22nd notebook last week in The Other Beatle – James Winston. The notebook had 71 pages out of 80 scanned and covered Cerebus #186 through 201.
Sometimes in the notebooks I’ve seen Dave start some writing at the end of the notebook, on the last page, and then work his way forward with the writing. This notebook did have two pages of that. It starts on the last page, page 72. Yes, not page 71, page 72. It looks like I never scanned in page 70, as it must’ve been a blank. Nothing written or drawn on it, no bleed through. Nothing.
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| Notebook #22, page 72 |
A really rough outline of a speech? An essay? I don’t know. It looks like he starts with a big #1 at the top listed as ‘DISTRIBUTERS’, but then further down the page has another #1 listed as ‘DITCH YOUR LANDFILL’. Sounds like he is talking to comic book retailers.
The next page of notes are on page 71, and are only half of a page:
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| Notebook #22, page 71 |
The first line is “We are one nation which has its article of faith that the best comic books are the best creative expression being produced today.” This page appears to be the start of the speech / essay. The rest of the page:
As Todd McFarlane, J. O’Barr,
Neil Gaimanand others move into the pop culture world they should and must be considered emigrants.As Jeff Smith and James Owen leave the security and real world prestige of animation and commercial a rt shall and must be considered immigrants.
CEO Spawn, Inc
The guy who writes and draws Spawn.
When he ship issue 21 before issues 19, 20 giving some vague explanation that
And that is where it ends, a half finished sentence.
1 comment:
Hmm. Item 4 on p. 72 sounds like a comic shop that opened here in Minneapolis in, I think, the mid-90s - focused on what I call "the good stuff," very little spandex-and-testosterone material, and that was mostly in the back since the kids who wanted that stuff were going to find it wherever it was.
Sadly, the place is long gone now (it closed way before the Plague). As J. Lennon once sang, "The dream is over - what can I say." (It was called "Big Brain Comics.")
PS Any guesses as to who "J. O'Barr" is?
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