Notes for Cerebus #136

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.

Last week we saw a couple of pages from Dave Sim’s 18th notebook used in the creation of Cerebus in Sketches from Melmoth. The notebook covers Cerebus #136 though 141. So we do get one issue on the tail end of Jaka’s Story: Cerebus #136. And on page 20 there are a couple of sketches of what pages 1 and 2 of Cerebus #136 look like:

Notebook #18, page 20

While both pages have the drawing in the middle third of the page, the text is only one the outside of the page – so on the right on page one and one the left on page two. Perhaps Dave was trying to get a sense of how the pages would look with the text on either side.

One the next page it dives right into the discussion with Mrs Snatcher Thatcher (yes, that joke never gets old to me), Jaka, and Rick. 

Notebook #18, page 21

The text and the rough face sketches follow along with the finished page 3. There are even a few sketches of Rick at the bottom of the page.