Fire Sneeze!

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.

For like three weeks I’ve subjected you to pages from Dave Sim’s seventh notebook used in the creation of Cerebus. Why? Because I’ve been on vacation for a bit now (don't tell the boss man), and as you read this, I’m out on the Oregon Trail, hopefully not dead of dysentery, and hopefully my wagon still has all it’s wheels as we go down the Doherty Slide. Plus, I think these are some pretty cool pages. 

The seventh notebook covers Cerebus #59 through 69, but we have seen a bit or two on Cerebus #70 as Dave works through Cerebus #69. With 160 pages scanned it is #4 on the list of notebooks ranked by number of pages scanned - Notebook #21 had 260 pages, #2 had 196 pages, and #1 had 194 pages scanned.

Last week we saw page #145, so yes, this week we’ll be looking at page 146. It continues Dave’s work on Cerebus #69. The list at the top of the page is a very quick summary of what happens on each of those pages. Page one with Weisshaupt’s threat of “I want an answer, aardvark!”. The summaries actually match up with the finished pages, with “Fuck W” being the way Dave describes the President’s men making a statement against Weisshaupt and then leaping off the roof of the hotel. Page #15’s “Zap!” matches up nicely with the page’s thumbnail we saw last week.

Notebook #7, page 146

The middle of the page gives us more rough layouts for page 15 of Cerebus #69. The ‘Zap!’ is Cerebus touching the BRGWST, and the crossed-out text is Boobah saying “Hey! I found some matches too!” He says too because he was looking in his pockets for food to give to the BRGWST to stop it from attacking. Sounds like Boobah knows all about being hangery. The other text in that panel sketch is Boobah’s “What’s this? The matches I thought I lost.” Close to what he said, but not quite: “BUH! What’s this? Matches!”

Below it we see the final four panels of the page, and they match up well with the final page: Boobah lighting  the match and all we see / hear is the SKTK sound effect, Boobah looking at the ladder, and Boobah saying “Hey I found”. The text in the final panel, ladder, is the same, but we don’t see Cerebus lying on the floor.

At the bottom third of the page is the dialogue for page #16 of Cerebus #69 along with a sketch of the final panel from that page. The dialogue matches up pretty well with the final page, including Cerebus’ dialogue showing his cold. Fire sneeze!

Cerebus #69, page 16