The past month and a half we’ve seen eight pages from Dave Sim’s seventh notebook used in the creation of Cerebus. Those pages, #143 – 150, mostly covered Cerebus #69, and in last week’s article I made a note that the last few pages of the notebook contained Dave’s notes on the never to be Cerebus / X-Men cross-over.
Those pages have been previously seen on AMoC, back in May of 2015 in From The Archive: Notes For The Cerebus/X-Men Crossover. But between me scanning those pages in nearly 10 years before that post, and that post, the pages were removed from the notebook (gasp!). The pictures are also at an angle. The pages are also on Jeff’s Cerebus site, at his Cerebus VS The X-Men page. While you can read the material on the page, it isn’t the same as seeing this:
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| Notebook #7, page 160 |
This page is the final page that was in the notebook. There are times when Dave would start at the back of the notebook and work his way backwards, starting with the last page. Why would he start with ‘promotion’, perhaps he was just looking at high level ideas of the comic, and how best for it to be successful before coming up with story. Coming up with the logistics of who would work on it.
In Cerebus the Newsletter #8, published in 1983 by Aardvark-Vanaheim, there is a small article on the crossover:
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| Article in Cerebus the Newsletter #8 |
The article says that Dave and Chris Claremont came up with the idea of the cross over at the closing ceremonies of Maplecon 5 in Ottawa. Maplecon 5 happened July 15th through July 17th in 1983. Dave said in a post to the Bendis Board in February of 2008:
I suggested it to Chris at Maplecon in Ottawa in front of a bunch of people. As anyone in the business can tell you, there are a lot of projects that sound really good over a few drinks after the Saturday of a Con that are in the "WHAT was I THINKING?" category when you get home and remember how much of your own work you have to do.
Dave also had this to say about the potential crossover:
All that exists of the Cerebus/X-men crossover is notes in one of my notebooks at the time. Chris Claremont and I both got invited to a store signing in Prince George, British Columbia so we decided we would plot the whole book on the way out on the plane. This really involved me taking dictation from Chris to make sure all of his stuff was covered -- I could figure out where the Cerebus stuff would fit in on my own and bounce it off him later. It's really in such shorthand note from that it's virtually incoherent.
It became obvious talking to Jim Shooter that this was a project Marvel was doing to keep Chris happy. Whatever Chris wants Chris gets, but they -- as a corporation -- really didn't think the book would sell worth s--t. I could see their corporate point, but it certainly deflated any real interest I had in doing the book. It had "file in a drawer marked 'H-freeze over'" written all over it.
The shorthand notes of rough plots appear on what I think is pages 155 and 156 of notebook #7:
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| Notebook #7, page 155 |
It looks like the plot starts off on page 155 with page numbers
1, 2, 3 Sending him there
4 The Waldorf Astoria secret service walkie talkie conversation. . .newsman party in the Grand Ballroom
5 Upstairs, Hellfire Honcho fills in the X-Men on his plan
6 The President arrives
7 Downstairs on the house phone – he’s coming through the lobby
8 Only one globe lights up. Cerebus appears and absorbs the full dose.
9 – Electricity starts going wild. Cerebus is like the coyote full of earthquake pills
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| Notebook #7, page 156 |
Gone are the page numbers, and it looks like some potential dialogue, and a few more plot points like “Hellfire Club supporting Reagan’s reelection”.
Next week, the in-between pages 157 – 159.
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