Dialogue from Cerebus #139

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 18th notebook that he used in the creation of Cerebus covers issues #136 through 141, a bit of Jaka’s Story and a bit of Melmoth. It had 64 pages scanned and we last saw it just this past August in Notes for Cerebus #136. In August of 2017 we saw a page for Cerebus #138 that had the dialogue pretty much word for word between the two maids who were serving Jaka.

There were three more pages of dialogue after that initial page which was shown. That page covered Cerebus #139 pages 8 – 11, aka Jaka’s Story #474 – 477.

The next page with dialogue covers Cerebus #139 pages 12 – 14 and a panel of page 15. Looking at it, the two maids’ dialogue can be read as one maid has her dialogue in word balloons and the other doesn’t.

Notebook #18, page 39

As you can imagine, the next page in the book continues the conversation with the two maids, and now Corky as well, being yelled at by both maids for not having the proper marmalade spoon.

Notebook #18, page 40

Some of this dialogue isn’t used – I can’t really make out that word balloon that has been completely crossed out, all I can see is ‘he ought to be horse crapper’, though I’m not sure about that last word. The above page has dialogue for pages 15 and 16, aka Jaka’s Story #481 and 482.

The next page is the dialogue from the above page, but it is cleaned up, and finished.

Notebook #18, page 41

On the back of the page you can see the sketches of the nurses that appear in the previously mentioned post from August of 2017.