Cerebus 86 & 87 Cover Sketches

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.

We last looked at Dave Sim’s ninth Cerebus notebook back in December of 2021 in How the Countess Got Her Money? The notebook has 118 pages of 200 pages scanned, and covered Cerebus #80 through 86. How about this time we look at a couple of pages with sketches of covers?

On page 83 is a sketch for the cover of Cerebus #86:

Notebook #9, page 83

Cerebus #86 cover

So there are differences in the layout of the finished cover, but the basics are still there: the carriage, Elrod in his cockroach costume, the tower. . .

Then on page 101 we see a sketch for the cover of Cerebus #87. 

Notebook #9, page 101

Cerebus #87 cover

This sketch look even less like the finished cover. Sure we have the tower on one side, and perhaps that bottom right corner could be showing us movement of something, but it is hard to make out.

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