Insects in Jaka's Room from Cerebus #118

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 saw some pages from Dave Sim’s 15th Cerebus notebook back in August of 2021 in Cerebus #121 Notebook Images. Notebook #15 covers Cerebus #118 through 122 of Jaka’s Story and had 98 pages scanned. 

This page was mentioned on the Cerebus facebook group:

Cerebus #118, pages 3 & 4 (aka Jaka’s Story pages 94 & 95)

We see Missy, Jaka’s doll, sitting on Jaka’s dresser, “watching over” Jaka as Jaka lays in bed, having suffered an injury after hitting her head on the edge of Magic. We also see what Jaka calls the “insects” that drift around her room like ghosts. How these “insects” came to be start on page one of Dave’s 15th notebook:

Notebook #15, page 1

A figure that looks like Death stands behind Jaka lying down. Dave’s text on the page, starting at the top:

During those days she felt the damp and clammy caress of

Most of her fevered dreams in those days

During those long days and nights of long and incremental recover, Jaka felt herself nestled in the fetid grasp of a dark figure

It was some time after Jaka had been

On the bottom left corner we see the figure behind Jaka now holding her head between its hands.

The on page 2 we see what I’m thinking is the same figure reaching down:

Notebook #15, page 2

On page 3 we get a few more some more sketches of the figure reaching down and a couple of sketches of just the creature. In the top right corner is a long paragraph of text:

As she hovered in the twilight region between life and death fancies and imaginings like nothing she had ever experienced became substance the stuff substance of her day-to-day life. She was to  regret, in later years when she chose to recall the period, that she had written nothing at down for she was convinced that she had been privy to in those fever wrapped besotted days to all the mysteries of the ages; that she had held in her hands the cure to all illness and had leaned a parlour

Notebook #15, page 3

Page four has the final appearance of the creatures that became the insects in Jaka’s room.

Notebook #15, page 4

We also see a sketch of Jaka sitting beside Cerebus in the upper right corner.

***

13 more sleeps until 

"TEENAGE"? Who are you trying to kid?

from The Waverly Press Kickstarter launches:

Man, that's coming up pretty quickly. How quickly? There's a pre-launch page. THAT quickly!