The Origins of Astoria

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.

Last week in What Happened Between Issues 20 and 21 we look at pages 70 and 100 of Dave Sim’s second notebook used in the production of Cerebus. We’ll continue to look at this notebook this week with two pages that show Dave’s first sketches of Astoria.

Wait a second, this isn’t Astoria. Well it doesn’t really look like her.

Notebook #2, page 66

On the page prior to the above one, Dave had written a bunch of dialogue for the character who would become Astoria. On the above page he had this to say about it in the digital High Society collection: 

“Mary Astor doing Brigid O’Shaughnessy in THE MALTESE FALCON and Cerebus. . .instead of Humphrey Bogart doing Sam Spade. “I’m begging you for your pity. I can tell by your face. . .I can sense that he’s done something wrong. . .” NOW I had something to work with. But she looked too much like Katherine Hepburn. Without Spencer Tracey there is absolutely nothing funny about Katherine Hepburn.”

On the next page we see Astoria as she appears in High Society.

Notebook #2, page 67

Dave said this about the page:

“I got the look I needed pretty quickly. She had to be a serious character but she also had to be able to chew the scenery as Brigid O’Shaughnessy when required.”