What Happened Between Issues 20 and 21

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 Dave Sim’s second notebook used in the production of Cerebus this past January in Page Layouts for Cerebus #29. The notebook covers Cerebus #27 through 37 and had 198 pages scanned in. I was looking at it to see if I could figure out what the list of measurements are on the cover of Cerebus #35 for Mikhail on the Cerebus FB group. While I found several preliminary covers, none of which had the list, I wasn’t able to find anything resembling the list. 

What I did fine was a calendar of sorts, the way Dave would mark down when he is doing what on page 70:

Notebook #2, page 70

Dave marked down the first six days in September as ‘writing #31’. Then he lists ‘what happened between issues 20 and 21’ and ‘introductions’. A few lines down the page he says ‘Swords Story’ as well for what looks like September 11 – 12, 13, 14. With 15 and 16th crossed out, and 15 marked down as travel. 

The next time I saw something for the ‘What happened between issues 20 and 21’ story is on page 100:

Notebook #2, page 100

On this page the calendar for September is gone, and it is just October. Dave’s travel plans moved from September 15th to October 1st, with Dave traveling to Gananoque, probably to see Gene Day. Then on October 2 through 5 Dave has listed ‘WHB’ for ‘What happened between issues Twenty and Twenty-One’. Then we get the quick plot summary for it below it. 

And actually, Gene Day helped out with the art on ‘What Happened Between Issues Twenty & Twenty-One’.  And after staying in Gananoque to work on that story, Dave has October 6 listed as ‘Travel to Kitchener’. 

He then takes the rest of the month, 25 days. . .well, minus several days off, so 13 days to complete issue #32. Writing the issue in 2 days, and then completing two pages a day. Whew! Quite the schedule.

Hey, wait, “gum cards”?