Prophet Rick

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 haven’t seen any pages from Dave Sim’s 27th notebook since December of 2021 in Notes on . . .What Exactly? In fact, we’ve only seen pages from this notebook four times, mostly because the notebook only had 45 pages of it scanned and the majority of those pages are walls of text. The notebook mainly covers Cerebus #225. 

So how about three pages with some drawings on them and not just a wall of text? We get some sketches of Rick as an angel and some talk of The Sanctuarie:

Notebook #27, page 8

Then a sketch for what is labeled as page 4. While page 4 of Cerebus #225 does contain chapter 3 and the line “Cerebus was of the sanctuary and the sanctuarie was of Cerebus”, it isn’t line #1, but #3. And the page in the finished book has a different layout.

Notebook #27, page 9

The next page of the notebook is another sketch of Rick wearing the same outfit he has on in Cerebus #225. Though that pose isn’t in the issue. 

Notebook #27, page 10