Cerebus #53 - Thumbnails for Pages 7 & 8

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.

This will be week five of looking at Dave Sim’s 6th notebook used in the production of Cerebus looking at pages that tie into Cerebus #53. First thumbnails for the cover and then the pages up to page 6. So today we’re looking at the thumbnails for pages 7 and 8, which appear on page 37 of the notebook.

Notebook #6, page 37

There are the thumbnails at the top of the page. Comparing them to the finished page, there are some differences. Page 7 looks relatively the same with the same panel composition though the ‘SMASH’ in the bottom left panel being changed to SLAM. Probably better as slam sounds more like a door closing than smash. Page 8 is a little further from the finish page in that the first panel doesn’t have the Countess and Cerebus in it, just Cerebus. And the other panels, while they do have Vichy Dupris in them, his posses are different. Though from the thumbnails we do see how soaking wet he is.

Cerebus #53 pages 7 & 8 thumbnails and finished pages

To the right of the thumbnails are potential titles for the next couple of issues. At the bottom of the page is some dialogue between Cerebus and the Countess that is cross out, it says:

I think you should write about Lord Julius.

Why?

Because everyone wants to know what he’s like.

What would Cerebus write?

That dialogue gets fleshed out and becomes the dialogue in panel one of page 7.

There is also some dialogue for Vichy Dupris. Reading over the dialogue, it looks like his first name was going to be Henry.  Way down in the bottom right corner Dave wrote some ideas for the next two pages:

Page 9 Countess suggesting Cerebus go upstairs to do some writing. Area receding behind him. Reduce word balloons. CLIK

Page 10 “On governing” Part the Third. Cerebus’ “My early years”

We’ll see what pages 9 and 10 have in store for us next week.