Cerebus #20 Material Part 3

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’ve been looking at Dave Sim’s Albatross One, aka his first notebook used in the creation of Cerebus. It covers Cerebus #20 to 28 and had 194 pages scanned out of the 200 in the notebook. So far we’ve seen up to page 10, so today we start with page 11. It continues with material for Cerebus #20:

Notebook 1, page 11

The top of the page is the Cirinists talking about keeping Cerebus safe. That top paragraph reminds me a lot of what happened to Cerebus near the end of his life: locked away from everyone. Or as Cerebus calls it “They want to lock Cerebus away in a convent and kiss his feet. . .” The circled 7 is Dave marking down what page he thinks this material should go on. Down at the bottom of the page is some more dialogue and Suenteus Po is revealed as the other voice Cerebus is talking with which does happen on the bottom of page 7 of Cerebus #20.

On the next page Dave has marked an 8 and a 9 for those two pages.

Notebook 1, page 12

The dialogue at the top of the page appears to belong to the Cirinists, but I don’t see it on page 7, 8, or 9. The dialogue for page 8 shows up. . .a bit. Some of it shows up and most of it doesn’t. And that isn’t even discounting the words that are crossed out. 

The dialogue on the notebook page for page 9 of Cerebus #20 is used for the finished page. Mostly. It is the back and forth between Cerebus and the Cirinists. The next page of the notebook continues the dialogue between Cerebus and the Cirinists on page 9.

Notebook 1, page 13

Most of this dialogue is Cerebus doing his fake pleading to the Cirinists, and we see their response down the bottom of the page.