Cerebus #20 Part Five

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.

For the last couple of weeks we’ve been looking at Dave Sim’s first notebook used in the creation of Cerebus: Albatross One. If you missed out on any of the notebook one posts, you can use this tag to find them. Perhaps at some point I’ll tag the other notebooks as well. . .

We last saw page 16 of the notebook and it showed us Dave’s preliminary dialogue for Cerebus  #20, page 12. The next page of the notebook skips forward to page 20. And it doesn’t show us dialogue, but the plot of that page.

Page 17 skips to page 20 of Cerebus #20. 

Notebook 1, page 17

There is some dialogue below, Jaka attempting to wake up the unconscious Cerebus. There is even a mention to Missy, Jaka’s doll. . .Nah, that has got to be a third unknown character calling Jaka “Missy”.  And looking at it, that might be Cerebus calling out for Jaka, and some other woman – one of the Cirinists perhaps? That is who is being called missy. Sounds like a question for Dave. . .

The bottom of the page has plans for what the different sides, Illusionists, Cirinists, Kevillists, and  Tarimites, are planning. The bit that says “you have no idea how easy some people are to manipulate” shows up on page 17 of Cerebus #20 spoken by Cerebus to the Cirinists: “you have no idea how easy some groups are to manipulate. . .” as he manipulates both fractions into fighting each other.

Page 18 of the notebook has several preliminary logos for Mind Game. It also picks up from here page 16 left off: dialogue for page 13 of Cerebus #20. This dialogue is set up a bit differently then on previous pages: Dave put who the dialogue is for at the start, and perhaps how many word balloons needed? But if this is the case, where is Cerebus’ dialogue? Ahh, perhaps it isn’t who is doing the speaking, but who Cerebus is talking to? 

Notebook 1, page 18

The dialogue for page 13 doesn’t match up with the finished page. For page 14’s dialogue, about the only thing  that matches is the second line with the note ‘CIR Wenda? Some horrible scheme. Illusionists are trying to bring about new dark age…’ Cerebus does talk about a horrible scheme the Illusionists have for Togith and he does mention a new dark age. 

So the label at the start indicates which fraction Cerebus is talking to, but the dialogue doesn’t really match up as well as the dialogue on previous pages. This back and forth preliminary dialogue takes us up to page 18 of Cerebus #20. The next page of the notebook has similar dialogue for pages 19 and 20, but it is even more rough:

Notebook 1, page 19

We also get another possible Mind Game logo and a sketch of Cerebus. We see dialogue that is used on page 7 of Cerebus 20 . . .no not the drinking milk comment, the one to the right of the Cerebus sketch:

Cerebus: But if you are Suenteus Po you’d have to be over a hundred and fifty years old.

Po: One hundred and seventy-three eighty-two actually to be precise.

And that didn’t end up on the finished page 7, this is the conversation:

Po: I thought you’d  recognize me. . .I’m Suenteus Po.

Cerebus: Founder of Illusionism. . .? Cerebus thought you were dead. . .

Po: Quite understandable. Most people one hundred and eighty two years old are dead. . .

Basically page 19 of the notebook is Dave going back and flushing out some ideas for those earlier pages.