Notebook One: Cerebus #21 Material Part Four

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.

Guess what we’ll be looking at this week from Dave Sim’s notebooks? If you guessed pages from Albatross One, you are correct! And if you guessed page 36 will be what we start with, you are even more correct. We’ve been looking at Dave Sim’s first notebook that he used in the production of Cerebus. It covers Cerebus #20 through 28 and had 194 pages scanned. So far we’ve looked at the first 35 pages of the notebook, and a few more, just use the Notebook One tag to find all past blog entries with pages from Notebook One.

Last week we saw pages 31, 32, and 33, that all had Cerebus #21 material.  And since pages 34 and 35 were covered in Captain Cockroach Sketches, we start with page 36. Though I suggest you go to see page 35 so you can get a better idea of what the heck is going on with page 36. Or perhaps just look at it and take a guess:

Notebook One, page 36

Yes, that is just the ink from page 35 coming through the other side of the page. We already saw page 37 back in October of 2016’s Captain Cockroach and Bunky. That entry also has pages 47 and 49 of the notebook. All of them pages with large drawings of the two characters. A bit more eye grabbing than page 38’s “wall of text”:

Notebook One, page 38

The page continues with material for Cerebus #21 with Dave jotting down some ideas for the scene with Cerebus, Cockroach, Elrod, and the city dweller. Elrod’s distinctive voice is seen at the top right of the page with the dialogue “Mistah . . Ah say Mister President. Talking to you is like” Unfortuately Elrod’s sentence isn’t finished.

Near the middle of the page, Dave wrote down the characters: President, Cockroa(ch), Cer(ebus), and Elrod and gives a quick character profile. Like the Cockroach “good boy. Here boy. Try to be calm. What a schlub”. For Elrod the name Mel Cooley is written down. Mel Cooley is a fictional character on the television show The Dick Van Dyke Show played by Richard Deacon. 

Down the bottom of the page is some potential dialogue for President Weisshaupt – notice he hasn’t been named in the notebook yet? – and Elrod. At the top of the next page of the notebook some more plot points and character motivation is written down. Then Dave start writing down what will be on each page.

Notebook One, page 39

While these quick notes of what is to be on each page kind of appear in some form in Cerebus #21, the pages don’t align with the actual issue.