Notebook One: Cerebus #21 Material Part Six

​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’re continuing with the page by page look at Albatross One, which is Dave Sim’s first notebook used in the production of Cerebus.  . If you want to get caught up, just use the Notebook One tag to find all past blog entries with pages from Notebook One. Since we ended last week with page 44, we’ll start with page 45 this week.

Notebook 1, page 45

And this page contains more content for Cerebus #21, just like the last couple of pages did. Page 45 goes over how Weisshaupt turned Cockroach into Captain Cockroach. We also see Dave trying out a new font along the top of the page.

The next page of the notebook has the text "Cerebus #22 (Nov 1980) The Death of Elrod” along the top of it, and Dave writing down a list of things for the ‘Message to the People’ weekly letter. All part of Weisshaupt’s plan for power. 

Notebook 1, page 46

And Dave’s synopsis of Cerebus #22 at the time of writing it down in his notebook: “#21 is about the military in Beduin closing in on the Cockroach. Purpose: cut off funds that support the President. The closer they get the angrier  the Cockroach gets until critical mass is reached than he just starts coming apart at the seams.”

Page 47 is a bunch of sketches of Captain Cockroach one of which has Cerebus nearby for scale. Another sketch shows the Cockroach’s special boot design to make him appear taller. This page was shown in a post from October 2016, Captain Cockroach and Bunky.

The next page of the notebook is more of Weisshaupt explaining his plan to use the Hsiffies as a scapegoat to rile up the Feldans in order to get and maintain power.

Notebook 1, page 48

Unfortunately we do not get to see the sketches of bored Cerebus listening  to Weisshaupt in the finished books.

Will next week contain even more material for Cerebus #21 or will it move on to Cerebus #22? We shall see.