Notebook One: Cerebus #23 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.

Maybe instead of rewriting this opener every week, I’ll be a bit more efficient with my use of time and have this standard opening: 

Have you got your copy of Albatross One? That is Dave Sim’s name for his first notebook used in the creation of Cerebus. If you want a copy of the notebook – and trust me, as someone who has held the actual Albatross One, it is a pretty close duplicate and looks great – you can check out this post right here. Well not this post. The one at this link. Go check it out, this post will still be here.

And if you don’t want to buy one, you can wait as I release a couple of pages a week and check them out using the Notebook One tag. But trust me, the notebook is much much nicer then my silly little posts.

Okay, now that is done, on with this week’s Notebook One post.

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As we continue our look at Notebook One, last week we saw more of Cerebus #23last week we saw more of Cerebus #23 material on pages #86 and 87. We continue that look at Cerebus #23 and Notebook One with what appears to be the last two pages on Cerebus #23: pages 87 and 88. 

Last week page 86 had a numbered list, 1 through 16, of items for Cerebus #23. On page 87 there is a list that starts with page 20 and goes to. . .umm. . .page 13? It is hard to tell as it looks like Dave started with pages 20, 19, and 18, and then got sidetracked with dialogue for some of those pages:

Notebook #1, page 87

The dialogue that is on this page appears on pages 17 and 18 of Cerebus #23 wherein the Sepran soldier says that it isn’t a little girl in the bed, but it is Cerebus who he served with in the Red Marches. The dialogue matches up pretty well with the finished pages. Though Dave did cut off the Sepran soldier’s dialogue of “Y’u crazy beetch! I’m a” and the sound effect of ‘tung’ was changed to ‘twang’, though we can see a ‘twang’ in the lower right corner. 

With all of the mark-ups and little ink scribbles, I wonder if Dave had this notebook page open while he worked on the actual pages.

The next page of the notebook appears to have more dialogue for the Sepran soldiers that partially shows up on page 16 of Cerebus #23:

Notebook #1, page 88

The dialogue is for the Sepran soldier talking with the school’s head mistress, Madam DuFort. 

Only two pages this week as the next page of the notebook starts up with Cerebus #24 material. Will we see more of Cerebus #23 in amongst it? We shall see.