Notebook One: Cerebus #24 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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Before we begin, I want to acknowledge that this is my 500th column on Dave’s notebooks. I’ve enjoyed picking selections from the notebooks and diving into their contents with you. Thanks for reading! Now on to our regularly scheduled programming.

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For almost this entire month we’ve been looking at pages that cover material for Cerebus #24. Kind of. Most of it wasn’t used in the actual comic, and I’ve been wondering when we’d get to the actual content for Cerebus #24 other then the few bits we’ve seen amongst all the unused material. Well, with page 96 we get our first look at Woman Thing, who does make an appearance in Cerebus #24

Notebook 1, page 96

We get a sketch, the first one, of Woman Thing. And then a couple of other sketches of I don’t know what – two faces? I’m not sure what is happening with the one in the square panel. Any thoughts?

Down the bottom of the page, Dave starts from scratch with a numbered list of pages and what he wants to have on each. We only get items for #1 – 4:

1. Distance shot

2. Going to be here for a while yet. Begin exercising in a week.

3. Sees the thing reaction and counter reaction.

4. Baam! M’sieu what is it? Something out there.

The next page in the notebook continues the numbering all the way to the last page 20:

15. So that was it – she had just tighten the bandage [MRL: last word might be healed hard to tell]

16. What would he find? Almost caught. 

17. C’min C’min – must as well know everything. . .

18. Is there any reason these revolutionaries couldn’t be women?

19. Women who were strong independent. Prof. Charles Claremont’s School for Gifted Debutantes.

20. My greatest creation “Woman-Thing”

Notebook 1, page 97

So looking at these two pages, they more accurately show us what is to be in Cerebus #24. Though I don’t think the dialogue at the bottom of the page between Cerebus and one of the girls at the school shows up in the finished pages.