Notebook One: Cerebus #24 Part Eight

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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Last week we continued our look at Dave Sim’s first notebook, Albatross One, with pages 104 through 106 and material used and some not used for Cerebus #24. On page 106 we ended with some text that was on page five, but Dave had it notated as ‘end page 7’ and the next two items were crossed out. So on page 107 of the notebook we start with some Cirinist stuff and the second paragraph is some dialogue for Madame DuFort:

Notebook 1, page 107

Passages in the Cirinists texts concealed ages old sorcerous disciplines from before the birth of mankind.

They laughed told me I was insane for studying the incoherent works of an old woman. And it was through that rejection [illegible] I found the answer I had been searching for. . If I wanted well-trained emotionless assassins was there any reason they couldn’t be women?

After those first two paragraphs of text is yet another list of plot points for Cerebus #24. Plot points that we’ve seen in one form or another for the last 5 or 10 pages or so. . .Note how the page ends with the number eight circled and then on the next page we start with number thirteen.

Notebook 1, page 108

Note that page 108 is the back of page 107, so there aren’t any pages with numbers nine through twelve. It is likely that Dave was writing a bunch of stuff down, and then went back and numbered the different items. 

Charles Claremont gets another mention under the items for #14, last mentioned on page 97 of notebook one. Note how item #15 is in the middle of the text between 14 and 16, hard to see, but there. Under #16 Cirin was crossed out and replaced with Suenteus Po as the inspiration for the Charles X. Claremont character, which does make it into the final comic. This page makes it look like Dave is wrapping up Cerebus #24. Will we move onto Cerebus #25 next week? We shall see.