Notebook One: Cerebus #25 Part Three

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 . . .though Boss Man saying I'm giving the notebook away for free, I see it as a way of advertising all the good stuff in the notebook, and wouldn't it be easier to have a hard copy to flip through and read at your own leisure? 

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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For the last two weeks we’ve seen pages from Dave Sim’s first notebook used while he was making Cerebus and those pages covered material in Cerebus #25. Most notably, sketches of Woman Thing and the Artist Chap’s castle along with Dave repeatedly putting down ideas for the first 8 or 10 pages of Cerebus #25. So where do we pick up on notebook one? Page 125 and yes, more ideas for the first few pages of Cerebus #25:

Notebook One, page 125

Only a few things on this page made the final issue. Item #4 near the top of the page didn’t make it:

Still describing plan. . .what th’? That castle was where Baron Delorme was died shortly before I left whoever he left it to we’ll turn woman-thing loose on him and take over the joint. There’s only one road that leads up to it. Give woman-thing her own Suenteus’ Po fairy tales. I’ll have plenty of time for my work. Stay flexible is what I say.

The next page of the notebook has a lot of sketches of the Artist Chap:

Notebook One, page 126

On the previous page we saw this bit: “New romanticism? Moral majority? It’s a new style – “moral romanticism”. On this page we get more of it. It is Artist Chap talking about his art style, which doesn’t happen in the finished comic. He does talk about what he paints – lots of breasts. On this page of the notebook he is talking about leather thongs instead. 

Still nothing of the actual encounter between the three guys, however. Perhaps on the next page?

Notebook One, page 127

Well, that is a big nope. More unused material of the Artist Chap talking about his paintings some of which Dave took the time to cross out with a marker and others just scratched out with a pen. I wonder if the explosion down the bottom of the page is Dave’s way of giving up on these unused ideas. 

We only have another six pages for Cerebus #25 material – yes, I looked ahead – will there be anything used in the finished comic or just more of the same we’ve seen for the previous pages? Come back next week to find out. Unless you’ve picked up a copy of the notebook yourself already, in which case, don’t spoil it for the rest of the readers.