Notebook One: Cerebus #26 Part Six & Bits and Pieces

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.

Please buy one so boss man stops yelling at me for "giving the store away for free". Perhaps if he sells one or two or all that he has left, he'll finally give me some PTO. Wait, why am I pushing this, boss man is on vacation. . .I should just take off. . .

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.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

Last week we ended with page 147 from Dave Sim’s first notebook used in the creation of Cerebus, which was going over the plot for Cerebus #26. So what do we get on the next page of the notebook? How about the first take of a logo and name for the new phonebook? 

Notebook 1, page 148

What Dave has to say on this page: “Capt. Gill-Hodges when it was still a dialogue. Having him just read out the regulations helped compress the multi-page sequence into a couple of panels. At the bottom of the page, working out the story title logo and compositions of the splash page – still trying to come up with a reason that he would go to an expensive hotel like The Regency.”

Though the hotel still hasn’t been named in the notebook. We do get a Suenteus Po quote as well “A healthy economy means a health military.”

The next page of the notebook is Dave trying to come up with a reason for Cerebus to stay at the fancy pants hotel along with more sketches of Cerebus getting to the hotel with his sack of gold. And that sketch in the bottom right corner? According to Dave it is the first sketch of Astoria:

“Cerebus button design that never got past the rough design stage. Cerebus slogging his way into the Regency and my last attempt at coming up with a reason for him to go to an expensive hotel. Lower right: first sketch of Astoria.”

Notebook 1, page 149

On page 149 there is also a bit for Cerebus #27: “#27 (open with a kidnapping attempt from kidnapper’s point of view”.

The next page isn’t Cerebus #26, Cerebus #27, nor High Society but a Swords of Cerebus back-up story:

Notebook 1, page 150

I was surprised to see Dave said this about the above page: “This was really all the plotting I needed to do for the Swords volume 2 back-up story “The Morning After” which Joe Rubinstein would ink.”