Notebook 36: The Start

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.

We finally finished our look at Dave Sim’s first Cerebus notebook. All of it. So many pages. You can see all of the posts using the tag Notebook One. I asked which notebook we should look at next and couple a couple of responses:

• Larry W: "How about the notebook that has the end of the series?"
• Matt D: “Whatever notebook covers/runs up to February 4th 1985.”
• Jason T: "Notebook #21? Looks like the start of Mothers & Daughters, which is where I started my Cerebus journey..."

The notebook that ends the series, notebook #36, is only 58 pages long, and we’ve seen 12 of those pages, leaving us only 46 pages to look at. Many of those are nearly blank from my recollection.

The notebook that covers/runs up to Feb 4th, 1985 is notebook #8, which is a guestimate based on Cerebus #71 having a cover date of February 1985, and notebook #8 has material for Cerebus #70 to 79.  We’ve seen 33 out of the 86 pages in it, leaving us 53 pages to go.

Notebook #21 does cover the start of Mothers & Daughters, as it starts with material for Cerebus #164 and finishes with material for 187. It is 260 pages long which makes it the longest notebook. We’ve seen only 47 pages from it, leaving us 213 pages to go. Not impossible, but another monumental feat.

So which one will it be? Well, I’m going the easy route, notebook #36. 

The last time we saw a page from notebook #36 was way back in February of 2022 in Looking for Old Old Cerebus in the Notebooks. Well, now we’ll start from the beginning of the notebook with the first page we haven’t seen: page one.

Notebook 36, page one

For his final Cerebus notebook, Dave was counting down the issues. He put the issue box number in the upper left corner of the page, and then typically a bunch of text for that issue. Occasionally a drawing. Sometimes nothing. For most of Cerebus  #266 “Fred” is a shepherd to Mr Gurzky’s flock. While some of this inner dialogue was used, not all of it. For example, in the finished comic we hear Cerebus refer to a sheep as Elrod, but not why he named that sheep Elrod. 

We then skip a couple of pages, as pages 2 and 3 were both blank, and I didn't scan any blank pages unless the materials from the other pages came through to the other side. Dave must’ve left space thinking he might need it for planning issue #266. So on page #4 we see Dave’s notes for Cerebus #267, the Five Bar Gate issue:

Notebook 36, page four

To me as a hockey fan, it reads like the story of the Toronto Maple Leafs getting eliminated in the playoffs. Though they didn’t always make it to the finals like Fred Hammer did. The next page continues Fred Hammer’s losing streak to Paul “Coffee” Anan:

Notebook 36, page five

We have already seen page six of the notebook, in Fred Hammer Wins the Jakirbee Cup. We also saw page seven of the notebook in Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk,which starts the material for Cerebus #268.

So next week we’ll be looking at page ten of the notebook, as there was nothing else for Cerebus #268 other than page seven. In the meantime, I also starting putting the tag Notebook 36 on all posts with Notebook 36 material.