Notebook One: Cerebus #28 Part One

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.

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We’ve been looking at material for Cerebus #27 from Dave Sim’s Albatross One, aka his first notebook used in the production of Cerebus, for over a year now. We’re at the tail end of the notebook with only seven pages to go, and will we finally get to material for Cerebus #28? Well, how about Dave’s thoughts on Cerebus #28 and 29?

Notebook #1, page 189

Dave had this to say on his notes for the two other issues, taken from the Audio Visual High Society, “At the bottom of the page: trying to get a jump on issues 28 and 29. Even though I usually didn’t have a clear idea of exact contents until I was actually working on the issue it was confidence-building to pretend I did.” Well, Cerebus did talk with Suenteus Po in Cerebus #28 and a lazy summer afternoon at the Regency kind of took place in Cerebus #29.

Yah, yah, I’m ignoring the Cerebus #27 material at the top of the page.

And here it is, on page 190, Cerebus #28 material appears.

Notebook #1, page 190

Dave had this to say about the material on page 190: “Trying to distill Illusionist philosophy as Po was applying it to mining Cerebus for information and then realizing that I’s ALSO not something Po would be apt to impart either. He would have been aware of the possibility that Cerebus had either planned his own kidnapping or was allied with those who had and want to know if Cerebus was actually part of “Eye in the Pyramid” or if he just used the name to get results but not wanting to ask directly (and in a larger sense wanting to dissuade Cerebus from “hands-on” political participation of any kind – that is, to persuade Cerebus to favour Illusionism – in the hopes that Cerebus could be lured away from Cirinism, Kevillism, and Orthodox Tarimite faith: which is difficult to accomplish when you’re mostly interested in “hands-on” political realities. Something that Cerebus picks up on and gives Po a hard time about). Layers upon layers of different perceptions and possibilities.”

The material in the middle of the page winds up being mostly used at the start of Cerebus #28, but Wenda doesn’t appear in this issue, nor do we find out that she is the ‘Executive Cirinist for Togith’ nor is she a head of religious movements as the text suggests.

On the top of the next page, we continue with material used at the start of Cerebus #28 – Cerebus and Po discussing why Po goes to the eighth sphere. And then we get a wall of text that is Po dialogue:

Notebook #1, page 191

It looks like Dave went over this text a couple of times with all of the cross out text and additions made to it, but I don’t see it in Cerebus #28. Down the bottom it looks like Dave was thinking Po had helped get Cerebus out of Togith and used Lord Julius’ influence to get him to Beduin.

We’ll wrap up Albatross One next week with the last four pages. Whooo!