Notebook 36: Cerebus #269 - 272

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’re continuing our look at Dave Sim’s final notebook used during the production of Cerebus, notebook #36. As I mentioned last week, many of these pages are blank. And if they’re not blank, they are mostly blank. Dave took the little issue number boxes and pasted them in the top corner of a notebook page and then gave himself typically three blank pages to write notes down for that issue. Many of the issues have no notes. Like our next page:

Notebook #36, page 10

Well, at least we get a sketch of a gagged and bound Cerebus. Because pages 11 & 12 are blank and then we get what would be a page for Cerebus #270:

Notebook #36, page 13

Then blank – not scanned – pages 14 and 15 before page 16, which would be a page for Cerebus #271:

Notebook #36, page 16

Yes, there are a lot of these pages in this final notebook. It was like Dave could see the ending and didn’t need to work through much of anything plot wise. But you’re tired of these type of very nearly blank pages? Well, surprise! There are more. After a blank and not scanned in page 17 and 18, we get the page for Cerebus #272:

Notebook #36, page 19

That is a lot of pages with not much to show for them. During this time Dave was doing a ton of tracing paper drawings instead. And I have one for Cerebus #272, page five – as always, click for larger:

Cerebus #272 page 5 and the tracing paper lay out for it

Yes, that is actually a copy of the issue, so the tracing paper is larger than the finished comic. Why? Because Dave could’ve used it for the 11” x 17” original art. At this point Dave was doing several sketches on tracing paper before putting pencil to the Bainbridge S-172 art board. As he said in the form letter sent to those who won a tracing paper from Cerebus #300:

". . .a finished drawing (that is, the final image that was transferred directly to the art board), a preliminary rough (an initial spontaneous sketch which was used as the foundation of the later more finished picture), a tightened rough (which was not an early spontaneous picture but which also wasn't the final image that was transferred directly to the art board), or a rejected rough (either an initial spontaneous sketch or a tightened rough which ended up not being used for the designated page and panel)."

Here is another for the cover to Cerebus #270:

Cerebus #270 tracing paper and comic

Both of these are folded in half, the full-page tracing paper is folded in quarters, and both have pencil on both sides, which indicates that used it on the finished page as he would do the drawing on one side and then flip it over and use pencil to transfer it to the art board. Perhaps next week if the notebook pages are blank, we’ll look at more tracing paper drawings.