Notebook 36: Even More of Cerebus #274

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.

Last week we looked at pages #25 – 27 of Dave Sim’s final notebook used during the production of Cerebus, notebook #36. This week we’ll start with page 30. Well, kind of. We already saw page 28 in Listening to Dead Cirinists. Page 28 shows – if you clicked on the link – that it has the issue box for Cerebus #275, but had page layouts for Cerebus #274, pages 11 – 13. And last week we saw that all three pages have material for Cerebus #274.

Then in Lots of Dead Cirinists – I’m sensing a theme here – we see page 28’s material which is the page layout and dialogue for page #14 of Cerebus #274, even though it follows the Cerebus #275 issue box number. Will page 30 continue with the material for Cerebus #274? Or will we finally move on?

Since page 29 had material for Cerebus #274 page 14 I took a guess and through this would be material for page 15, and yup, it is – at least the top left corner, that is Moshe’s line: “On yoah knees! Sout’Westrin insupportinational triple ptoo scummy scum sum”. Except Dave added the word ‘expatry-rotted’ before the ‘insupportinational’ text.

Notebook #36, page 30

The dialogue on the right is the first line Todd says to Cerebus and Cerebus’ response to him. All of the dialogue on the right side of the page, that is Todd’s dialogue on the subsequent pages of Cerebus #274.

The next page of the notebook has the issue box number for Cerebus #276, but will it just contain Cerebus #274 material again?

 Notebook #36, page 31

It is more Cerebus #274 material. Still. The material in the top half of the page continues the Todd and Cerebus dialogue from the previous notebook page, some of which appears on page 15 – “Moppsy Er Mosher” and then on page 16 “Aye your mercilessness?” The rest of the dialogue is for page 16 of Cerebus #274.

The dialogue for page 16 and then page 17 continues on page 32 of the notebook:

Notebook #36, page 32

Will we actually see some material for something else than Cerebus #274 on page 33? We’ll find out next week.