Notebook 21: Cerebus #164 beginnings

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.

Before I had finished our all-encompassing look at Dave Sim’s first notebook, I asked what notebook to look at next. Larry W had suggested “How about the notebook that has the end of the series?” So we looked at all the pages in Notebook #36, the last notebook. Then Jason T had asked ‘Notebook #21? Looks like the start of Mothers & Daughters, which is where I started my Cerebus journey. . .” But before I could start that, boss man asked about a particular page of Cerebus #173, which funny enough, came from notebook #21. So we’ll be continuing our look of Notebook #21.

Notebook #21 covers Cerebus #164 through #187, so not quite the start of Mothers & Daughters, but close enough for me. The notebook cover said it had 300 pages, but only 260 pages were scanned, and I’ve already posted 50 of them here on AMoC. There are several blank pages that I didn’t scan. There are also pages missing, for when I add up the pages scanned and the blank pages, they don’t add up to 300 pages. 

We’ve seen the front cover already, but somehow we’ve never seen page one?

Notebook #21, page 1

Well, it has the issue box # for Cerebus #164 and it says page 7, which is page 33 of the phonebook Women if that is how you’re following along. And what is on that page? Some text from Cirin’s book The New Matriarchy. But that text for page seven actually appears on page 6 and is for Astoria’s book Kevillist Origins. The text below it labeled page 9 is the excerpt from Cirin’s The New Matriarchy. And yes, it is so long it extends to page 2 of the notebook.

Notebook #21, page 2

We already saw page 3 of this notebook as it is one of those “fun” pages – a big splash of art. And it featured Cockroach’s Swoon, who also appears in Cerebus #164.

Jumping ahead to page 4 of the notebook, we get another wall of text. Now you can see why I skipped these pages. Yup, I do like splashy pages with artwork.

Notebook #21, page 4

The page has the text which would end up on page 4 of Cerebus #164, aka page 30 of Women, which is Serna talking to Cerebus about her guard, Vera. The bottom third of the page, the paragraph that starts with “Almost all women read minds. Very few don’t.” Is on page 5 of Cerebus #164. And the finished page actually starts with “All women read minds, with very few exceptions.” The rest of the text is also very close to the finished page. However, it is missing the last paragraph. I checked to see the text continued on page 5 of the notebook, but it doesn’t. 

Don’t worry, we’ll see page 5 next week.