Notebook #21: Campaign '93 Part One

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 21st notebook used during the creation of Cerebus #164 to 187. We’ll be looking at this notebook, which there were 260 out of 300 pages scanned, until we’ve seen every single page of it. Well, the pages scanned. If you want to see all of the notebook #21 posts to date, just use the Notebook 21 tag. 

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This notebook is showing us a range of materials, from stuff for the Women phonebook, to Spawn #10, and today’s entry (and SPOILERS – the next couple of weeks): Campaign ’93 material. We’re knee deep in material for Cerebus #167 which has a cover date of February 1993 so this notebook material should be from late 1992. Campaign ’93 was a promotional tour which also featured a letter and a package of materials sent out to retailers to help promote Cerebus. 

And that working with retailers as a creator is something we see on this first page with Campaign ’93 material:

Notebook 21, page 50

Upper right corner has Dave writing down: “Retailers and Creators. Campaign ’93. Each side has to put in time, money and energy. Creator: make me rich I do good work. Retailer: make me rich and I’ll promote you.”

Down the bottom of the page are some items that the store could do and items that Aardvark-Vanaheim could potentially provide. The materials for the ‘in store’ section are some of the items which could be made from the promotional materials AV sent to the retailers, like a t-shirt.

The next page of the notebook contains more materials for Campaign ’93. I don’t think that ‘Flight Poster’ ever came to be, but we do get a look at a thumbnail for the cover to the Flight phonebook.  

Notebook 21, page 51