Notebook 21: Spawn #10 Dialogue Part 2

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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The last couple of week’s we’ve been seeing material from the Campaign ’93 that appeared in Cerebus #167. So of course the next pages in Dave’s 21st notebook cover Spawn #10. We have seen some pages from this notebook with Spawn material in them already: Crossing Over, Crossing Over Part Two, Notebook 21: Spawn #10 Dialogue. So ready for more?

We pick up with page 61 of the notebook which has a big 16 circled in the top left corner:

Notebook #21, page 61

As you can see below the big circled 16 is some crossed out writing: Page Nine Spawn. Looking at Spawn #10, this dialogue appears on page 16. It is the dialogue between Cerebus and Spawn and Spawn talks about saving the superheroes who are locked up. There are minute differences between the dialogue on this page and on the finished page. 

For example, the notebook page has Cerebus saying “Their creators who sold them. Nice guys. It’s just that. . .well. Like Cerebus said. It’s best not think about it.” And the dialogue from Spawn #10: “Their creators. The one’s who sold them. Like Cerebus said. It’s best not to think about it.”

The page continues with dialogue for page 17 of Spawn #10. Something I hadn’t noticed about the dialogue in Spawn #10. . .See on the notebook page the dialogue is this:

Spawn: Everything is. . .gray.

Cerebus: Mm. Black and white and gray. Actually.

In the Spawn #10 I’m reading (the remastered edition from 2020 when Cerebus says gray it is spelled grey. 

The next page of the notebook continues the dialogue with Spawn #10 page 18’s dialogue:

Notebook #21, page 62

The dialogue matches up pretty well with the finished page, just a few slight changes. The dialogue continues on page 63:

Notebook #21, page 62

We can see Dave updating page numbers along the left border: from 13 to 20, 14 to 21, and 15 to 22. The biggest change I saw between this dialogue and the finished page is Spawn’s last line: “the nicest day of my whole life” is changed to “I had a . . .bad dream, I think. But. . .You know. . .It’s best not to think about it.” An echoing of the line Cerebus had earlier in the issue.