Notebook 21: Cerebus #169 Part Two

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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Last week I pointed you at an entry from February of 2019 in Dang Snowy Storm as it showcased the next page in the notebook, page 78. That page showed a rough page layout for page 7 of Cerebus #169, aka page 133 of the phonebook Women. So does the next page of the notebook follow and give us a thumbnail for page 8?

Notebook #21, page 79

Yes, it does. And a pretty close representation of the finished page. The panels at the bottom of the page are different from the finished page, but overall they show the same actions:

Cerebus #169, page 8

We even get the dialogue for the page on the notebook page as well. Cerebus floating above his bed with his sheet and Missy in his arm as he snores always makes me chuckle: SNORK.

The next page of the notebook shows the close-ups of the McGrew brother bundled in his blanket giving Cerebus the side eye, though on the finished page he isn’t shown opening his eyes as he goes to close the window:

Notebook #21, page 80