Notebook 21: Victor and Oscar talking with Publishers

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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Another Wednesday and I’m just now writing this blog post. . .oy vey. I don’t know how boss man does this so consistently. . .I guess that is why he is the boss man and I don’t get paid. Or vacation time. Though the benefits are pretty decent. Thanks boss man.

But I digress (RIP Peter David).

After two? Three? Multiple weeks of “walls of text” – which are interesting at least, as we’ve been looking at Dave’s hand written notes for Reads, and most of it is material that he didn’t put in Reads, but used as world building materials. So what do we get this week? Yes, another four pages from Dave’s 21st notebook. . .and more walls of text. Contain your excitement. Or not. I'm not your boss.

We continue with the meeting of Victor and Oscar. On this page Denis Eastman joins the conversation as does Mike Prosser, publisher of Vertigo Horse.

Notebook #21, page 129

The conversation between the group continues on the next page as well. 

Notebook #21, page 130

The next page has a couple of sentences from that conversation, along with the name of Victor’s book: Ascension.

Then we get a list of items that Dave was thinking of putting into Reads:

Notebook #21, page 131

Whoa, look it here, some sketches:

Notebook #21, page 132

The sketches are of M. Zulli and his model, Beth. Will next week be more sketches or more walls of text?