Notebook 21: Publishers, Conventions, and Cognac

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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Well, if you saw the news, yes, I was smack dab in the middle of “the blizzard of 2026” and got about 2.5 feet of snow, lost power for nearly 5 days (smell ya later hot water and heat), internet for longer, still haven’t received “snail” mail as the mailman’s truck would get stuck, and was thankful to the piece of construction equipment that came four days after the storm to finally make the dirt road I live on more drivable before my car got stuck. 

Last week we saw pages of just. . .text of Victor and going to some convention and what he was currently working on. These four pages are more walls of text, but the first page changes it up a little:

Notebook #21, page 137

The top of the page shows us Dave’s list of items he was thinking about putting into Reads. Some of it we’ve already seen Dave working out the text pieces for, and guess what is coming up? More of the same:

Notebook #21, page 138

The next page of the notebook continues the text from the previous page: Victor meeting with the Vertigo Horse publisher with a surprise guest of Denis Eastman, another publisher whom Victor was talking with. The next page of the notebook is Victor going to the fourth annual Davis, Diamond, and Madison Seminar Roundtable and Sales Conference. 

Notebook #21, page 139

That page leads to a meeting between Victor and Denis Eastman, publisher of Kevin’s Kitchen Enterprises that we get to see on the next page:

Notebook #21, page 140

Down the bottom part of the page Victor makes his way to the bar in the hotel, and that cognac we saw listed on page 137.