Notebook 21: Cerebus 182 & Viktor Davis

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 week’s post is labeled #600 in my list of posts. Yes, I’ve done 600 of these notebook posts. One a week – nearly, I probably skipped a week or two or posted something else instead – since 18 June 2014 and the first post, Dave Sim’s Notebooks: Hunters & Gathers.

Nearly 12 years. 600 posts. And we’ve only seen 733 pages out of the possible 3,281 pages. So 22% of Dave’s notebooks. Well, good news is we’ve made it through 72% of Dave’s 21st notebook. Partially because we’re now look at four pages at a time instead of one or two pages. So lets get to it, eh?

First page up is a continuation of the previous page, more of Viktor Davis’ monologue. The stuff crossed out at the end is Viktor sitting in his upstairs office in the quiet watching the snow, the long march across the blank page:

Notebook #21, page 185

The next page of the notebook has the issue number box for Cerebus #182. Right above it is a list of issue numbers, #180 through 186, and a number to the left of it and some text on the Cirin versus Cerebus fight that runs through those issues. I thought the number corresponded to the amount of pages dedicated to the fight, but it doesn’t hold up except for Cerebus #180 does have 17 pages of the “comic book” part of the issue, while the remaining pages are for the Viktor Davis dialogue.

Notebook #21, page 186

The text is more of Viktor and his audience. And yes, it continues to the next page:

Notebook #21, page 187

“This is worse than those Melmoth eggs” sounds like another potential t-shirt for the Cerebus fan who has not nearly enough silly t-shirts that perplexes anyone who sees it. 

Yes, this dialogue about what this all has to do with Cerebus and what the audience thinks of these runny eggs continues on the next page of the notebook.

Notebook #21, page 188

“Do you know what Cerebus is? Do you? Do you really?”