Notebook 21: The Fight in the Throne Room

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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Wait. What? What is this? A sketch? Of Cirin looking upset. Like she wants to take off someone’s ear head. 

Notebook 21, page 228

The top left corner has the number box for Cerebus #183 and it says page 1 for the thumbnail sketch. And if you open your Reads phonebook to page #167 you’ll see Cirin angrily looking at Cerebus. The bottom three panels look similar to the finished page. The top third of the page is Cirin and Cerebus facing each other, but in the finished page it is broken down into two separate panels.

The next page of the notebook appears to be Dave sketching out the two aardvarks in the Throne Room to get a feel for where they are and what they will do. In the top left corner of this page, you can see Dave’s armchairs with a bit of their reflection on the shiny floor. Then turn to page 168 in your Reads phonebook – you did get that off the shelf right? Unless you brought a cheap digital copy then you could just open the file from the convenience of your seat. Yes, you now compare a Gerhard armchair with Dave’s sketch of one. 

Notebook 21, page 229

Down in the bottom right corner of the above notebook page there is a circled 2. Well, page two of Cerebus #183 does have a bunch of thin panels along the bottom two thirds of the page and two panels along the top. Dange, page 168 of the phonebook with Gerhard’s backgrounds conveying streams of light with the cross-hatching had me just stare at that page in wonder for a moment. . .So good. 

Sorry. Where were we? Oh, the next page!

Page 20? What? What happened to pages three though 19? 

Notebook 21, page 230

Well, the sketches are for earlier in Cerebus #183. The thumbnail is for page 3, though the finished page put the three panels of Cerebus head in the middle of the page wit the two panels along the top. 

The text of Viktor Davis saying ‘Bang, bang, bang’ does indeed happen on page 186 of Reads. When I first read it I thought “Something fell!” And yes, something did fall.