Notebook 21: A Story Device Realizes He Isn't Real

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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I don’t know about you, but walls of text? I can see how people tired of it in Reads. Though, we were primed for it in Cerebus #28 (Mind Game II). And Jaka’s Story. So ya know, I actually enjoyed Reads. Yah, I didn’t agree with all of the content, but then again, Cerebus #94 anyone? 

Okay, now that y’all are worked up, time for some bad news? Good news? There are only 18 pages left to show from Dave’s 21st notebook. And we’ll be seeing four of those pages today. So yay! Only 18 pages left. Oh noes, more walls of text. . .and then. . .what next?

If you remember last week’s post, we saw pages that were in Cerebus #183, with Viktor talking to the audience. We also “heard” from someone who sounded like Elrod. Elrod saying:

“What. . ah say. . .what was that. Who’s there? Somebody ah say somebody put on the night light’. This joke has gone too far. . .(cursed the boundary that is). Ahm a story like…”

That continues on the next page of the notebook:

“…Alan Moore said ah can neither be created nor destroyed. I can write my own lines.”

Notebook #21, page 241

Yah, Elrod was just a story device. This bit of the notebook about Elrod showing up in Viktor’s . . .story showed up on page 182 of Reads (aka Cerebus #183, page 17. Not quite word for word, but the gist of it remains.

Notebook #21, page 242

Viktor is leading us into the darkness. Not out of it, but into it as he states. This continues on page 243:

Notebook #21, page 243

Yes, follow Viktor’s squeaking sneakers to the next page of the notebook, where we see some crossed out text.

Notebook #21, page 244

The crossed-out text states “The Judge was wrong. The void wasn’t Tarim and the light wasn’t Terim. It’s the other way around.”

The rest of the page is Viktor asking if we can trust him. And he takes out that crossed out line as it doesn’t appear in Cerebus #183. Or #184. Though in Cerebus #185’s text pages, the concept of Viktor changing his mind about the end of Church & State appears.