Notebook One: Swords of Cerebus & Misc

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.

Maybe instead of rewriting this opener every week, I’ll be a bit more efficient with my use of time and have this standard opening . . .though Boss Man saying I'm giving the notebook away for free, I see it as a way of advertising all the good stuff in the notebook, and wouldn't it be easier to have a hard copy to flip through and read at your own leisure? 

Have you got your copy of Albatross One? That is Dave Sim’s name for his first notebook used in the creation of Cerebus. If you want a copy of the notebook – and trust me, as someone who has held the actual Albatross One, it is a pretty close duplicate and looks great – you can check out this post right here. Well not this post. The one at this link. Go check it out, this post will still be here.

Please buy one so boss man stops yelling at me for "giving the store away for free". Perhaps if he sells one or two or all that he has left, he'll finally give me some PTO. Wait, why am I pushing this, boss man is on vacation. . .I should just take off. . .

And if you don’t want to buy one, you can wait as I release a couple of pages a week and check them out using the Notebook One tag. But trust me, the notebook is much much nicer then my silly little posts.

Okay, now that is done, on with this week’s Notebook One post.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

Last week we finally got to material for Cerebus #28 in Dave Sim’s first notebook used during the production of Cerebus, aka Albatross One. And now, we are down to the last four pages in Albatross One. Page #191 showed some dialogue between Suenteus Po and Cerebus about why Po would go to the eighth sphere. Down the bottom of page #191 we had this text:

Po wasn’t fooled for a minute by Cerebus’ gambit in #20 sent in men sent men in to get him in Togith after arranging distraction used Lord Julius’ influence to get him into Beduin.

This picks up on the next page of the notebook:

Notebook #1, page 192

Kept him drugged until Gorce had enough troops to defeat T’Gitans. No idea of how good a leader Cerebus would be, so they wanted him out of the way just in case prophecies of a liberator were true. 

Three aardvarks were born within a few years of each other during the Black Tower Empire. Led to collapse and death of two of them.

So here we have Dave trying to sort out what happened between issues #20 and #21. Page 188 of the notebook had a calendar for May and June of 1981. In the fall of 1981 is when Swords of Cerebus #3 is dated, which contains the story of What Happened Between Issues Twenty & Twenty-One. While there were concerns of Gorce defeating the T-Gitans, the rest of those points weren’t mentioned in the short story in Swords of Cerebus. Instead it was Astoria telling Sir Gerrick that she should take Cerebus to Bediun.

Down near the middle of the page there is talk of the Albatross, the Festival of Petunias, and more of what is on Po’s mind: who kidnapped Cerebus?

The next page of the notebook is ‘what’s on Cerebus’ mind’?

Notebook #1, page 193

About halfway down the page is the text: 

“If you’re the same Cerebus the aardvark that everyone talks about lately, you must have a great deal on your mind. It’s not everyone who gets to be Kitchen Staff Supervisor in Palnu”

“Why does everyone attach so much importance to that title”

“That was the position Lord Julius held during Lord Jefka’s Administration. Lord Neddekin’s Nediken’s Neddiken’s Lord Julius came up with the rotating beauacrcy while watching a chicken be requested on a spit. He had Alettiley been a childhood friend of"

Dave says in the AV version of High Society about the above dialogue that he couldn’t steer the conversation to that point and instead had Astoria tell Cerebus about it.

The next page doesn’t have much – if anything – to do with Cerebus #28, but appears to be Dave going back through the history of Cerebus so far and making a list of the different societies / locations that Cerebus has been though so far. Note the text at the top of the page – a reference to the Swords of Cerebus collection.

Notebook #1, page 193

Dave says about page 193 that he “then realized a) it’s already too much to distill into a page or two in any rational order b) it will soon be impossible to do and c) it doesn’t actually get the next page of the next issue written which needed to be my first priority.”

This list of items from the Cerebus series so far continues onto the final page of Albatross One:

Notebook #1, page 194

If I had to create a similar list, I don’t think I’d be writing down some of these names: Aristonnia? Palnu’s Board of Justice? Lucius? I can understand why he stopped with the list as it isn’t getting  the next issue written.

Notebook One: Cerebus #27 Part Seven

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.

Maybe instead of rewriting this opener every week, I’ll be a bit more efficient with my use of time and have this standard opening . . .though Boss Man saying I'm giving the notebook away for free, I see it as a way of advertising all the good stuff in the notebook, and wouldn't it be easier to have a hard copy to flip through and read at your own leisure? 

Have you got your copy of Albatross One? That is Dave Sim’s name for his first notebook used in the creation of Cerebus. If you want a copy of the notebook – and trust me, as someone who has held the actual Albatross One, it is a pretty close duplicate and looks great – you can check out this post right here. Well not this post. The one at this link. Go check it out, this post will still be here.

Please buy one so boss man stops yelling at me for "giving the store away for free". Perhaps if he sells one or two or all that he has left, he'll finally give me some PTO. Wait, why am I pushing this, boss man is on vacation. . .I should just take off. . .

And if you don’t want to buy one, you can wait as I release a couple of pages a week and check them out using the Notebook One tag. But trust me, the notebook is much much nicer then my silly little posts.

Okay, now that is done, on with this week’s Notebook One post.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

We’re getting closer. Only 21 pages of Dave’s first Cerebus notebook left to look at. Will we finish it before 2024 ends? Nope. Sorry. I’d blame it on boss man only giving me Thursdays to post, but something tells me he’d let me post every single day so he can take another one of his extravagant vacations. . .so nope.

Last week we ended with page 168 of notebook one, so this week we’ll start with page 170. Why?  Well, if you remember last week’s entry, we already saw pages 169 and 171 in Playing Diamondback with Onliu Freelancers. So page 170:

Notebook One, page 170

Yup, that is the Albatross. Well, not really. A preliminary sketch of the albatross. The symbols beside it? Dave sad this about them in the AV High Society: “Albatross sketch with the symbols (which I remembered from the Ben Casey TV show) for Man, Woman, Birth, Death and Infinity carved into the base.”

Then there is, as Dave put it, a lot of over plotting. Basically a list of what each fraction – Orthodox Tarimite, Cirinist, and Illusionist – think of each of the symbols. Then below that list, those same fractions answer questions about the albatross – what is it? Where is it? Who made it?

We’ll skip a page as it was Dave writing up material on the game of diamondback or Howard the Duck. So on the next page, we get more plotting for Cerebus #27 pages 4 through 6. 

Notebook One, page 172

We’ll skip pages 173 & 174. Why? Because we already saw them back in June of 2022, but as you will see, I was an idiot. I mislabeled them. Yah, yah, I go back and relabel them. At some point. But you really want to see page 175 don’t you? 

Notebook One, page 175

Oh, you said you wanted to see page 175. And that is all there is. Some random doodles and what looks like Henrot. Or maybe it is just Frank Throne. 

Come back next week for more thrilling pages like these. Or not, I’m not your supervisor.

Notebook One: Cerebus #27 Part Two

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.

Maybe instead of rewriting this opener every week, I’ll be a bit more efficient with my use of time and have this standard opening . . .though Boss Man saying I'm giving the notebook away for free, I see it as a way of advertising all the good stuff in the notebook, and wouldn't it be easier to have a hard copy to flip through and read at your own leisure? 

Have you got your copy of Albatross One? That is Dave Sim’s name for his first notebook used in the creation of Cerebus. If you want a copy of the notebook – and trust me, as someone who has held the actual Albatross One, it is a pretty close duplicate and looks great – you can check out this post right here. Well not this post. The one at this link. Go check it out, this post will still be here.

Please buy one so boss man stops yelling at me for "giving the store away for free". Perhaps if he sells one or two or all that he has left, he'll finally give me some PTO. Wait, why am I pushing this, boss man is on vacation. . .I should just take off. . .

And if you don’t want to buy one, you can wait as I release a couple of pages a week and check them out using the Notebook One tag. But trust me, the notebook is much much nicer then my silly little posts.

Okay, now that is done, on with this week’s Notebook One post.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

Yes, we’re still looking at Dave Sim’s first Cerebus notebook, Albatross One.  Why did I start this chronological look at Albatross One? I started because there were questions about the notebook in a Please Hold For Dave Sim video according to a post from last December, Albatross One - AKA Dave's First Cerebus Notebook which covers Cerebus #20 through #28, plus a few other bits and pieces. So now that we’ve been looking at Albatross One for almost a year, what have we seen? Here is the page count so far:

Notebook One, page count breakdown as of 27 Oct 24

And Manly Matt keeps asking “And she's gotta be nearing the end, right? Right?”. Yahhhh, about that. There are 194 pages scanned out of this 200 page notebook, and we’ve seen 153 of them so far. We have 41 pages to go on this journey. I don’t think we’ll finish by the end of 2024, but soon thereafter. So should we pick up where we left off?

We left off last week with page #154 and material for Cerebus #27. And that is right back where page #155 picks up. Yes, that big bird looking like thing is supposed to be The Albatross. This page gives information about the Albatross that wasn’t used – that the Albatross is a scared symbol of the Eye in the Pyramid group and used for ransom. It is released from a safe at the Regency and floated down the river in a small boat which is then picked up by the kidnappers. Some Cirinists kill the kidnappers and take the Albatross to a Cirinist church in Doveshire. Lord Julius has an agent in one of the Priestesses of this Cirinist Church and she brings it to him. 

Notebook 1, page 155

However, Dave mentions in the AV version of High Society that “it isn’t the real Albatross. The idea is that Cirinists and Kevillists embark on a ‘Mad, Mad, Mad World’ style rugby game with it, decimating their own ranks.” This plot of the Cirinists and Lord Julius vying for this Albatross was never seen in the finished comic, but it continues on in the next notebook page.

Notebook 1, page 156

Dave said this about the above page: “’Lord Julius accomplishes what he set out to do: get some major Cirinists and Orthodox Tarimites bumped off.’ The rest of the page is still plotting Cerebus getting the Albatross – but NOT knowing what it is – and the kidnappers getting murdered. I moved all of that COMPLETELY behind the scenes so that Cerebus would have this exponential rise in his perceived significance while he wouldn’t have any idea why all of the ‘major Cirinists and Orthodox Tarimites’ were getting ‘bumped off.’” 

That sketch of the odd looking guy with the big ears is another version of what Cerebus looks like according to some artist. We saw another take of Cerebus similar to this on page 139 of the notebook.

The next page of the notebook continues this same unseen plot of the Albatross as ransom:

Notebook 1, page 157

With all of this plotting, perhaps some Cerebus fan out there could take it and turn it into the Untold Tales of Estarcion. Reminiscent of Jaka’s Story, Cerebus wouldn’t be the main character – if he would appear at all. But what is happening in the world around him unbeknownst to him. 

Anyone? 

Notebook One: Cerebus #27 Part One

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.

Maybe instead of rewriting this opener every week, I’ll be a bit more efficient with my use of time and have this standard opening . . .though Boss Man saying I'm giving the notebook away for free, I see it as a way of advertising all the good stuff in the notebook, and wouldn't it be easier to have a hard copy to flip through and read at your own leisure? 

Have you got your copy of Albatross One? That is Dave Sim’s name for his first notebook used in the creation of Cerebus. If you want a copy of the notebook – and trust me, as someone who has held the actual Albatross One, it is a pretty close duplicate and looks great – you can check out this post right here. Well not this post. The one at this link. Go check it out, this post will still be here.

Please buy one so boss man stops yelling at me for "giving the store away for free". Perhaps if he sells one or two or all that he has left, he'll finally give me some PTO. Wait, why am I pushing this, boss man is on vacation. . .I should just take off. . .

And if you don’t want to buy one, you can wait as I release a couple of pages a week and check them out using the Notebook One tag. But trust me, the notebook is much much nicer then my silly little posts.

Okay, now that is done, on with this week’s Notebook One post.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

We’ve been looking at Dave Sim’s first Cerebus notebook for so long I’ve forgotten about . . .well, I can’t even remember. I do remember – because I went back and looked at the post – that last week we saw bits and pieces of material for Cerebus #26, #27, the first look at the High Society logo, and some stuff for the back up story in Swords of Cerebus #2. And those were just pages #148 – 150. What will we see on the next page, page #151? Something similar. . .

Notebook #1, page 151

There is text at the top which Dave says is “sample dialogue for ‘The Morning After’ before it became a completely silent (except for the sound effects) strip”. And the dialogue:

Clerk: Most unusual. Short grey chap just came in and brought a half-foot of fox fur. . .

Boss: What’s unusual about that?

Clerk: He rolled it up, stuck it in his mouth, chewed on it for a few seconds and spit it out.

Under all that text is a logo for Black Zeppelin, which is a Gene Day comic, and pretty close to the final logo.

Up next would be page #152, but, we’ve already looked at it, though I mistakenly called it page #151, in Out of The Depths.

So the next page up is page 153:

Notebook #1, page 153

Ahh, it looks like we are neck deep in Cerebus #27 material, and also some notes on Cerebus #28 and #29 at the top of the page. For the Cerebus #27 material, there is a sketch of a fancy cup and I’m guessing that the text “the cup of two roses” is referring to that cup. However, Dave said in the AV version of High Society: “’The Albatross’ is originally called “the Cup of Two Roses” and Cerebus asked for it specifically.” 

Dave continues on the Cerebus #27 material on this page “Instead, I had him sign the ransom note from ‘The Eye in the Pyramid’, the ‘hidden name’ of the Kevillists, which led the cash-poor Iestans to use “The Albatross” to pay the ransom, assuming the Kevillists would be more happy with the substitution. Not realizing that it was Cerebus who had no idea what the “damn duck statue” was.” 

The note on the side of the page under the cup had me chuckling: “has to learn to say “I” instead of Cerebus.”

The next page of the notebook is Dave plotting out page five of Cerebus #26:

Notebook #1, page 154

It doesn’t match up to page five in the finished Cerebus #27, but the plot point of a letter being written is part of the finished issue. Though Cerebus addresses it to the attention of the secretary of the treasury (city-state of Iest).

Dave had this to say about page 154: “Still trying to work it as if Cerebus knew what the ‘duck statue’ was instead of just using ‘The Eye in the Pyramid’ because he had a general idea that they were a Palnan revolutionary group.”

Matt messed up, but YOU can benefit!

Hi, Everybody!

Mondays!

_______________________________

Welp...I done messed up.

So, as I'm sure you are ALL aware, I'm dealing Facsimile replicas of Dave's first notebook used in the production of Cerebus, dubbed Albatross #1:

Annnnnnnndd I fucked up. Dave told ME to order the notebooks from Studio Comix Press, but I'm not comfortable spending other people's money, so I passed the buck to Eddie. And Eddie ordered the six copies I sold. Meanwhile, I faxed Dave and emailed Rolly to let them know where to mail the facsimiles, and Rolly ordered eight copies so AV would have a few on hand if more orders rolled in.

Which leads to the problem I caused, Aardvark-Vanaheim has extra Albatross #1 Facsimiles on hand and ready to ship. Where YOU can benefit, is that if you:

Send a check or international money order for One Hundred AMERICAN dollars to 

Aardvark-Vanaheim

Box 1674, Station "C"

Kitchener, Ontario

Canada N2G 4R2

OR: Go to CerebusDownloads.com and donate:

$140 CAD for the book,

a 25% upcharge because Gerhard gets 25% of all the money CerebusDownloads.com brings in. Which, in this case is $35 CAD.

Then add in shipping:

$30 CAD for shipping to the United States. 

$35 CAD for SURFACE shipping (which can take anywhere from 2 to 3 MONTHS to get there...) to anywhere outside the US and Canada.

$70 CAD for AIR MAIL shipping to anywhere outside the US and Canada It's faster, but pricy...

So, $205 CAD for an Albatross #1 Facsimile to the US.

$210 CAD for an Albatross #1 Facsimile to SURFACE MAIL outside the US and Canada.

$245 CAD for an Albatross #1 Facsimile to AIR MAIL outside the US and Canada.

Payable through CerebusDownloads.com. 

Or OR: Send an email to momentofcerebus@gmail.com titled "Albatross #1". I'll respond with where to pay me $100 USD for the book and 

(In CAN Dollars):
CAN = $ 25
USA = $ 30
Inter = $ 35 (Surface)
Inter = $ 55 (Air)

(In US Dollars):
CAN = $ 15
USA = $ 20
Inter = $ 25 (Surface)
Inter = $ 45 (Air)

for shipping, your copy will be in the mail as soon as it's packaged. 

It's the best deal I'm offering!

Come on, don't let me turn this into a The Last Day fiasco...

Rigamarole:

The AMOC TeePublic Shoppe: up to 35% off:

Your store will be up to 35% off

May 20-27.*

*Sale dates are not final and therefore subject to change.

___________________________

NEW Spawn 10 Lenticular covers from the The Waverly Press. You can click the link and get your own for $100 each.

___________________________

The Help Out Bill Messner-Loebs Go Fund Me, or buy Rodney Schroeter's book with proceeds going to Bill. 

___________________________

The Last Day Without nothing.

   "      "     "        "  Dave's signature.

   "      "     "        "  an Old Cerebus Remarque

   "      "     "     Auction catalog for the Panoramic Remarques. 

___________________________

Oliver' Simonsen's Cerebus movie: The Absurd, Surreal, Metaphysical, and Fractured Destiny of Cerebus the Aardvark it's currently available on "Plex", "Xumo", "Vimeo On Demand", "Tubi". If you're in Brazil..., "Mometu", "Nuclear Home Video".

___________________________

The Strange Death of Alex Raymond Go Fund Me.  Jen's giving away an Albatross to one lucky GoFunder. You have until May 20th to enter. Details in HER post. And if you just wanna buy an Albatross #1, here's a handy look at it, and how you can get one. 
___________________________________

Heritage has Narutobus page 13:

Click for bigger

__________________________________

Next Time: Jen's only got ONE Albatross, I'm giving EIGHT people a shot...

The Ol' AMOC Mailbag brings gifts! For ME!

Hi, Everybody!

I GOT MAIL:

Problems viewing this video? Watch directly on YouTube...

If you wanna read The Albatross deal here ya go.: How to get your very own copy of a facsimile edition of Dave's first notebook. Option 3 UPDATE: shipping is (in US dollars):

• CAN = $ 15
• USA = $ 20
• Inter = $ 25 (Surface)
• Inter = $ 45 (Air)

Rigamarole:

Our friends at The Waverly Press let me know that they have two new Spawn 10 covers. Lenticular covers! It seems that back when the initial Lenticular cover was produced, there were extra copies of the "guts" to the issue, because a number of the covers were damaged in shipping. So, they got Jim Lawson and Brookes Morris to each do a cover, and produced them in Lenticular. They're limited in quantity, and the price will gradually rise as supply sells out. (They have ONE copy of Dave's cover left, for $750(!) to give you an idea of where these two may go...) Anyway, each comes with a trading card and every order gets a bonus, including the first ever Dave Sim photo card. 

They are available RIGHT NOW!, right here, for One Hundred American Dollars!

__________________________

The AMOC TeePublic Shoppe: up to 35% off:

Your store will be up to 35% off

April 24-28.*

*Sale dates are not final and therefore subject to change.

___________________________

The Last Day Without nothing.

   "      "     "        "  Dave's signature.

   "      "     "        "  an Old Cerebus Remarque

   "      "     "     Auction catalog for the Panoramic Remarques. 

___________________________

Oliver' Simonsen's Cerebus movie: The Absurd, Surreal, Metaphysical, and Fractured Destiny of Cerebus the Aardvark it's currently available on "Plex", "Xumo", "Vimeo On Demand", "Tubi". If you're in Brazil..., "Mometu", "Nuclear Home Video".

___________________________

Next Time: More Cerebus!

Albatross 1 (Dave's first Cerebus Notebook). And the NEW way you can get one!

Hi, Everybody!

Well, I WAS gonna run the stuff Dave sent, but then there was a development in how you can get an Albatross #1...

RECAP for the slow of hearing:

Rob wanted to know if Dave would ever publish the Notebooks, and Dave had a Facsimile of the first one made and sent it to Rob, and Rob was gobsmacked and REALLY liked it, and Dave decided to sell 'em.

Then there was trouble...

Well, the new TWIST is:

SO!

Three ways to get your hands on one of these:

ONE! Send a check or international money order for One Hundred AMERICAN dollars to 

Aardvark-Vanaheim

Box 1674, Station "C"

Kitchener, Ontario

Canada N2G 4R2

TWO! Go to CerebusDownloads.com and donate:

$140 CAD for the book,

a 25% upcharge because Gerhard gets 25% of all the money CerebusDownloads.com brings in. Which, in this case is $35 CAD.

Then add in shipping:

$30 CAD for shipping to the United States. 

$35 CAD for SURFACE shipping (which can take anywhere from 2 to 3 MONTHS to get there...) to anywhere outside the US and Canada.

$70 CAD for AIR MAIL shipping to anywhere outside the US and Canada It's faster, but pricy...

So, $205 CAD for an Albatross #1 Facsimile to the US.

$210 CAD for an Albatross #1 Facsimile to SURFACE MAIL outside the US and Canada.

$245 CAD for an Albatross #1 Facsimile to AIR MAIL outside the US and Canada.

Payable through CerebusDownloads.com. 

THREE! Send an email to momentofcerebus@gmail.com titled "Albatross #1". I'll respond with where to pay me $100 USD for the book and $10 USD for shipping to the US. Or $25 USD for shipping outside US or Canada. Then at the end of the week, I'll cut a check to Dave and mail it with everybody's addresses. And in six to eight weeks, you'll own a Facsimile of Dave's first notebook.

UPDATE (4/19/2024): Rolly got back to me with shipping info:

In CAN Dollars:
CAN = $ 25
USA = $ 30
Inter = $ 35 (Surface)
Inter = $ 55 (Air)

In US Dollars:
CAN = $ 15
USA = $ 20
Inter = $ 25 (Surface)
Inter = $ 45 (Air)

So, that's the Deal!

_______________

Our friends at The Waverly Press let me know that they have two new Spawn 10 covers. Lenticular covers! It seems that back when the initial Lenticular cover was produced, there were extra copies of the "guts" to the issue, because a number of the covers were damaged in shipping. So, they got Jim Lawson and Brookes Morris to each do a cover, and produced them in Lenticular. They're limited in quantity, and the price will gradually rise as supply sells out. (They have ONE copy of Dave's cover left, for $750(!) to give you an idea of where these two may go...) Anyway, each comes with a trading card and every order gets a bonus, including the first ever Dave Sim photo card. The covers look a little something like:

Jim Lawson:

It looks weird, because this is of the actual Lenticular cover.

Here's the original art (the card'll look like this.):

Brooks Morris:

Ditto.

Original art (ditto):

They are available RIGHT NOW!, right here, for One Hundred American Dollars!

Okay, back to Bizness as unusual:

Rigamarole:

__________________________

The AMOC TeePublic Shoppe: up to 35% off:

Your store will be up to 35% off

April 13-14 and 24-28.*

*Sale dates are not final and therefore subject to change.

___________________________

Heritage has stuff. Including Narutobus: the cover and page 9:

__________________________

The Last Day Without nothing.

   "      "     "        "  Dave's signature.

   "      "     "        "  an Old Cerebus Remarque

   "      "     "     Auction catalog for the Panoramic Remarques. 

___________________________

The Help Out Bill Messner-Loebs Go Fund Me, or buy Rodney Schroeter's book with proceeds going to Bill. Speaking of Bill, Dave sent a lil' sumthing-sumthing (click for bigger):

"How DID Bill lose his right arm?" I'ma guess: when the bus driver tells you to keep your arms INSIDE the school bus, you'd better G*D*MN LISTEN!!!

___________________________

Oliver' Simonsen's Cerebus movie: The Absurd, Surreal, Metaphysical, and Fractured Destiny of Cerebus the Aardvark it's currently available on "Plex", "Xumo", "Vimeo On Demand", "Tubi". If you're in Brazil..., "Mometu", "Nuclear Home Video".

___________________________

Next Time: INCOMING! 

Look Up "Stone"

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.

It was just last January in Planning Issue 43 that we saw two pages from Dave Sim’s fourth Cerebus notebook. The notebook covers Cerebus #41 through 44 and had 99 pages out of 108 pages scanned.

Skimming through it I thought I saw a familiar statue:

Notebook #4, page 92

Well, perhaps not too familiar. It is a bit different then the one that appears in the pages of Cerebus. There is also some text that goes along with the statue:

Albatross it was predicted in the holy books of Tarim a thousand years ago that the albatross would find its way to the heart of Iest just before the Exodus Inward. That the one who finds it will be able to unite the Eastern and Western Churches under a single banner. But only so long as the Exodus Inward lasts – be it one century . . .or a thousand centuries.

An aardvark could change a lot of history in a century.

Or a thousand?

Heh. Or a thousand.

The crossed-out bit says: “If it isn’t found, folks are just going to keep looking for it. With the Eastern Church”.

The text of the top of the page reads like Lord Storm’send, aka the WuffaWuffa Guy.