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.
Dave Sim’s Notebook #3 used to be called notebook #2a. That is because when I scanned them in, I got Albatross 1, Albatross 2, Albatross 4, Albatross 5, and this notebook that wasn’t labeled. I didn’t get them from Dave all at once. He handed off Albatross 1 and 2 to me at a convention, and mailed the others a couple at a time. So I can’t remember when I got this notebook that didn’t have an Albatross number on it, but it was the first one.
The first page of this first non-albatross titled notebook starts with issue 37. The notebook goes to issue #41, which is where Albatross 4, starts off. Yup, this notebook must’ve been the untitled albatross 3.
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| Notebook #3, page 1 |
About this page, Dave said:
“I wanted to bring in Suenteus Po at first instead of Bran Mak Mufin. Not THE Suenteus Po, but A Suenteus Po – the name Suenteus Po for illusionists is like the name Muhammad for Muslims – who would claim to be THE Suenteus Po (they do that a lot).”
The text on the page says “Cerebus pulling
things energy out of his head exercise. Started doing something interesting besides it wasn’t much of a feud.”
Dave says about the next part:
“Tells story of Prime Minister [Suenteus Po the Regency Elf] had a feud with and all the weird shit he did to get rid of her.
[Cerebus: Was that you?]
Po: I know the incident to which you are referring. I am afraid the answer is no. That was the senior administrator of [my] own discipline in Togith. He is somewhat. . .extravagant. . .in this application of my theories of narcotic as
Dave says that is as far as he got with that Po bit. He said the other dialogue was Astoria asking Cerebus:
Astoria: Where the hell have you been? Did you know the Prime Minister waited
four and one half hours until after midnight for you to come back?
Astoria: What have you got in your hand?
Cerebus: swo…
Astoria: What?
Cerebus: A. . .Cerebus’. . .Cerebus’. . .
Cerebus: . . .sword.
Astoria: Well – put – it – down. . .
But that dialogue never happened in Cerebus #37. Instead we get 3 pages of Astoria berating Cerebus after he returns with his sword after talking with Jaka.
