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.
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:
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.
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.
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For a while we’ve been looking at pages from Dave Sim’s first Cerebus notebook, which you probably figured out from the above intro which lets you know how you can get a physical copy of your own. And for nearly the last month those pages have covered Cerebus #24. Much of this material wasn’t used, and with the past couple of weeks we’re seeing more and more material that was used.
Last week we saw the material that starts the issue, the conversation between Cerebus and the girls at the school. And if you remember from last week we could see some drawing on the back side of page 103. Well, it is a drawing of Woman Thing:
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| Notebook 1, page 104 |
At the top of the page, Dave indicates that pages 1 - 5 of Cerebus #24 is “Playing cards with the girls. Madame shouts for them. Sound outside. He sits bolt upright listening. ‘I don’t know what you mean M’sieu’”. This isn’t our first look at Woman Thing, which originally showed up on page 96.
The following page of the notebook has some more plot points for Cerebus #24:
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| Notebook 1, page 105 |
The talk of the rain and hearing unknown noises in it with the girls saying it is nothing makes up the next part of Cerebus #24 after the discussion between Cerebus and the girls which we saw on page #103 of the notebook. However, the dialogue on this page doesn’t end up on the finished pages. There are a few bits on the next notebook page which do make it.
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| Notebook 1, page 106 |
The text at the top of the page: “The most ridiculous part was the fact that they denied hearing anything – it was impossible not to hear that slurping noise. If they had even just made up a plausible lie ‘on that Estarcion freestyle mud-wrestling and integral part of the island’s out. It’s true we’ve been taking madame’s pet hippo out every night to tinkle.’” And then Dave wrote ‘end page 7'.
Well, that text, in part, shows up on page 5 of the issue: “If they had had a hand in it, they would have offered a story – however implausible. ‘That? Oh – that ‘s Estarcion mud wrestling – an integral part of our curriculum. Didn’t we tell you? That’s madame’s pet hippo – Theresa takes him out when he has to tinkle.’ Whatever it was, it was big, and probably sorcerous in origin. . .’and that’ thought the earth-pig ‘could mean trouble.’”
How many pages are left of Cerebus #24 material are there? A few. I’m surprised we haven’t seen any High Society material showing up yet. It is only a couple of issues away. So what is up next week? If you guessed more of notebook #1, then you are correct.
