Today is the penultimate issue of CLEAN ROOM (for now!).This has been the project I am probably the...

Today is the penultimate issue of CLEAN ROOM (for now!).

This has been the project I am probably the most proud of. I feel it’s not really like anything else on the stands.

I cannot thank the people who worked on it enough. Without their brilliance and dedication, it would just be me scratching illegible words on the side of a chicken coop somewhere in Des Moines.

Thank you so, so, so much to Shelly Bond, who was our greatest champion for this book and provided daily inspiration, thank you to Rowena Yow for holding the lifeline.

Thank you to one of my favorite editors, one of the industry’s real hidden gems, Molly Mahan. I loved working with her on Red Sonja so much I stalked her until she moved to Vertigo to edit this book. Thank you to the wonderful Jamie Rich, who always tells the truth and I love him for it, and Margarita Howell, who is just incredibly reliable and encouraging and lovely.

Thank you to Quinton Winters, who brought just a deadly and subtle color sense to our book, that’s brought extra meaning and depth to everything.

Thank you to Todd Klein, how we got the best letterer in comics, I will never know.

And the three artistic wonder children, I cannot thank these people enough. This has not been a normal book, and these three brought every weird tool in their weird toolbox to make you unsettled.

Jenny Frison. I am proud to say I knew she was a superstar long before most. I fell in love with her work the first time I saw it, in Chicago, many years ago. I knew she could kill a cover, I didn’t know she could do what she did with CLEAN ROOM. She should get an Eisner. She should get ALL the Eisners.

Jon Davis-Hunt. I love this guy. Jon was making great money working on video games and quit that to devote his time to CLEAN ROOM. As the initial artist, he set the tone and designed the look of everything, and when anyone else on the team was tired, Jon would write a letter and sign it BOOOOOM! and we couldn’t help but be happy. One of the best artists I’ve ever worked with and I may forgive Warren Ellis for stealing him one day, possibly around the year 3283.

Walter Geovani. Another person stolen from our Red Sonja run. Walter stepped into an impossible task, following a brilliant artist on a book he designed. But because Walter is Walter, and talented beyond words, he made it work, and every page was a delightful revelation. I have a lot of artists I love working with, but some seem to have a direct line to the sad weird landscape of my brain’s interior, and Walter is one of those guys. Just the best.

I’m sure I’m forgetting someone. I want to say that I’ve had a huge blast on this book, I hope we’re not done for good. And thank you so much to Vertigo for being so great and supportive.

Hopefully, more Astrid and Killian and Spark and Chloe and Haverlins and Duncan and Capone and Entities to come!

THANK YOU ALL!