When Skottie Young co-created Middlewest alongside artist Jorge Corona, it felt like an extension of what Young was previously doing, which is applying edgy fairy tales to comic book storytelling, whether it is his adaptations of L. Frank Baum’s Oz books, or his creator-owned I Hate Fairyland. After 18 issues of Middlewest, which was a successful mixture of Americana and outlandish fantasy, Young and Corona’s latest venture for Image takes a more haunted approach.
The Me You Love in the Dark centers on an artist named Ro, who retreats from the grind of the city to an old house in a small town, hoping to find solace and inspiration. With no luck coming up for any new work, and some friendly pressure from her agent, a ghostly presence within the house becomes the unlikely muse for Ro to paint something, forming a relationship that starts off as a friendship, but leading to something sinister.
If you’re well-versed in the haunted house chiller, it will come as no surprise how this all pans out as there are always certain beats you come to expect from this sub-genre. What stands out about this particular title is how it takes its time throughout its five issues. Although you can say the characterization is rather cold in that we don’t get any backstory about Ro or any dramatic reason for her staying in the old house, you’ll still enjoy the company of this lonely figure who is more about her work, even if she struggles to produce new art.
We don’t get any backstory about the ghost (in fact, we don’t even learn his name), but his relationship with Ro takes some interesting directions. During their initial interactions, there is some levity, not least with Ro’s insistence on only watching Richard Curtis movies. As the romance blooms, the cracks begin to appear, and though you can see the ghost influencing Ro to remain in the household, I would argue that it is a toxic relationship that brings out the worst in each other, in how one’s actions and behavior can motivate the other’s own.
Much like how Middlewest was able to explore parental abuse through its hybrid setting, The Me You Love in the Dark feels more intimate and mature, showing the dark side of an adult romance. This is not to diminish Young’s excellent writing, but Corona steals the show with so much of the book — his visuals give you the sense of how his cartoonish characters are feeling and the chilling atmosphere they are inhabiting. Given that the story is about an artist, Corona’s art, along with Jean-Francois Beaulieu’s coloring, honors that with an emphasis on brush strokes, which is cleverly used to convey the sound of a vinyl track, as well as the shifting appearances of the ghost himself.
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