Sometimes you get a creative team that just clicks. One that seems so perfect together that you can’t even imagine them working with anyone else. The work they make together just seems perfect. Like your Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips. Stories that are just magic. It’s even more magical when it’s more than just a writer and artist, when it’s a whole complement of creators on more than one project. I feel that way about Skottie Young, Jorge Corona, Jean-Francois Beaulieu, and Nate Piekos.
There have only been three projects so far, but, man, have they been incredible. It started with the coming-of-age light fantasy series Middlewest, one of the best all ages book in the past decade, feeling like a blend of Ray Bradbury, L. Frank Baum, Pinocchio, steampunk, and The Talisman to me. And most recently the weird western Ain’t No Grave. Further showing that they can hop genres and keep telling compelling, intriguing stories.
But what I want to focus on here is their second collaboration, that proved that Middlewest wasn’t a fluke. The thought-provoking horror romance, The Me You Love in the Dark.
“What good is a haunted house if it doesn’t give any quality haunting?!”
The series tells the story of Ro, an artist looking for inspiration in unusual places. Buying up a house purported to be haunted to give her the push for a new round of paintings. What she finds is so much more than a haunting, developing into a relationship with an eldritch abomination. Even if we’re not entirely sure what the thing in the dark really is. Not knowing actually helps enable what I feel like the story is an allegory for.
While the story absolutely operates within the gothic romance framework, utilizing forbidden love themes and forms of the monster sex sub-genre, it also can be seen as a tale of an abusive relationship. One that starts out a bit awkward, goes through a halcyon honeymoon period, then starts to sour. We can see love bombing and manipulation through some of Ro’s favourite things, although from her perspective at the time, it’s romantic. It’s only later that it becomes more apparent that the thing is controlling, abusive, and keeping her away from the outside world.
There’s an ingenious bit in Jorge Corona’s design for the thing, in that we see a monster. A horrible thing with impossible angles, a lack of symmetry, eyes everywhere, and yet in Ro’s art, there’s a fanciful, if not handsome, depiction. It leans in to the idea that either love is blind or that we see what we want to see. All of which transforms later when the relationship sours and the horrible reality of the situation hits her like a tonne of bricks.
Through all of this, there’s a bit of Skottie Young’s sense of humour shining through. With a few barbs and ironic situations to lighten the dark subject matter a bit.
“Yes, I know. Just an ancient oldy-old thing that doesn’t understand all of the layers that are me.”
I feel like Jorge Corona doesn’t get heralded enough. He’s getting more accolades now working on Transformers, but his work for at least the last decade has been stellar. He has an angular, exaggerated style, somewhat in the vein of Humberto Ramos, and it’s incredibly adaptable to various subject matter. As evidenced even just in his collaborations with Young and Co. His design sense for characters is phenomenal and the attention to detail in the architecture and in-story paintings, adjusting his style to suit Ro’s artwork, elevates the story further. Coupled with Jean-Francois Beaulieu’s beautiful colours, it too changing depending on the lighting of the scene and more, and this is just a gorgeous, haunting book. The team also would be missing a leg without Nate Piekos’ lettering. The unique, almost ephemeral darkness to the thing’s word balloons helps add character to it with just a look.
Whether you just want an entertaining horror romance story, or if you’re into reading it a bit deeper, The Me You Love in the Dark from Young, Corona, Beaulieu, and Piekos is another bit of magic from this creative team. From fantasy to horror to western, they seem to be able to pivot to new and exciting forms of storytelling each time and I’m excited to see where they go next. I highly recommend coming along for the ride.
Classic Comic Compendium: THE ME YOU LIVE IN THE DARK
The Me You Love in the Dark
Writer: Skottie Young
Artist: Jorge Corona
Colourist: Jean-Francois Beaulieu
Letterer: Nate Piekos of Blambot
Publisher: Image Comics
Release Date: March 2, 2022
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