The Me You Love in the Dark

Rowena “Ro” Meadows is an artist who’s in a slump right now.  Where creating imaginative paintings used to come natural to her, she now struggles to put paint to canvas.  Which is why she’s decided it’s time for a change of scenery and has decided to take up residence in a supposedly haunted house.  Unfortunately the silence, and a whole lot of wine, isn’t doing much for her.  Not until she finds out that her house is actually haunted.  The thing is that the spirit haunting this place doesn’t come off as the malevolent kind.  It just wants to get to know Ro better after having spent the past few weeks observing her.  Ro is similarly curious about this spirit and indulges its curiosity.  Then one thing leads to another and…

…well, you know how these things go and “The Me You Love in the Dark” is no different.  Writer Skottie Young is best known for his art on various issues and untold “Young Marvel” covers at Marvel and “I Hate Fairyland” at Image.  While the art on that series was always a joy to behold, the writing never measured up and that’s true here.  That’s mainly because Ro and the spirit’s romantic arc follows a wholly conventional path that offers no surprises to counter the predictable nature of its story.  No, you haven’t seen this kind of story done with a spirit before, but that doesn’t make it any more interesting.

Young doesn’t provide the art, however, as that falls to his “Middlewest” collaborator Jorge Corona.  There’s no denying that the artist does a good job of selling the creepy look of the series as the house looks appropriately foreboding.  He manages the gradually shifting tones of the series as curiosity gives way to romance, which gives way to terror.  The volume looks good overall, but the whole package isn’t good enough to warrant the favorable comparison to the works of Stephen King and Neil Gaiman it advertises on the back cover.