Ro is really trying to work, but it’s challenging. Maybe the otherworldly inhabitant of her house might be able to help her out with a little bit of inspiration in The Me You Love in the Dark #2. Writer Skottie Young explores some of the energies of the unknown in a supernatural mystery romance brought to the page by artist Jorge Corona. Jean-Francois Beaulieu adds deftly-placed colors to the page in those places not touched by the darkness of Corona’s inking. The moody mystery continues to find a stylish connection to page and panel in the second issue of the series.

Ro moved into anan ostensibly haunted house with the idea of getting away from the happiness of her usual work. She’s an artist. She wants to do darker things. She wants to do something more real. And so, she is looking for inspiration in a retreat in a classy, old house. She hasn’t quite gotten the solitude that she might have been expecting. There is an inhabitant of the house who would prefer her not to think of himself as a ghost. She doesn’t know what else to think of him as. And she’s beginning to wonder whether or not she is ever truly able to be alone in the house. He seems nice enough, though. He might be able to help her, but how can she be truly alone in the bathtub or the bedroom? This isn’t exactly a normal relationship.

The strange relationship between a young woman and a non-corporeal spirit has obvious romantic overtones that seem to be much more compelling than much of the horror-romance genre has been able to manage. It may not be terribly original to have a woman falling in love with a supernatural entity. Still, Young has been careful enough to keep the romance developing slowly in the course of the first couple of issues. There seems to be a strong desire to move away from cliche, but there exists the danger of things veering off into Patrick Swayze-and-Demi-Moore-at-a-pottery-wheel territory if Young isn’t careful.

There’s a very still kind of silence about the First issue that has bled into the second. It has a powerful feel about it. The chapter wouldn’t look nearly as compelling were it not for the fact that Corona is really good at developing a personality for the house that Ro has moved into. Corona is given a great deal of space with which to render the world the house. It has a very dignified look about it from another era. Young has allowed him a tremendous amount of freedom in rendering mood and emotion without any dialogue. Beaulieu gives the page a hazy radiance in and around the shadows and the darkness. 

There’s a kind of fearlessness with the pacing of the series. Young and Corona are taking this one very, very slowly, which is a huge improvement over the lurching nature of the type of work that they’d done in Middlewest. There’s no huge ensemble and massive, sprawling world here. There’s one woman...one ghost and one house. And that’s all they really need to develop what’s becoming a really entertaining supernatural romance.

Grade: A