SKOTTIE YOUNG AND JORGE CORONA
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DF Interview: Skottie Young and Jorge Corona combine horror with romance in ‘The Me You Love in the Dark’ By Byron Brewer An artist named Ro retreats from the grind of the city to an old house in a small town to find solace and inspiration without realizing the muse within is not what she expected. Fans of Stephen King and Neil Gaiman will enjoy this beautiful, dark and disturbing story of discovery, love and terror. Writer Skottie Young (Deadpool, Strange Academy) and artist Jorge Corona (Super Sons, Feathers) follow up their critically-acclaimed series Middlewest with a brand-new haunting tale, The Me You Love in the Dark. I wanted to get the full 411 for this horrific mag, so I sat down with Skottie and Jorge to do just that. Byron Brewer: Skottie and Jorge, after the amazing journey that was Middlewest, how does it feel to be re-teamed on a dark but far more intimate tale like The Me You Love in the Dark? Skottie Young: It’s great. Working with Jorge is such a blast. We have such a smooth, easy creative relationship so cooking up new ideas while we wrapped up Middlewest was a breeze. Jorge Corona: If it hadn’t been for 2020 and all that came with it, it would have been even more seamless. The last issue of Middlewest was barely out as we had already drafted this new idea. We just wanted to keep working together and I couldn’t have been more excited about it! BB: Skottie, take us back and tell about the genesis of this new voyage into the macabre for Jorge and yourself. Skottie Young: I had finished writing Middlewest and Jorge was finishing the last few issues. We both knew we wanted to work together again right away so I drove out to Denver to stay with him for a week so we could toss around some ideas for our next project. We’d wake up everyday, head out for breakfast, coffee and start brainstorming. By the evening, we’d end up at bar where we were still just listing everything that popped in our head. Near the end of the week, we had focused in on a few genres that we were really wanting to tackle, two of which were a horror story and a love story. Eventually we decided instead of deciding which to do first, we would combine them. We came up with some loose framework then I went off and spent the next week in a old, creepy rental house alone and wrote the whole thing. BB: Tell readers a bit of what this new 5-issue limited series is about. Skottie Young: It’s about an artist trying to find something that will inspire her to push her art in new directions. She leaves the trappings of the city and rents an old house where she hopes to create the paintings for her next gallery show. She finds more in the house than just inspiration. She finds…something else. I’ll let the book explain itself beyond that. BB: Tell us about the artist Ro, her latest purchase, and the “muse” she finds within. E.g.: Give readers a elevator pitch for the book. Skottie Young: Ro is a painter who has become a little bored with her own work. She feels like it’s too safe and she wants to find a new visual voice. Her last purchase was a case of wine as a paint cleaner. I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever thought about the elevator pitch for this. I tend to call it a love/horror story and that’s accurate. But maybe it’s more of a relationship story. Which kind of can contain love and horror at the same time. If I had to be silly about it, you could call it The Haunting of Notting Hill House. Ha ha. BB: Jorge, I think you once told me that you love designing characters. Did you do so for The Me You Love in the Dark? Jorge Corona: To a more limited amount, yes. This book had only two main characters and a supportive one. The hard part was to both come up with a character design for Ro that was obviously more relatable and real than any of the characters people were used to seeing in Middlewest and a creature design in the inhabitant of the house who’s definition on paper was “undefined”, ha ha. A lot of the early development was actually spent working on designing the house. more so than the “human” characters. The house was going to be a constant during the story that required it to have as much attention put into its details as almost anything else. BB: Was there a character or set piece that was difficult or, conversely, was there a certain scene or some acting of a character that you absolutely loved illustrating? Jorge Corona: I think the creature was the hardest one to get to but also the most satisfying to get on the pages. Like I said, it had characteristics that kept it ethereal and all-present but, as the story progresses, it develops more human characteristics and its interactions with Ro become almost mundane. Without spoiling too much, it was hard to find that balance of eeriness that it needed in order to make the reader feel unease but at the same time showing that appeal that Ro discovers in the creature. BB: Tell readers how you use your artist’s toolbox to establish, change and keep going the mood of the book in all its shades. A fascinating aspect of your storytelling ability, I must say, Jorge. Jorge Corona: Right off the bat, this was a very different book from Middlewest and, even though I thought I was already “messy” with my inking in that book, The Me You Love in the Dark pushed me to get my hands, and a couple of other new tools, dirty. It felt really like an expansion of things that I was experimenting with before but was too scared to bring fully into the process. I can tell there were a lot of sponges and china markers used in this book. I wanted to create a sense of unfinishedness, to hide in dark black splatters the true nature of things. I’m really proud of how it came out, it is definitely the farthest I have gotten from my comfort zone. BB: Jorge and Skottie, what other upcoming projects can you tell readers about? Skottie Young: We have some lined up but still too early to tease them out. In the meantime, don’t forget to grab your Middlewest: The Complete Tale, a hardcover collection of our entire Middlewest series. Jorge Corona: Since The Me You Love in the Dark is almost done already, I had some time to work on some superhero stuff that should be announced soon and I’m very excited for, as well as future projects with Skottie. But like he said, the hardcover collection of Middlewest is just around the corner and it’s honestly a gorgeous edition. Dynamic Forces would like to thank Skottie Young and Jorge Corona for taking time out of their busy schedules to answer our questions. The Me You Love in the Dark #1 from Image Comics is slated to be on sale August 4th! For more news and up-to-date announcements, join us here at Dynamic Forces, www.dynamicforces.com/htmlfiles/, “LIKE” us on Facebook, www.facebook.com/dynamicforcesinc, and follow us on Twitter, www.twitter.com/dynamicforces. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #49 (LEGACY #850) SKOTTIE YOUNG VARIANT CGC GRADED! X-MEN: BLUE #1 SKOTTIE YOUNG VARIANT ULTRA-LIMITED BLUE SIGNATURE SERIES SIGNED BY CULLEN BUNN DEATHLOK #1 SKOTTIE YOUNG VARIANT ULTRA-LIMITED EDITION SIGNED BY NATHAN EDMONDSON! SPIDER-MAN 2099 #1 SKOTTIE YOUNG VARIANT GOLD SIGNATURE SERIES SIGNED BY PETER DAVID! DEATH OF WOLVERINE #1 SKOTTIE YOUNG RETAILER INCENTIVE VARIANT CGC GRADED 9.8! ROCKET RACCOON #1 - SKOTTIE YOUNG RETAILER VARIANT COVER SIGNED BY SKOTTIE YOUNG! ELEKTRA #1 RARE RETAILER VARIANT COVER BY SKOTTIE YOUNG CGC GRADED 9.8! MIRACLEMAN #1 FIRST PRINTING SKOTTIE YOUNG RETAILER VARIANT CGC GRADED 9.8!
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