When hints were dropped last year that artist Daniel Krall was going to be following ONE PLUS ONE with a brand-new project all his own, his fans instantly started to buzz about the possibilities. Oni Press will put the speculation to rest this July, publishing FOLLOW ME CLOSELY as an original graphic novel. Promising a cool retro look and a European adventure starring assassins and the idle rich, FOLLOW ME CLOSELY will be Krall’s true emergence as a cartoonist.
“FOLLOW ME CLOSELY has a lot of great elements that are just so Daniel,” Oni Press editor in chief Jamie S. Rich said. “There’s the cool fashion, the gorgeous backgrounds, cute girls and disaffected men.” The story follows two parallel lives: Julian, the rich kid with nothing to do, and Ben, the private detective looking to track him down. When Julian becomes embroiled with Sadie, an assassin hired to kill him, it takes both of the men down paths that they’ve never expected, leading them to very different choices. “What impressed me most is that with all these variables, Daniel didn’t lose sight of where he was going. You often expect a first time writer to stumble more, but when I finished reading the script, I was so excited that he actually had an ending there. He gives the reader a solid conclusion, which is something I think is often lacking in comics these days.”
“The story has evolved organically,” Krall said. “Initially, it was a story of Julian searching for more to life and finding it in spades, but as I wrote, his character didn’t surprise me nearly as much as Sadie and Ben. So, the narrative I had about one person’s journey became about the journey of three people, and it ended up much richer than expected.”
For the art, fans can expect the same influences on Krall’s work as they did in ONE PLUS ONE and his MADMAN short story in last summer’s special. “I have a background in fashion illustration,” Krall said, “and I think you can definitely see it in how I dress my characters, how I pose them. ONE PLUS ONE was very urban, though. It was more of a crime project and took place in the dingy shadows. FOLLOW ME CLOSELY allows me to draw from European comics and ’60s spy movies.”
“Daniel has created one of the greatest title sequences in comics,” Rich added. “It’s very cinematic. James Lucas Jones is mad at me, because I think it beats even Bryan O’Malley’s title pages in LOST AT SEA. It’s going to be a new competition at Oni-who can give us the best credits pages.”
FOLLOW ME CLOSELY vol. 1 is a 104 page trade paperback, featuring black-and-white story and art, printed at digest size. It ships to comic book stores on July 21, 2004, and retails for $9.95. The ISBN for the graphic novel is 1-929998-93-7. It’s suggested for mature readers.
Follow Me Closely is ? & © 2004 Daniel Krall. Oni Press logo and icon are ? & © 2004 Oni Press, Inc. All rights reserved. Oni Press logo and icon artwork created by Dave Gibbons.
