Death and the Maiden

By Eva Müller

A little girl with a strict catholic upbringing confronts her fear of death in the most disturbing of ways.

An elderly woman dies lonely.

After years apart, a brother and sister meet again at their father’s funeral.

A punk girl learns that she is not immortal.

For my Graphic Novel “In the future we are dead” I tell very personal stories that reflect my own fear of death.

Yes, you read that right, I fear death and still made a whole book about it.

My personal relationship with death is drenched with ambivalence.

Death is my biggest fear.

I don’t want death near me.

Death is not beautiful or romantic to me.

Yet, a lot of my energy comes from death.

I have a real obsession with death.

As an artist nearly everything I create is somehow connected to it. So it felt right to dedicate my final art school project to it. The outcome is this graphic novel.

This comic is me attempting to confront my fear.

My relationship with mortality changed as I worked on this comic. I have laid to rest many of my fears because of it.

“In the future we are dead” also deals with: childhood, sexuality, religion, fears, queers, politics, punk, psychoanalysis and family drama.

The stories I tell autobiographical traits, I grew up in the catholic hinterland of deep southwest Germany. Catholic life meant that death was a constant topic. As a result, I became scared to die as a kid. I attempt to explore how younger people deal with their mortality and the anxiety of knowing everybody they love will die. I don’t set out to ‘cure’ the fear of dying but through my own experiences and emotions hope to offer different ways of facing death.

Read an excerpt on “In the future we are dead”

You can support this venture by pre-ordering my book via this Kickstarter – there are just 7 days left to go! Some great rewards are available to you, including customised dance macabre style portraits and original artwork.

If my words have not yet inspired you to pledge, perhaps my artwork will…

 

Eva Müller studied illustration in Hamburg, Germany. In her opinion punk is dead, but the attitude is still very much alive. She is afraid of death, but can’t stop drawing it all the time. Driven by contradictions like that, she created the graphic novel “In the future we are dead”, which is already published in Germany. With your help the graphic novel is gonna be released in April 2018 in the U.S. version by Birdcage Bottom Books.