Help to realize the Picture Book of Lilim!!

About the project

A picture book "The story of Lilim"

I would like produce a picture storybook, that is not for little kids, but written for teenagers and young adults.

I came up with the concept several years ago and have thought about it for long time. I now feel it is now the right time to realize it.

The pictures are mainly in black and white, and drawn with pens.

Visually, it is in the style of Japanese comics mixed withGerman Expressionism, like Edward Gorey or Tim Burton. The atmosphere can be likened to the world of Edger Allan Poe.

So a little bit gloomy and strange, but also funny and lovely; after my visual Motto "biting sweet".

The Theme of the story is maternal love and change of the character's heart.

The Story

This is the story of a little girl called “Lilim”.

Lilim is not a human being, she lives in a different world to the one we live in. 

Her father works relentlessly each day, as a collector of the human souls, and she (almost) always accompanies her father when he comes to this world to do his job, as she has already lost her mother.

One day, when she was accompanying the father as usual, but this time they get separated.

A strange girl from another world, landed in London at the end of the 19th century. Humans get horrified by her appearance and try to attack her.

A lady comes to her rescue,  when she looked her up, her face looked very similar to the portrait of her mother, which hangs at her home...

The Book

The book will be DIN A4 size (Landscape), Hardcover

32 (or 36?) pages in Black & White + little bit red.

Language : English

About me and What I need.

I, the author of this book, am Emiko Takano. I was born in Tokyo, Japan. I graduated from the University of Art in Germany and have worked as a freelance illustrator since then (also in Germany).  

To tell you the reason why I am asking for the support on this website, firstly, I must explain the current state of the art and design profession field here in Germany. 

In Germany It is very difficult for a freelance illustrator to obtain a sufficient income to sustain a stable life. 

It is particularly difficult for many novice illustrators and designers, who just graduated from art school to get a first job. It is thought that the reason for that is the overly cautious stance of corporate customers, publishers and agents, who buy the illustrations and design.

German publishers and companies, especially the large ones, are overly cautious, in other words very passive, about their businesses. They are reluctant to hire (use) a new illustrator unless they are absolutely convinced that it will be commercially successful.  This makes particularly hard for the novice illustrators to get into the field. Unless the illustrator has won a well-known award when he or she was a student, it takes between 2-3 years before an illustrator can get their first paying job. Many friends from art college have given up along the way and became office workers, retail assistants, housewives, etc. The current state is extremely hard for the young creators to have chance to develop their careers and many of them are forced to take another career path to earn an income to sustain themselves. 

Although an illustrator could imagine stories alone, and create graphic novels or picture books, if the creations were a little unique, and not in a main-stream style, they will not be purchased by the publishers, as the German publishers do not do any business unless they are sure it will sell.

As a result, Japanese manga and “weird” american comics (such as Lenore and Emily the strange) took a lot longer to get published in Germany, compared to other european countries - such as France or Italy.

There are some illustrators who start up a small publisher themselves and produce high quality books, but those books would hardly be seen by the general public, and only known among the insiders. 

This condition leads to the German illustration industry as a whole to be even more tedious and less interesting. As the publishers and companies only take the “safe bet,” i.e. by hiring only known veteran illustrators, outsourcing them from the other countries, or buying the copyright, Germany is now flooded with the same old illustrations. Even if some interesting ones come up, they often come from abroad. 

On the other hand, there are times when new and young illustrators get hired abruptly. Most of the time, however, it is because they can be used “cheaply”. It is not because they wanted to hire the particular illustrator, but rather to take advantage of novice illustrators who have no knowledge of copyrights and average pricing. In these cases, the illustrator is to fully comply with the style that the publisher wants. The quality of the work would often be put aside. And the illustrator would be over-worked on very low wages and treated like a machine. If the illustrator requests better treatment, the response would be that “there are plenty of others”. I also have had a similar experience. 

So those illustrators, who want to try something different, or to stick to their own style, find it extremely hard to develop their careers, even if they are very competent.  I find this current situation surrounding the illustrators in this country to be extremely disappointing and must be changed. 

In America, in that respect, that there is a spirit that even if it is a little different, people, not only the publishers and corporations, want to have a try. So this is the reason why I wanted to ask the support on this wonderful website. 

Why €6,000?

- €2000: To produce 500 copies of the hard cover book in Germany

- €1500: Shipping fee, wrapping materials and other stuff to ship the books

- The rest: To manage the life of me and my family, including my young, 3-year-old daughter for 3-4 months while I work on the book project (The average income of the German is monthly €2,000. I am working on the project already for 3 month and the book is still only 60% done!).

What you get

The goal of this project is to produce the book and to have shipped the book to the supporters.

This page will update regularly with the latest news involved the book project and the artist. So keep watching it!

At the moment I don't know if this project will be sold or distributed outside of indiegogo.com.

Of course I will try to ask publishers to produce the book from them but, as I already explained, it will be not so easy.

So if you want the book, just get it now!

Support Levels

- €5 Thank you in the Book

Your name will be onto the thank you page as a Supporter of the book

- €10 A digital version of the book

- €15 A signed book inclusive shipping fee (ONLY Europa)

- €20 A signed book inclusive shipping fee (out of Europa)

- €30 A signed book (incl. shipping) + a sketch of the main character

of the book on a postcard sized paper with your name.

- €50 A signed book (incl. shipping) + a personalized drawing

a original drawing of your favorite character

- €100 A signed book (incl. shipping) + all the digital drawing data

- €300 A signed book (incl. shipping) + an original Portrait of you or character of your choice

Other Ways You can Help

 Share, Tweet, Link, Reblog, The indiegogo share tools avobe. Any positive thought can help too!