Forget Me Not

"Howell debuts with a collection of darkly poetic vignettes that use the aesthetic of Victorian-era children’s books to capture personal riffs on such contradictions as strength vs. vulnerability, visibility vs. privacy, and artistic creation vs. suffering. These play out through four doll-like young girls named Complications, Heartache, Rebellion, and Commitment. The fifth major character is a shrouded figure who represents death, self-doubt, isolation, and mental anguish. Howell’s elegant black-and-white drawings depict the girls grimly engaging in childish horseplay, driven by a narrative that pokes at romanticized views of insecurity, suffering, and visibility. One drawing represents the girls hanging around a tree, with caption boxes stating, “Self proclaimed broken people can paint beautiful pictures.... I don’t want to know pain just to find meanings.” Elsewhere, Howell insists that being strong takes its toll: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? I don’t want to be brave again and again.” Eventually, the girls engage the shrouded figure in a fight to the death, with the suggestion that they are destined to do this repeatedly. Art comics aficionados will find much to appreciate in Howell’s edgy, Gothic vision." - Publishers Weekly

"Like a cherished keepsake rebelling against the cruelties of an online auction, the wayward waifs of Howell’s porcelain landscape are forced to fight their way through splintered selfhood in a broken world. Vulnerable and scrappy, wistful and ferocious, Forget Me Not is a sharp pinch in a tender place" — Edie Fake, author of Gaylord Phoenix

"Forget Me Not captures the painful balance of nakedness, shame, dread, loneliness, and anger that drives those of us who make our living from the curiosity and hunger of the public." — Carta Monir, author of Secure Connect