Author: Michael Witthaus

At 24th Granite State Comicon, downtown’s role grows

Chris Proulx is already planning next year’s Granite State Comicon, even though this year’s doors haven’t opened yet.

“It’s a lot of work, and sometimes a lot of crazy coordinating,” Proulx, who opened Double Midnight Comics in 2003 and held the inaugural Granitecon that year as a one-room comic book show, said in a recent Zoom interview.

It’s grown into its 24th edition, happening in Manchester Sept. 18 through Sept. 20 at the DoubleTree Hotel and SNHU Arena. With next year marking the event’s 25th anniversary, Proulx is already promising “some big things.” This year’s edition leans into an idea that’s been building since the state’s biggest arena joined the fun three years ago.

“We’ve kind of been working on making Manchester the third venue,” Proulx said. “How do we keep the fun going while we can expand things?” The answer has been letting downtown businesses in on the action. What started with Diz’s throwing a themed night a few years back has grown into more after-hours programming than ever for the event.

There’s a comedy show at Harpoon Brewery (covered elsewhere in this edition), a drag night at Hop Knot, cartoon-themed karaoke at the Shaskeen and crafting at Make It Pop Studios. It’s capped by the new Dirty Shirley Pub Crawl, organized by Bookery and built around the buzzy Dungeon Crawler Carl franchise.

Organizers are also coordinating with the Amherst Street Arts Festival.

“We want our event to raise all ships,” Proulx said.

Growth brings logistical demands. As food trucks will line the hotel, organizers asked city officials about closing part of Pleasant Street. Police couldn’t shut the block down — “it’s one of the busiest times downtown,” Proulx was told — but accommodations were promised and will be a big help.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles remains an annual fixture.

Kevin Eastman, who created the comic with Peter Laird, is on a Saturday Mighty Mutanimals panel, after a Q&A with cast members from the 1990 film Kevin Clash (puppeteer for Master Splinter) and James Saito (Shredder). All weekend long in the gaming lounge, a new TMNT tabletop RPG is showcased.

Along with the half-shell heroes, there’s more homegrown talent in the spotlight this year.

Sci-fi streaming series Resonance, currently being produced at StudioLab in Derry, will debut its first 10 minutes at a panel that includes the all-local cast and crew in a Q&A. Proulx heard about the project through SNHU and urged director Rob Livie to attend GraniteCon.

“Show people what is being done here in New Hampshire,” he told him. “It’ll kind of blow your mind.”

For Livie, a television and digital media veteran who recently relocated to Manchester after he and his wife became empty nesters, it’s a dream project.

“Resonance is a story I’ve wanted to tell since I was a kid,” he wrote in an email. “An epic ’80s sci-fi adventure about five people from very different worlds who come to Earth hoping it holds the key to saving their own.”

Its central theme, he continued, “is this: ‘You are not my enemy.’” Another local effort is an indie animated series, Player vs. Trinity. A panel focuses on how the project developed from an idea to a YouTube premiere. It will offer insider guidance for anyone looking to make their own mark on the industry.

Celebrity panels this year include “Queen of the Nerds” Felicia Day and actor Lou Diamond Phillips, known for La Bamba and Young Guns. Photo ops and autographs can be booked at a price set by each guest’s team. While selfies are free, demand is intense. Last year, voice actor Roger Clark’s line grew so long that a queue system had to be built on the fly.

The weekend after GraniteCon, the national Local Comic Shop Day event happens, at Double Midnight and other locations, including Jetpack Comics in Rochester. The event, once modeled with a nod to Record Store Day and its exclusive releases, is shifting its identity toward community over collectibles, Proulx said.

“It’s more about how to get people in the shop for their first time and show off everything that we do.”

Granite State Comicon
When: Friday, Sept. 18, 3-8 p.m.; Saturday, Sept. 19, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday, Sept. 20, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
Where: Downtown Manchester, including DoubleTree by Hilton (700 Elm St.) and SNHU Arena (555 Elm St.)
Tickets: $21-$157 at granitecon.com

Featured photo: Granite State Comicon. Courtesy photo.

Andres Institute of Art month-long symposium opens

“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it,” is a quote often attributed to Michaelangelo, who also said when talking about a particular piece of work, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

Such made manifest spirit is present as one wanders through the sculpture park at Andres Institute of Art in Brookline, taking in the many works on display there. The experience comes with the cost of a donation, but that’s not mandatory, Institute co-founder John Weidman explained by phone recently.

“You shouldn’t have to pay to hear a bird sing, or look at art,” he said.

Weidman, a master sculptor, opened the Institute in 1998 with its namesake, philanthropist Paul Andres. The next year the first sculpture symposium happened, and it’s been an annual event ever since, apart from a two-year pandemic hiatus. The next one opens on Sept. 12, with three sculptors from Cuba, Syria and Japan, who are all now U.S.-based.

For three weeks each will create a new addition to Andres’s sculpture park while welcoming onlookers to observe their works in progress. The theme for this year’s event is Curiosity. “Which is the driving thing of just about everybody, but especially artists,” Weidman said. “Because you want to see what’s next, and it’s a learning process.”

Grandeur is eschewed for “good designs,” Weidman continued, adding that past artists have adapted to those guidelines in inventive ways. “Some we’ve had normally did very large works, 40 feet high and so on … one in particular had never worked in stone, and he learned to … on a 6-foot figure, and just had a very good time with it.”

This year’s sculptors reflect the gathering’s Bridges and Connections moniker, but selection in 2026 was challenging. “Normally we try to have two from afar and one more local, but it’s been difficult to get artists from overseas,” Andres President Kristi St. Laurent said by phone. “This time we have three sculptors with very distinct cultural heritages.”

Havana-born Fermin Castro now lives in Somerville. His artist statement describes a style that extends from his Caribbean roots and is “influenced by master visual artists and Afro-Cuban sculptors, connecting both primitive and modern Latin American and African artistic expression.”

Castro works in a figurative, imaginative artistic motif that treats form itself as a kind of speech. “Sculpture originated as a primal representation of language, in which form and volume were manifested in this genuine act of human expression,” he writes in bold type on his website. Two of his more evocative pieces were carved from a tree trunk and a deceased elm.

Dankha Zomaya, an Assyrian now living in Illinois, is a returning sculptor at this year’s symposium. Zomaya first came to the park for the 2022 gathering, where he created a pair of goats. The two abstract metal animals are a permanent part of, in St. Laurent’s words, “The Hill.”

Also a painter as well as a multidisciplinary sculptor comfortable across wood, stone, bronze, direct metal, and copper, Zomaya has built a career participating in international sculpture symposia around the world. His return four years after his first residency offers a chance for visitors to see how an artist’s relationship with the park evolves.

Okinawa-born Marin Murakoshi makes her works in a Concord, Mass., facility called Studio 凸凹. The characters translate as “dekoboko” or “bumpy, lumpy, or irregular,” which Murakoshi has offered as something close to a working definition of sculpture itself.

Her practice spans stone and wood carving alongside creations built from recycled and reclaimed materials which includes an ongoing body of work called the “Rubbish Revival Project.” Ranging from precise traditional carving to resourceful reuse makes Murakoshi one of the more unpredictable additions to this year’s symposium lineup.

Those looking to get involved are encouraged to sign up on the Andres website for patronage opportunities.

“Bring a bottle of wine, sit down for two hours at dinner, really get to know the sculptors,” St. Laurent said. “Hear about their different adventures with symposia all over the world, works they’ve created, people they’ve met, and some of their favorite experiences. It’s just really an extension of the whole Bridges and Connections idea.”

Bridges and Connections Sculpture Symposium
When: Saturday, Sept. 12 – Sunday, Oct. 4
Where: Andres Institute of Art, 106 Route 13, Brookline
More: andresinstitute.org/aia-symposium

Featured photo: Attendees at a previous festival. Courtesy photo.