Category: Art & Theater

For Free Comic Book Day, industry change means more for fans

It’s counterintuitive that bankruptcy would make a company’s big event bigger, but it happened when the distributor that launched Free Comic Book Day went bankrupt last year. The company that bought it, and with the trademark, promised to continue FCBD. However, one distributor, Penguin Random House, broke away and launched a rival version.

Fortunately, customers are the winners in this battle — both events will happen simultaneously. On May 2, stores will hand out titles from both FCBD and the newcomer, Comics Giveaway Day — no strings attached. Michael Boddy, the owner of Collectibles Unlimited in Concord, summed it up thusly: “It sounds different, but it’s going to be the same.”

Actually, it’s better. In 2025 two dozen titles were given away; this year at least 46 will be available for the event, created in 2002 to build interest in comics and, at the time, promote a new Spider-Man movie.

There are two huge events happening in the state, one spilling out from a store into a function hall with dozens of vendor tables, and another that takes over an entire downtown, with a festival’s worth of musical guests during the day.

Collectibles Unlimited

25 South St., Concord, 228-3712, collectiblesunlimited.biz

Hours: 10:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.

A Concord fixture since 1984, taken over in 2005 by Michael Boddy, offering comics, role-playing, board and card games, along with miniatures, paints, coins and bullion. Because the shop skews heavily toward tabletop gaming, FCBD is also a good chance to browse discounted board and role-playing game stock while picking up free comics.

Double Midnight Comics

252 Willow St., Manchester, 669-9636, dmcomics.com/freecomicbookday

341 Loudon Road, Concord, 715-2683, dmcomics.com/freecomicbookday

Hours: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Held in The Factory on Willow event hall adjacent to its store, Double Midnight’s Manchester event is one of the largest FCBD celebrations in northern New England. There’s a large vendor floor, artist alley, cosplay contest, and panel/signing area, and the retail space is also open for shopping.

Visitors can grab the official free comics, meet creators like illustrator JK Woodward and Legacy of Valor’s Kurt Springs, check out movie cars like a Back to the Future DeLorean or a Jurassic Park Jeep or participate in the 15th annual costume contest, and watch Clemenzi Crusaders perform “the soundtrack of pop culture.”

“We invite everybody to come on down and experience the events — we go all out for this,” Chris Proulx, owner of Double Midnight along with his brother Scott, said by phone recently. “We love comics, and we want to have a good time … it’s a great event for families to drop in for the day.”

Double Midnight’s Concord location will also hand out official titles (with a per-person limit). It’s a convenient stop for those coming from the Lakes Region or anyone looking to avoid the larger Manchester crowd while scoring a free comic book or graphic novel like Chris Proulx’s pick from this year’s batch, Dungeon Crawler Carl.

Jetpack Comics & Games

37 N. Main St., Rochester, 330-XMEN (9636), jetpackcomics.com/fcbd-cgd

Hours: 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.

Founded by Ralph DiBernardo, Jetpack Comics launched one of the state’s signature FCBD celebrations. The event has grown into a full-day bash in downtown Rochester, with a mini-music festival and a late night afterparty. There’s even a custom city-only title: Dungeon Crawler Carl with a bespoke cover.

A citywide comic book scavenger hunt offers kids, teens and adults special titles at participating downtown businesses. Extras come with the purchase of a $10 Power Up Band. Benefiting Rochester Performance and Arts Center, it includes admission to the seven-band Rock n’ Roll Playground Festival and Curmudjun’s afterparty concert. At official FCBD host Rochester Opera House, there’s a vendor hall and The Turtle Den. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird created Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in nearby Dover, and DiBernardo premiered their first comic book at a convention in 1984. “We’ve had close ties forever,” DiBernardo said. “It’s like a big Turtle party.”

Merrymac Games and Comics

550 DW Highway, Merrimack, 420-8161, merrymacgc.com

Hours: Monday and Tuesday 10 a.m. – 7 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday 10 a.m. – 9 p.m., Sunday noon – 6 p.m.

As in past years, Merrymac’s giveaway is paired with creator appearances, including former Black Caravan co-publisher Rich Woodall, also known for his work on The Bloody Ring of Dracula, Gods of Brutality and others. He’s also worked on covers for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Powerpuff Girls and Masters of the Universe.

Also appearing is Sara Richard, a New Hampshire-based artist and writer whose work includes comic book covers and book illustrations for DC Comics, Marvel, Dynamite Comics and other publishers, along with other illustration work for DC Collectables, StormKing and The Witch House in Salem, Mass.

Newbury Comics

777 S. Willow St., Manchester, 624-2842

99 Rockingham Park Blvd. (Mall at Rockingham Park), Salem, 890-1380

310 DW Highway (Pheasant Lane Mall), Nashua, 888-0720

The big New England retailer is listed as a participant on the FCBD website.

Pop Culture Cards Comics and Collectibles

66 Route 27, Raymond, 244-1850, popculturenh.com

Along with comic book giveaways, there will be regular gaming going on. At 10:30 a.m., author Mike Marks will sign copies of the first issue of Helsing Files, his detective and vampire thriller funded by a Kickstarter campaign.

Stairway to Heaven Comics

105 Gosling Road, Newington, 319-6134, stairwaytoheavencomics.com

Hours: 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Owner Brad Gile expects a “fun, festive atmosphere,” with guests including local creators HG Bradley and Jeff Lorentz (Skin of My Teeth, My Coworker is a Vampire) with Katie McMahon returning from last year. Luke Fletcher will show off Overpower, a game that’s been refreshed from its ’90s beginnings, and give away an Invincible card.

Featured photo: Photo by Zombie Leader of Carolyn and Christian Lopes as Jubilee and Wolverine browsing at Double Midnight.

Sweet, funny The Littlefield Gazette Does Not End Today opens in Nashua

One by one, local newspapers are disappearing. Wedding announcements and grainy photos of youth sports once stuffed in envelopes and sent with pride to relatives now live online. Or worse, they’re forever gone. The lingua franca of small-town life, dropped on porches by middle schoolers on their bikes, is a fading memory.

That’s the world of The Littlefield Gazette Does Not End Today, the latest production from Nashua Theatre Guild, running April 24 through April 26 at the Janice B. Streeter Theater. Set at the company picnic of a 126-year-old paper in the Midwest, it’s a heartwarming look at coworkers doing their best to keep a looming demise from spoiling the fun.

Directed by Alex Slocum, the 2022 Don Zolidis play is less a commentary on independent journalism than a celebration of the spirit of one small group of people swimming against the tide to carry it on. In small vignettes, the ensemble cast share their fears and dreams, using the moment to both unburden and connect.

Sports reporter Tony (Mike Amichetti) and Kate (Danielle Chisholm), a human interest story writer, compare jobs and imagine life without them. At first dismissive, Tony praises Kate’s work. “Your human interest stories make me really interested,” he says. “You take the most boring people this town has ever produced and make them seem fascinating.”

Kate is less charitable to Tony’s beat, but he defends it with an observation that sums up what it means to lose community papers like the Gazette. Readers are “not going to go to Facebook to find out what happened,” he says. “Nobody’s sending a link to grandma to let them know how their kid did in the meet … that’s the thing that’s going to be missed the most.”

Linda (Sierra Jones), a farm reporter who bartends and remodels kitchens on the side, counsels Imani (Belle McLeod), a new ad sales rep who’s overseen a vanishing client list in her tenure. When she laments her failure to turn things around, Linda reassures her, saying, “I can’t even clean my bathroom in two months.”

For some, the event is a catalyst to confession. Throwing caution to the wind, feelings long buried surface for both young and old to inspire romantic overtures. One couple tentatively discusses a move from dating to the next level. There’s a pie contest with a twist ending — after all, it’s the Midwest.

The overall effect is wholesome, heartfelt and timely. For Alyson Galipeau, who plays publisher Gayle, the latter is what attracted her to the play. An at-large member of the Guild’s board, Galipeau also helped select The Littlefield Gazette Does Not End Today for production.

“I grew up getting the Nashua Telegraph in my house,” she said in a recent phone interview. “When it went to an online format and … employees got fired, my mom was really bummed out. I was bummed out, too. The parallels between worlds is what drew me in.”

Despite its solemn undertone, the play’s humor breaks through.

“Rehearsals have been going great, a lot of fun,” Galipeau said. “We crack up nonstop. Some of these characters are ridiculous, and we’re also screwing up our lines … between those two aspects, we laugh nonstop.”

Plays like this one and The Tin Woman, a tear-jerker done earlier in the season, are a big reason why the interest in Guild productions is growing.

“A lot of people are auditioning, and we are having to turn auditioners away for the first time in many years,” Galipeau said. “That tells me that there’s increased interest in theater and our plays, which I love.”

She believes the current effort, which runs for three performances, has wide appeal. “There is a little subplot for everyone in this play. You’ll be able to relate to at least one person; I think that’s important. If you can connect with your audience, then you have done your job as a writer and a director.”

The Littlefield Gazette Does Not End Today
When: Friday, April 24, and Saturday, April 25, at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, April 26, at 2 p.m.
Where: Janice B Streeter Theater, 14 Court St., Nashua
Tickets: $18 and up, nashuatheatreguild.org

Featured photo: The Littlefield Gazette Does Not End Today. Courtesy photo.

Luna Moth Zine Fest champions DIY spirit

Three years on, Luna Moth Zine Fest is back and bigger than ever. There are more vendors (“tablers” in the parlance), and workshops covering storytelling, crowdfunding, game drawing and community care. The festival also has its first group of paid sponsors, plus a new and larger location in Manchester, after two years in Salem.

It’s a big leap for an event that began when cartoonist April Landry grew frustrated with long drives to similar events, so she decided to do one in her home state. Landry named the festival after a species of moth that’s native to the region and found in the wild, seemingly in defiance of nature.

“It’s very strange that something that vibrant and almost tropical-looking lives in New England,” she said. “It’s a magical-looking thing, a little mythical, so it’s a way to say New England-based and New Hampshire-based while also giving it this ethereal vibe. It’s a little special.”

For anyone wondering, zines are small circulation booklets — comics, word art, ephemera, covering all manner of topics. They’re self published, rather than commercially, and exist “for self expression, art, storytelling, information sharing and pure creative joy … passion projects for humans, by humans,” according to a festival press release.

“The great thing about zines is that anybody can make a zine, and anybody can put whatever they want in a zine,” Landry said. “There’s no publisher telling you, ‘you can’t do that’ and no editor telling you can’t do anything. There’s literally no barrier between your idea and getting it out into the world with zines.”

Landry entered the zine world after she designed a Dungeons & Dragons world to play with friends. “Once the game night was over, I felt like the work was wasted, so I figured out a way to put it in a book … facts about different monsters, their hit points, where to find them, things like that.” She called her first-ever zine Things to Fight and Places to Fight Them.

Artists are often drawn to zines as an extension of their other forms of self-expression, or as a way to distribute their work.

“It’s very liberatory,” Landry said. “There are people who are making art all the time and don’t know what to do with it, or don’t have a way to get it out there. Finding zines and making zines is typically a way to do that.”

For others, they’re a tool. One person told Landry they fold a zine together on Sunday, then write in it like a diary for the week. “When they’re done, they don’t print it, they don’t make copies, they just put it on the shelf,” she said. “It’s just a way for them to get thoughts out of their heads … something that’s both outward and inward.”

There are more than 70 tablers showing their wares at this year’s event. Katherine Leung, based in Vermont, is doing Zine Fest for the first time. Leung’s Canto Cutie zine explores the experience of Cantonese people living in America. Like many other vendors, Leung’s table will offer other art products like prints and enamel pins.

“The unifying factor is that in some way, shape or form, they make zines,” Landry said. “One vendor’s zines are about learning how to knit, and there’s someone who makes coloring books … it’s a mix across the board, but in some shape or form these people are writing or publishing something themselves that they want other people to read and look at.”

Another new vendor is Silas Denver, who works using the name Sweater Muppets. “They are only now just getting into zine making, and all the stuff they’ve been putting out is cutting-edge and incredible stuff,” Landry said. “It feels really vital, and I’m so excited to have them.”

Landry said Zine Fest’s “four amazing sponsors” are Goosepoop, a Portland, Maine, game studio whose work includes the RPG Laundry Punks; Wrong Brain, a Seacoast collective celebrating “unconventional, under-represented & emerging arts”; the Boston Comics Foundation and Xomik Bük, a comic book collective.

Come with an open mind and eagerness to engage at the all-ages event, Landry urged. “What makes Luna … so popular with people is the culture there and the vibes. It’s one of these places where you can go and talk to interesting people who have like-minded interests, and they’re approachable.”

Luna Moth Zine Fest
When: Saturday, April 18, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: YWCA, 72 Concord St., Manchester
More: lunamothzinefest.bsky.social

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Landscapes and architecture among works at gallery opening

Glimpse Gallery in Concord will have creations for sale from six artists at its upcoming month-long show, done in a range of media from acrylic and oil to volcanic pumice and flakes of titanium. And it will serve as a museum of sorts for a local architect to show the process and product of his profession.

Many artistic moods are shown on the collected canvases. Andrew Freshour’s ink and watercolor works are fanciful and fun, from the playful gourmand at the center of “A Menagerie of Petite Treats” to the movement and flow of “Celestial Pilgrimage,” an array of storybook characters ascending to the clouds.

A few more are classical, one resembles a playing card, and the rotund caricatures in “Tea’d Off” and “La Reine du Gateau” are also delightful.

“You truly never know what you’re going to get when you come into Glimpse,” gallery owner Meme Exum said with a laugh. “These are clearly conversation starters, or stoppers … all perfectly framed and matted.”

Schenectady, New York-based artist Jeni Follman’s evocative landscape oil paintings are a focal point of the show, Exum continued.

“She’s one of those artists that just has such a style that is intrinsic to her,” Exum said. “She’ll have a large piece in the foyer, and in the second room in the gallery, hung salon style.”

The gallery’s curator Christina Landry-Boullion will display some of her monochromatic charcoal works, a departure from mixed media works shown at past Glimpse shows like “Lavender Peony,” “Blueberries” and “Mac Apple.” “Not what you see on her portfolio,” Exum said, “but these three large charcoal white, varying grays and black pieces.”

Painter Abigail Wade grew up in rural New Hampshire, but her impressionistic landscapes move beyond country life. “Morning on the Mississippi” captures a spare copse of trees surrounded by a curve in the river, “Lying Awake” has a brilliant urban skyline, while a “No Entry” sign at the center of “Green Fields” offers an ironic counterpoint to an idyllic snapshot.

Lizzy Berube fully embraces nature and the outdoors in her oil and acrylic paintings. “A Piece of Sky” has the perspective of someone lying in tall grass, staring up at clouds over water that look like a majestic mountain. “Time to” Go evokes a hiker’s staircase, while “Deja Blues” is a lovely meditation on rocky coastal waters.

The shows happen six times a year and run for a month, while alternating months are spent preparing for the next. One of the most compelling artists in the April show is Adam Sloat, who grew up in a house filled with art and music transfixed by Monet, Jackson Pollock and comic books.

Sloat hints at Joseph Cornell’s assemblage and Van Gogh’s texture, as he employs a variety of exotic media in his pieces, with frame materials also vital along with the painted surface. “Space Babies: Iteration One” is a vibrant example that aligns with Sloat’s artist statement goal for his art to be “a gateway for the viewer to create their own stories for what they see.”

Finally there’s architect William Exum, Meme’s husband, who will show the process behind a house built on the shore of Lake Toxaway, North Carolina, last year. “It’s engaging with design,” Meme said, adding the display has four sketches of the design surrounding a high resolution of the finished product.

“It shows people how architects plan out every detail when they get a well-designed house, not when they get a cookie-cutter big mansion,” she said. “From an artistic standpoint, I love the collaboration of details throughout the design.”

April 9 – May 9 show opening
When: Saturday, April 11, 5-7 p.m.
Where: Glimpse Gallery, 4 Park St. (Patriot Building), Concord
RSVP: contact@theglimpsegallery.com

Featured photo: First Light Niskayuna, NY by Jeni Folmann.

Book club gathering in Concord

Even casual oenophiles know that chardonnay and a soft brie go together well. But what pairs with a Dan Brown novel starring The Da Vinci Code symbologist Robert Langdon that blends futuristic science and mystical lore? The answer can be learned at an upcoming book club night at Wine on Main in downtown Concord.

Wine on Main owner Emma Stetson is still working on the wine list for the event but has already chosen a couple to go with The Secret of Secrets, Brown’s 2025 release. One is French, a Mont Gravet rosé.

“Much of the book takes place in Switzerland, which doesn’t have a great deal of wine,” she said in an email. “However, France’s coastline is right over the border and they make great rosé there.”

Another is a Lapis Luna Red Blend, from Northern California. It typically includes cabernet sauvignon, merlot, malbec and barbera. “The label depicts a girl sitting on top of the world and staring at the moon,” Stetson said. “It is fitting for this thriller that tackles consciousness and human existence.”

While they sip wine, attendees will discuss Brown’s book, led by Jocelyn Winn, owner of The Writing Gallery, located further up North Main Street in Concord, across from the Statehouse. Winn is the founder of editorial services company The Eleventh Letter, and she’s also a Pushcart Prize-nominated writer. Winn and Stetson began collaborating on the events a couple of years ago. They happen more or less seasonally.

“She was an English major and now she’s a wine connoisseur, so we just kind of get together and talk about different books,” Winn said by phone recently. “For a while we did a lot of what you could call beach reads.”

Books previously covered include Liane Moriarty’s Nine Perfect Strangers and The Chateau, a thriller written by Jaclyn Goldis set in the vineyards and markets of Provence, France. Another was The Perfect Couple, an Elin Hilderbrand novel that was made into a Netflix series in 2024.

Reading a book ahead of time isn’t mandatory, and occasionally it’s not even necessary. Winn noted that past gatherings have focused on television shows such as The White Lotus and Downton Abbey.

Each evening includes props and other touches inspired by whatever work is being discussed, Winn noted.

“The space gets a little bit decorated for the book,” she said, “Then Emma has wine and cheese and crackers and usually some sweets. Oftentimes she will create a slideshow.”

These visual aids often include maps of viticultural regions found in the literature, which Stetson will use to explain each wine. Winn will intersperse other activities as well.

“We’ll do trivia; I’ll ask questions and give away prizes or do raffles,” she said. “Or they’ll put their name in a hat and get some type of book-themed door prize.”

The next book club night, in June, focuses on Laura Knoy’s wartime novel The Shopkeeper of Alsace and will include a Q&A with Knoy. “That’ll be the first one that Emma and I have done together that the author will be present,” Winn said, adding that attendees can also ask questions. “It’s always amazing as a reader when you can talk to the writer directly.”

Winn’s unique gallery, which opened late in 2025, continues to grow, with workshops and art exhibitions. Irene Yushin’s “Beyond Words” opens April 10. A lifelong visual artist, Yushin overcame severe dyslexia and is now a writer, working on a memoir. Her show will feature her works from “before and after finding words.”

Winn is pleased with her gallery’s success.

“I have been super fortunate and lucky,” she said. “It’s exactly what I had envisioned, and honestly, I think that’s the first time in my life I could say that about anything. How often does everything you envision actually happen, with anything — relationships, jobs, vacations? And it happened fast. It has been, in the best possible way, definitely a whirlwind.”

Book Club Night: The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown
When: Thursday, April 2, 6:30-8 p.m.
Where: Wine on Main, North Main Street, Concord
Tickets: $34 at eventbrite.com

Featured photo: Wine on Main book club. Courtesy photo.

SleepOut event helps unhoused youth

In 2015, Manchester social services organization Waypoint, then known as Child & Family Services, organized the first SleepOut event. On a snowy, subfreezing night, nearly 50 community members slept in Stanton Park to raise money and awareness of unhoused youth in the city. The effort netted over $132,000 in donations and became an annual tradition.

However, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively ended the camper gathering with its 2024 Grants Pass vs. Johnson ruling that allowed municipalities to criminalize sleeping in public. As critics noted, though, homelessness can’t be arrested away, so the problem continues, as does SleepOut. Participants now sleep outside on private lawns, porches and cars.

SleepOut 2026 begins Friday, March 27, with a sale of youth artwork made during a program hosted by Positive Street Art.

“All year long, they learn about art, they create it and teach other people,” Mandy Lancaster, Waypoint’s Homeless Youth Program director, said recently. “One hundred percent of the proceeds go directly to the young people.”

Lancaster believes the art installation is a healing force for its participants.

“It also allows them access to community and a sense of belonging,” she said. This is “probably more important than [what’s] written on the goal plan. Change doesn’t happen in a vacuum; it happens through connection and safe relationships, and this is part of that.

The works, she added, are impressive.

“I’m not an artist, but I’m continuously blown away by what these young people are producing. They have worked with a bunch of different mediums, like photography, mixed media, painting on canvas and illustration. It’s really incredible.”

Lancaster said the weekly program goes beyond an arts and crafts class; critical thinking is a key component.

“What is art and how do people perceive it, just these big, wonderful, bold questions that they’re asking themselves and grappling with. They’ve taken field trips to museums. They’re so contemplative and introspective. It’s really special.”

The gallery viewing will be followed by a solidarity gathering in Bronstein Park, across from the Waypoint Youth Drop-in Center. There will be speakers talking about both being unhoused and overcoming it. “Staff might share stories on their behalf,” Megan Sampson of Waypoint wrote in an email. “It can be a difficult thing for youth [to discuss].”

During the SleepOut program in the park, there will be some soup and bread, and the artist gallery will stay open until 8 p.m. “Following that, participants will return to sleep out at their homes or other gatherings,” Sampson said. Sleepers are spread across the state, so the speaking portion of the event will also be livestreamed for those who can’t attend. Lancaster urged the community at large to attend SleepOut 2026.

“I want to fill the park,” she said. “At the end of the day it is a fundraiser, but not everyone has the financial means to do that. You can sponsor a sleeper or sign up and be a sleeper. You can bear witness to what is shared there, speak to young people, buy their art — there are many different ways to [show] support.”

These are challenging times for Waypoint and other social services organizations. “Unprecedented decisions have been made that have directly threatened funding streams and/or the ability to provide supportive services to young people experiencing homelessness,” she said. “It’s like swimming upstream with a fast-moving current.”

However, small victories buoy her spirits. “Twenty years ago when I was getting into homeless services, I really wanted to change the world; my perception has just changed so much,” she said. “I really want to co-create meaningful relationships one person at a time. That’s allowed me to stay in the work … micro joy, micro moments, just connecting.”

SleepOut 2026 Youth Art Gallery
When: Friday, March 27, at 5 p.m.
Where: Waypoint Youth Drop-in Center, 298 Hanover St., Manchester
More: Full SleepOut program begins at 6 p.m. in Bronstein Park (across the street)

Featured photo: SleepOut mural. Courtesy photo.