When Nate Proper and Shane Comer formed Superfrog in 2006, it was a trio. At the time, Comer recalled in 2010, the two high school pals hoped it would eventually become “a large, boisterous family band.” It grew into a six-piece, and while a few members came and went, for the past 15 years, the jammy Seacoast band has been a tight-knit crew.
A rhythm section of Proper and Comer on bass and drums is rounded out by Phil Poggi and Jeremy “Fuzz” Grob on guitars, vintage keyboard whiz Max Chase and percussionist Adam Vinciguerra. Poggi left after contributing to their eponymous 2014 album but returned later and is now locked in with the others.
There’s clear chemistry as the six players trade licks on the aptly named “Years,” one of four new songs the band started releasing last fall. First Grob, then Poggi crank out crackling solos, then the band ticks up the tempo to set up a heaven-sent run by Chase on his Hammond B3, as Proper, Comer and Vinciguerra keep it chugging along rhythm-wise.
Proper wrote the song, and said during a recent joint interview with Comer that “Years” was built for jamming. “We definitely can stretch that one out and do,” he said.
The three other new tunes were written by Poggi. “Battle of Blair Mountain” is about a 1921 incident in West Virginia described as the largest labor uprising in American history. “It was a bunch of coal miners going on strike and fighting Pinkertons,” Proper said. “I’m a union rep at my job, so I was all about it.”
A tune about new beginnings and grace, “Sinner” has a gospel feel, while the latest single, “Honestly,” has a solid, driving beat and is very danceable. This tunefulness is something all of Poggi’s songs share. “Phil,” observed Proper, “has been on an awesome songwriting kick lately.”
There are always a few tasty covers in shows. A Chase lead vocal makes Bill Withers’ “Kissing My Love” a real treat, and the Lionel Richie hit “All Night Long” is also wonderful. A standout and longtime set closer is “Shakedown Street,” with the Grateful Dead boogie gem augmented by a snippet of Deodata’s rock take on “Also Sprach Zarathustra.”
When time allows, work continues on a full-length album, but the focus remains on playing shows like the one upcoming at Auspicious Brew, their first at the Dover kombucha brewery. The following weekend they’ll return to Concord to share the BNH Stage at JamAntics’ JamAnnual GetDown reunion show.
The two bands have a shared history.
“We played with them first way back, I don’t even know when, and we have played with them here and there throughout the years,” Comer said. JamAntics bassist Eric Reingold agreed. “Superfrog members are longtime friends and excellent musicians,” he said.
Reingold added that after a two-year hiatus the now almost traditional regrouping gig will be extra sweet.
“I’m extremely excited to get the band back together, as I love playing with all of these guys collectively and individually,” he said; Reingold’s latest band, Up, includes JamAntics guitarist Freeland Hubbard. Regarding Superfrog, “We always love sharing the stage with our friends, and can’t wait to blow the doors off this year.”
Having multiple creative forces can sink a band, but Superfrog stays a musical democracy.
Drummer Comer believes discipline plays a big part; the group practices regularly. “I know Max will say we’re one of the most consistent, and he’s in like 80 bands these days,” he said. “We try to be … diligent, getting together once a week. It makes performing live easier when you’re just consistently trucking along.”
Summing up, Comer alluded to his early idea about the band.
“It actually goes to fundamentals,” he continued. “It’s just really knowing each other and learning how to get through those tense moments, because it is like a six-person family. It’s not always easy to navigate, but we have a lot of respect for each other and get through those moments pretty easily.”
Superfrog
When: Friday, April 4, 8 p.m. Where: Auspicious Brew, 1 Washington St., Dover Tickets: $12 at auspiciousbrew.com ($15 at the door) Also at JamAntics reunion on Friday, April 11, 8 p.m., BNH Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord, $21 and up at ccanh.com
It’s maple season, and for Christine Gagnon that means one thing.
Mushrooms.
Gagnon is the owner and operator of the Uncanoonuc Foraging Co. (uncforaging.com) in Goffstown. Her passion is finding and identifying edible plants and fungi.
“I just love foraging,” she said..”I love being out there and finding things. It’s like a treasure hunt. Just the idea of what mushrooms do and what they are and to see the many different forms that they come in and how they—.” She paused to put her feeling into words. “It’s so vast. It’s just … vast.”
Gagnon said one type of mushroom that appears in early spring is an oyster mushroom. “Sometimes you’ll see those in the winter too,” she said. ”If you have a 60-degree day — and there can be snow in the woods, but 60, and you might see oyster mushrooms pop up on trees.” In other words, during maple season. “They like maple trees actually,” she said.
Another mushroom that makes an appearance at this time of year is called a Pheasant’s Back (Cerioporus squamosus). “Those grow on trees,” Gagnon said. “And they have a very cucumber-y, melon-y, watermelon-rind smell to them. So sometimes people will pickle them. Because smell makes up a lot of how things taste a lot of times.”
One of the things that can make finding mushrooms difficult, Gagnon explained, is that the mushrooms most of us see are just the fruiting body of a fungus (mycelium), which is usually tiny and threadlike and difficult for non-specialists to see. Depending on the variety of mushroom, finding them “is a combination of the season and when the conditions are right,” she said. “Some mushrooms will pop up all season and some are very seasonal.”
For example, morel mushrooms only happen in the spring for a very short period of time. “When the ground temperature has warmed up to a certain amount, when the air temperatures are certain, when the humidity and moisture is what it is. And then around here, we don’t really have the ‘burn morels’ [which appear after forest fires] they have out west so much, so you have to find them with the right trees, whether it’s in old orchards or elm trees The mycelium grows in or around or through roots of trees and plants and other organisms.”
But that’s not true of all mushrooms, Gagnon said. “Other ones are called saprophytic or saprotrophic; they’re breaking down dying material. They’re decomposers, which also makes sense with the fire morels like out west.”
“In the early spring,” she said, “you [find] mushrooms that are trying to get a jump on their biological competition. You can find morels if you know where to find them.” But, she said, sometimes they will spring up somewhere completely unexpected. “They are what we call ‘landscape morels’ because sometimes when people order mulch for their gardens the mulch is coming with the mycelium already in there. And so people find [a morel], and they’re like, ‘Oh, it was in my garden.’ It was, but it’s usually because the mycelium was present in the mulch.”
Mushrooms aside, early spring is also the season for ramps, sometimes called wild garlic, which Gagnon said is in the onion family. “The genus is allium,” she said, [with the scientific name] allium tricoccum or trichocum, variety braticii. They have a white stem or sometimes a red stem, but they are in the allium family. Sometimes they’re called wild onions, and sometimes they’re really called a wild leek, because you can eat the entire thing.”
Gagnon said that her biggest thrill is finding something new, especially mushrooms.
“There’s so much DNA work now being done on them. So if we’re not exactly sure what it is, we can go home and dehydrate it, upload it to iNaturalist, send a specimen in, and it gets DNA’ed, and then we get the results back in however long it takes. The great thing about taking pictures with our phones these days or with iNaturalist is it gives you the exact locations and when you took it. So you can kind of go back and look for anything later.”
Caution where you eat
Eating unidentified plants or mushrooms can be dangerous. Please forage under the supervision of a trained forager.
Featured photo: Oyster mushrooms. Photo from NH Garden Solutions.
If you had asked Peter Macone in 2019 what he saw himself doing in six years, it probably wouldn’t have been running a brewery. “It would be running two stores on Elm Street 110 steps apart,” he said.
Macone is a veteran restaurateur. For many years he was a part owner and the operating manager of two popular restaurants in downtown Manchester — the Republic Cafe (now closed) and Campo Enoteca, which merged with Republic before being sold to new owners.
“Then Covid happened,” Macone said.
According to Macone, the pandemic shook up the restaurant industry and changed the way it viewed itself.
“Covid was sort of the earliest catalyst for where we are today,” he said. “It changed the expectation and the way that we express farm-to-table food.” One of the most dramatic changes was in the role breweries played. “Breweries are a market that are just absorbing so many markets now,” Macone said. “People go to breweries instead of brunch, breweries instead of a lunch place, breweries instead of a bar after work, breweries for dinner. I saw that and I saw the ability to have a more sustainable lifestyle for myself in the long run. I have a six-week-old.”
Eventually, this led to the Republic Brewing Co., a partnership with Mike Brown, the owner of Hometown Coffee Roasters. Macone said each partner brought a particular set of skills to the new business.
“I know about food and hospitality,” Macone said. “I partnered with Mike, [who] made some of the most top-notch beer right out of the gate. And there was a day where he presented me with a beer and said, ‘I think this will be our flagship.’ I tasted it and I was like, ‘All right, we’re going to do just fine with the beer.’”
That was Republic’s Bella, a single-hopped New England-style India Pale Ale, or IPA. Macone said he and Brown made the decision early on to focus on a few core beer recipes.
“We want to have staples people know they can get, and stand by their quality,” he said. “They’re really quality products, but we’re not looking to fill a portfolio with 700 zillion names. For instance, next winter, Michael will be, without a doubt, doing a dark beer — likely involving coffee, as he has Hometown next door.”
In addition to its own core slate of beers, Macone said it’s important to both partners to feature beers from other area breweries.
“We’ll always have a guest tap here,” he said. “We always look to feature our friends in the area. So we have a Kettlehead guest tap right now. I believe we have a To Share coming up. We’ve [featured] To Share in the past; Post and Beam, Spyglass — all people that have helped us get open in the industry. And so we kind of want to return that favor. And plus, it’s just great to be talking about other people’s breweries and representing them. And they’ll help fill the gaps of what we don’t have.”
On the food side of the business, Macone said he has brought a focus with him from the original Republic Cafe and applied it to pub food.
“We’re maintaining the same farm-to- table aspect and the farms that we used to work with. So the same farmer that brought us pork at Republic is bringing us pork here. The same farmer that brought us beef is bringing us beef here. And the same goes for chicken. And eggs, we have a local farmer bringing us eggs. This is a way to continue those relationships that are over a decade old.”
“There are a couple little recipes that we’ve carried over [from Republic],” he said. “But most of it has been tweaked into more of a brewery format menu. One thing that is a straight carryover is our french fries. Republic’s french fries were award-winning. We brought those straight over just as they were, and people are really excited about it. They’re hand cut, blanched, and fried with capers and a bunch of other little things in there that make them unique”
“It’s been important for us to focus on the beer and the food,” Macone said, “and that’s why it’s nice to have Mike and I both involved. We have sort of a left brain and right brain, and we can both really dig into what our piece of the pie is, and it allows us to work on elevating the beer and the food at the same time and try to give people that experience of both. So that on Friday night, you know, we don’t just have people coming to drink beer after work, we have people coming here for their Friday night dinner.”
The Republic Brewing Co.
Where: 72 Old Granite St., Manchester, 836-3188, republicbrewingcompany.com Hours: Open from 3 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays; 1 to 9 p.m. Fridays; noon to 9 p.m. Saturdays, and noon to 7 p.m. on Sundays. There is free off-street parking.
The lively folk song “Hava Nagila” is a staple at Jewish weddings and other celebrations, but when Hankus Netsky started the Klezmer Conservatory Band it was part of a very niche musical tradition that carried on mostly in synagogues. Netsky decided to change that. Surprisingly his inspiration was an Irish musician.
Nearly five decades later, his group is credited with reviving klezmer music for modern audiences, making several albums and performing around the world. Their music has been in films, including one narrated by the late Robin Williams, and they’ve worked with many musicians, including an ongoing collaboration with Itzhak Perlman.
The last one happened after Netsky lured a reluctant Perlman into a jam session — more on that later.
An April 6 show at Concord’s City Auditorium will be special, with the full Klezmer Conservatory Band on stage, Netsky shared in a recent phone interview.
“We need to give a little present to New Hampshire,” he said, noting that their last time in Concord, “we came with a small group … we didn’t even have a trumpet player.”
Netsky came to New England Conservatory as a student in 1973. Five years later he was hired by the school’s Third Stream Department. The name came from NEC President Gunther Schuller, who felt that much contemporary music resulted from mingling “streams” of classical and jazz.
Schuller, Netsky said by phone recently, “felt very strongly that he couldn’t possibly talk about the 20th century of music without looking at the works of Ellington, James B. Johnson, Louis Armstrong, etc.” Netsky saw a role for Jewish music from the Ashkenazi communities of Ukraine, Romania and other Eastern European countries.
There were other tributaries, and as the Third Stream definition broadened, Netsky made klezmer’s case.
When Netsky was studying at NEC, he’d found boxes of klezmer 78s in his uncle’s basement that were once owned by his great-grandfather. He was amazed.
“By then in the Jewish community, the music,” he said, “was very perfunctory.” So he began transferring them to cassette.
The recordings revealed “there was a whole tradition of music that was on a really high level,” he said. “I kind of reinvigorated that stream.” Netsky began sharing them with students when he joined NEC’s faculty. He found common ground with guitarist Mick Moloney, who’d worked to bring long-lost Irish music back to the forefront.
“The real session music was more or less forgotten at that point, and he revived it,” Netsky recalled. “I went to one of his Irish sessions, and I went, ‘Oh! I get it! You have a party, serve some food, and then everybody comes and you teach them the music’; so that’s really what happened. Then one of the students got this idea we should do a concert.”
The young group contributed a three-song set as part of an evening of Jewish music. It was supposed to be a one-off, but in days they had three offers to do full concerts. They sent a tape to Garrison Keillor and quickly received an invitation to appear on his NPR show, A Prairie Home Companion, the next time it stopped in Boston.
From that point on, they’ve led a resurgence of the once moribund tradition, appearing everywhere, from synagogues to Carnegie Hall. They’ve spawned other bands as well; the genre-bending Klezmatics, founded during the mid-1980s in New York City, includes KCB founding member Frank London.
Then there are the many collaborations, the most famous with Perlman. It began haltingly, however, after an attempt at melding his legendary violin talents with jazz players like Oscar Peterson left him, according to many, dissatisfied. When a rep from NPR’s Great Performances contacted Netsky about Perlman’s interest in klezmer, she offered caution.
“He felt kind of burned by this jazz project,” he recalled her saying. “He just wants to learn about the music, but he doesn’t feel like he’s going to be ready to play it. Your job is to get him to take his violin out and feel good about what he’s doing.” Netsky knew there were certain songs that Perlman would have listened to as a young child in Israel, so he began with those. Perlman, his interest piqued, took out his violin and joined in. Mission accomplished.
“Then we started playing more serious klezmer music,” Netsky continued. “He recognized the tunes, and, again, right away he was playing along. Then we started going around the band, having people improvise, and then he improvised. He realized right away that this actually was something he wanted to do.”
Klezmer Conservatory Band When: Sunday, April 6, 2 p.m. Where: Concord City Auditorium, 2 Prince St., Concord Tickets: $23 at eventbrite.com
Attention bookworms of all stripes! This weekend features book fun for everyone. At the Derry Author Fest and Exeter LitFest, hear authors discuss their works and process — and maybe even get some tips on putting your own stories on paper. At the Old School Comic Show in Concord, enjoy the rows of comic books and meet some comics creators. And the Kids Con New England has chapter books, graphic novels and comic books — and artists and authors — to help younger readers grow their enthusiasm for books. Looking for some new reads? Check out this weekend’s many celebrations of stories, their creators and their loyal readers.
Erin Robinson is a genealogy and reference librarian at Derry Public Library (64 East Broadway, Derry) and has been part of the Derry Author Fest since its inception almost 10 years ago. This year’s Fest, with the tagline “Community. Collaboration. Confidence,” is happening on Saturday, April 5.
“It’s a full-day lecture series,” Robinson said. “The idea is that people who are interested in writing or illustrating can come and they can learn about the craft and business of writing.”
Gibson’s Bookstore will be providing an all-day book sale, and a door prize is being offered by New Hampshire Writers Project.
“We have a variety of different levels of writers that come to the program. Some are authors who’ve been published, some are writers who maybe published once and they’re working on new projects, and some who’ve never been published. We try to get an array of different levels,” she said. Robinson is an author as well but publishes under the name Erin E. Moulton. She recently came out with a fun guide on exploring cemeteries called The Beginner’s Guide to Cemetery Sleuthing.
Laura Knoy is the keynote speaker of the day. Knoy is a journalist who founded and was the host of The Exchange on New Hampshire Public Radio before she “stepped down from the host’s chair to pursue other interests, including writing fiction,” according to her bio.
“Our whole theme is community, collaboration, and confidence,” Robinson said, “and of course, Laura’s got that in the bag. That’s a huge theme for her…. She’s always talking about local New Hampshire books. She’s going to bring some of her years of storytelling to the table for us.”
Knoy is excited for the day.
“I spent my whole career in journalism trying to create community around ideas and problems and solutions,” Knoy said, “and collaboration was definitely a part of that as you try to bring people together in a talk studio and hoping that people can not only discuss the issues and maybe their differences but collaborate on possible solutions for New Hampshire. But my speech is really about the third word in the conference title. I want to talk about confidence and how that’s played a role in my own career as a journalist and how it’s now playing a role in my efforts to become a published author.”
Her book, The Shopkeeper of Alsace, “is historical fiction that starts in World War I and ends in World War II. It’s heavily based on a true story that was shared with me by a French family who I met 30 years ago when I lived in France. The heroine of the story is the mother of the family,” Knoy said.
Knoy expands on the deep connection between the two globe-stretching events. “That’s the thing that I think makes this book so different. I mean, yes, there are tons of World War II stories, but Alsace’s experience during World War II was unlike any other region of France…. They were annexed. They became part of Germany again. They were part of Hitler’s Reich and their men had to fight for Hitler so their experience is completely different from any other region of France and nobody writes about that,” Knoy said.
Knoy will spend most of her time speaking on the conference’s themes.
Keynote Speaker Laura Knoy. Courtesy photo.
“I won’t be speaking that much about my specific book. I’m definitely going to talk about the role of confidence in my earlier career and how I’m kind of working,” Knoy said. Among Knoy’s other pursuits, she hosts a couple of podcasts. One is called ReadLocalNH and can be found on Spotify and other places where podcasts live.
“Once a month I interview a local author, and I’ve met some great authors … and I just feel like there needs to be more platforms for New Hampshire authors to shine. I’ve been running ReadLocalNH for two and a half years and I’ve met some incredible people. I’ll probably see some of them down in Derry,” Knoy said.
Knoy believes many paths exist to the land of writing.
“There’s no one right or wrong way to do it. And I’m kind of suspicious of anybody who says this is the right way. That works for them, but maybe that doesn’t work for you. … There’s the people who say, ‘Sit down every morning and write for four hours’ and that’s great for some people but that’s not my lifestyle,” Knoy said.
Robinson discussed other presenters on the schedule.
“Then we’ve got, of course, Gina Perry. She is doing a picture book process and she has multiple picture books. She writes and illustrates. She does a wonderful job. Terry Farish and Sara Leslie Arnold, that’s like an author librarian team, and they’re going to talk about author visits, presenting your stories to diverse students,” Robinson said.
Robinson hopes writers from around the state are able to go to the event.
“I think we do find that writers are often quite introverted, so it can be a challenge to find those groups to talk to and mingle with and connect with, so they’re going to be discussing that, Susan Drew and Scott Gray. Then the one I’m also really looking forward to is Sarah Lamagna. She does these New England hiking books, which I just love,” Robinson said.
With the event being free it will be hard for writers to pass up.
“Registration is recommended. We wouldn’t bar anyone from going if they showed up but it’s recommended just so we make sure we put out enough tables and chairs and get ample room for everybody,” Robinson said.
“It’s really for every level and it’s wonderful too because it really is a wonderful writers community and people come from Massachusetts and New Hampshire so I think the second best part besides being, just being a really enriching experience is the community that comes together. All the writers come out of their quiet little houses and come and collaborate and communicate for a day and it’s really nice to see. Some people honestly just come because they want to hear interesting speakers. They might not even have a project in the works yet, and they’re welcome to come too. It’s not just about that, you know, really strict group who, you know, call themselves writers. It really is open to all, anyone who’s interested. Great for teachers too,” Robinson said.
Derry Author Fest When: Saturday, April 5, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Where: Derry Public Library, 64 East Broadway, Derry Free (registration encouraged) More: derryauthorfest.wordpress.com/schedule
Schedule 10–10:05 a.m. – Welcome 10:05–10:50 a.m. – Keynote with Laura Knoy 11:10–11:55 a.m. – Picture Book Process: From Your Light Bulb Moment to the Bookshelf with Gina Perry 12:15–12:55 p.m. – Lunch break 12:55–1:40 p.m. – Author Visits: Presenting Your Stories to Diverse Students with Terry Farish and Sara Lesley Arnold 2–2:45 p.m. – Get Out of Your Spare Bedroom and Find Your People with Susan Drew and Scott Gray 3:05–3:50 p.m. – Plot Twist: You Don’t Need an English Degree to be an Author with Sarah Lamagna 3:50 p.m. – door prize by New Hampshire Writers Project
Meet-and-greet and book signing will immediately follow each session. All-day book sale provided by Gibson’s Bookstore.
Comic con fun — for kids – Telling stories, drawing pictures
This year is the 10th anniversary of the founding of Kids Con New England, said founder Emily Drouin.
“I’m a comic book artist and children’s book illustrator and founder of Kids Con New England. It’s a fun comic con for kids and children’s book event,” Drouin said.
The event is scheduled for Sunday, April 6, at the Sheraton in Nashua.
“We’re all about promoting art education and literacy through family-friendly comics, children’s books, art, and creative workshops, and lots of fun activities for the kids. They can meet over 130 comic and children’s book creators, exhibitors, middle grade authors, as well as lots of superheroes, princesses, pirates, Pokemon characters, characters such as Bluey, Mickey & Minnie, and Star Wars characters and more,” Drouin said.
“We do Jedi training, musical performances by the Clemenzi Crusaders and the Foo Family Band, magic shows with Sage’s Entertainment, and we have Gamers Sanctuary providing fun video games, and we also have indie game makers that do tabletop games, and we’re having Lego builds with the Lego Store, coding and robotic demos, and art contests, kids and family cosplay contests, scavenger hunt and more. So there’s a lot of things going on,” she said.
What drove Drouin to start this saga?
“I was self-publishing and started going to comic cons,” she said. “I noticed that … there weren’t a lot of family-friendly activities for the kids. I would often be next to a lot of adult-themed comics. And I wanted to create a fun event for the kids so that there’s lots of things for the kids to do, as well as to inspire them to create comics, so I started running kid zones at comic cons where I was teaching creative workshops. Then I decided to create a whole convention devoted to fellow family-friendly comic creators and children’s book illustrators to showcase their work.”
Families will feel at home at this event.
“This is a family-friendly space, all the materials are family-friendly appropriate, you know, no bloody gore and inappropriate books for the kids,” Drouin said. She hopes to “inspire them with the creative workshops and get kids excited about reading and creating art and comics.”
Drouin is creating as well as offering the space to other creators.
“I just had a new comic that came out. It’s superhero-themed about saving the environment, kind of like Captain Planet. It’s by a company that does textile recycling, Apparel Impact. I worked on their second book in this series. The first was done by another comic artist but this one is Apparel Impact Toxic Takedown and it’s about this textile production causing their waste to go into the waters and it’s creating this toxic environment for the animals and the people in the surrounding community. The superhero team, they go to put a stop to that and save the day.”
Toxic Takedown is the second story in Apparel Impact’s Team Impact! comic book series. Selections from this story as well as more of Drouin’s work can be found on her website emilyatplay.com
“I work mainly with authors. I illustrate,” Drouin said. “I also had a couple of children’s books that came out too last year, or [in the] past couple of years. I had one about adopting a puppy called Kona Finds a Family. And I did another one about the environment, Buddy the Bass and the Gooey Green Slime.” Selections from these titles and more can be found on her website as well.
Comic strips in the newspaper were a big inspiration for Drouin.
Photo courtesy of Emily Drouin.
“I loved reading all those and that inspired me to start writing and creating my own comics and stories, and I also loved going to the library, all the books that I could get, and it inspired me to write and illustrate my own stories. When I was a kid I was inspired by Brothers Grimm fairy tales. I loved fairy tales, and so I would write my own fairy tales. I did co-write a comic book series called Eplis with my husband, Jeremy. I’m glad to still be doing this as an adult…,” she said.
Access to art as well is a big catalyzing factor for Drouin to put on Kids Con.
“One of the reasons why I wanted to do Kids Con New England was I wanted there to be a resource, a place for kids to learn and create comics. Through our workshops we’re hoping to inspire the next generation of creators. I wish there were more of these types of events when I was growing up … it’s a really awesome opportunity for kids to meet all these artists and authors and to get inspired … we have storytelling workshops [and] writing workshops to get kids better at how to write stories as well as creating comics.”
Many well-known and award-winning artists and illustrators will be in attendance, including Mark Parisi, Rick Stromoski, Chuck Dillon and Joe Wos.
Wos has won six Emmy awards as host and creator of PBS’ The Cartoon Academy. He is also an educator and has been the Charles M. Schulz Museum’s resident cartoonist for more than 20 years.
“He’s going to be doing a presentation at Kids Con…,” Drouin said, “teaching kids how to do cartooning, how to draw, and so it’s really a great place for kids to learn a lot. We also have several members of the National Cartoonist Society. So famous cartoonists are there.”
“I think the visual aspect of storytelling is really engaging to kids…. In the ’80s and early days, you know, there were mainly adult-themed comics, and now comics are very popular for kids. They have Dog Man and others out there. It’s just really a way for kids to get excited about reading, I think, through the visuals and the colors, and it brings the characters to life. … It’s a really fun and exciting way to create and tell stories.”
Drouin reflected on her journey running comic cons for kids.
“Since we’ve been running this for a decade [we’ve seen] all the kids that have been coming back each year to the shows … it’s really fun seeing the kids grow with us,” Drouin said.
Kids Con New England
When: Sunday, April 6, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Where: Sheraton, 11 Tara Blvd, Nashua Tickets: Admission costs $16. Kids under 5 get in free. Discounts for family-of-four pack, military and seniors. More: kidsconne.com, emilyatplay.com
Nothing but comics – Little Giant show brings big-name artists
Jason Brodnick and his wife are hosting their Old School Comic Show at the Everett Arena in Concord on Saturday, April 5. They started the event in 2018 and typically expect to see a couple thousand comic book fans.
“So the Old School Comic Show is a true ‘old-school,’ in my opinion, what an old-school comic show was. I grew up in the ’80s in Philadelphia and I went to some comic shows back then and I remember them to be nothing but comics, artists, and art,” Brodnick said.
He’s interested in the fundamentals.
“There weren’t cosplay parades, and there wasn’t the Geico truck trying to sell you car insurance. There wasn’t a vinyl siding guy, you know? I think comic cons have become something that I don’t like, which is like a pop culture con, you know? They’re fun, but I go to shows for comic books, and I think a lot of other people do as well.”
Brodnick and his wife run Little Giant Comics in Lawrence, Mass., and they originally had a storefront at the Rockingham Mall in Salem, New Hampshire.
Their main focus at the Old School Comic Show is the comic books.
“All the other stuff kind of gets in the way for me, so I created a show how I remember them to be with nothing but comics, artists and art, and it’s resonated within the community. It’s now arguably one of the best shows in the country. We have the best vendors in the hobby — Heritage Auction House, Metropolis Comics comes and sets up. Terry O’Neill comes from California, Harley Yee, Greg Reese, these guys are legendary vendors in the hobby, and they converge on the capital city of New Hampshire at this little arena and it’s an incredible event.”
Old School Comic Show, 2021. Courtesy photo.
Brodnick says attendants should expect to find countless comics when they walk in Saturday morning.
“It would be nothing but comic books as far as the eye can see and comic book art. So when you walk into the arena that’s what you’re going to get smacked in the face with is some of the best comic books and comic book art that’s out there.”
Comic book artists will be in attendance as well.
“We have some of the best artists that ever worked on a book, legends in the hobby. Jim Steranko; David Michelinie, who created Venom and Scott Lang. We have Jim Shooter, John Beatty, Donny Cates. C.G.C. Grading Company is going to be on site. It’s a pretty awesome event.”
These visual stories have shaped Brodnick since he was a kid.
“I had moved from Tennessee to Philadelphia and I was kind of like a little outcast, didn’t have a lot of friends, spoke in a Southern accent. One day I was walking home from school and I found a copy of ROM #18 and I read it and it was a story about the X-Men fighting this robot alien guy, Spaceknight they call him, and I got hooked…. I had my father bring me to Comic Universe to look for the first part of the story so I could find out what really happened, and it was fun. I enjoyed it, so I started collecting comics at that point.”
The Old School Comic Show grew out of a difficult period in Brodnick’s life.
“In 2013, I lost my job and I threw my back out,” he recalled. “It was six years before I could stand upright again. I was getting shots in my back. I had gotten severely overweight and depressed. Life was beating me up a little bit. My wife took me to a yard sale event at the Everett Arena in 2013. I remember walking in and it was like the horns of Valhalla started playing and it was the perfect venue for a show. I inquired about it and the guy said, ‘We only do dry floor events three months out of the year and vendors get right of first refusal,’ he said, ‘so for something to open up, it’s really hard. It takes a while for something to open up, but if anything happens, I’ll call you.’ So I left my number, I didn’t think anything about it. Five years later, in January of 2018, I get a phone call. ‘We got one day in April, it’s a Saturday.’ I said, ‘I’ll take it.’”
Little Giant Comics Old School Comic Show
When: Saturday, April 5, doors at 10 a.m. (9 a.m. for VIP) Where: Everett Arena, 15 Loudon Road, Concord Tickets: $15 in advance, $20 at gate, $50 VIP (pre-purchase only, limited to 250 tickets) More: oldschoolcomicshow.com
On Saturday, April 5, the Exeter Literary Festival happens at the town hall and the library. Katie Adams, the Chair of the Exeter LitFest board, spoke with the Hippo about the event.
“The group was founded by a group of people who wanted to highlight and celebrate and cultivate their long literary tradition in Exeter,” Adams said. “We’ve had so many writers here, from Dan Brown, people with a tremendous amount of success, and John Irving, to a whole slew of self-published authors who really add to that literary fabric that we all really appreciate.”
The LitFest has taken years to get to its current shape.
“When the festival began, it mainly focused on hyper-local authors, authors who were right in town or right nearby. In recent years we have expanded, and we’ve been able to balance out a lot of our homegrown authors with a little bit of a broader group from the New England area,” she said.
Two authors topping the bill this year are novelist Courtney Sullivan and historian Dr. Tiya Miles.
Sullivan “writes a lot about New England, a lot about big families, multigenerational, a lot of women’s stories,” Adams said. “She’s really wonderful, and her latest book, The Cliffs, is set right in Maine, so we think she’ll be a terrific fit for our audience.”
Miles’s All That She Carried won the 2021 National Book Award for nonfiction. “Her latest book, Night Flyer, is a kind of biography of Harriet Tubman [but] not just a straight cradle-to-grave account of her life. It is an account of her life through the lens of both her faith and her relationship to the natural world, so it’s really special,” Adams said. “We’re very lucky to be able to have these two authors who write such different books that are both so vibrant and relevant in our town.”
The fest is held on the first Saturday of April every year.
Exeter Literary Festival. Courtesy photo.
“This year we’re starting at 11 [a.m.] with our first event for adults and then our last event is at 4 [p.m.]. And we have events in the downstairs of the Town Hall as well as upstairs going on throughout that period of time,” Adams said.
“We also have a children’s event. This is our second year having a children’s event…. That is at the Exeter Public Library at 9:30 when children have been awake for many hours, as I well know.”
Aside from the featured authors, Lit Fest includes panel discussions. Four writers will join a panel about self-publishing. “We know we have a lot of writers and aspiring writers in this community, so that should be a really useful panel,” Adams said. “We have a panel on romantasy, the combination of romance and fantasy, which is one of the hottest and most rapidly growing genres for readers, so I think that will be a popular one,” Adams said.
Sports writing and baseball will be discussed too. “We have Keith O’Brien, who is a local author, who has written a great baseball book this year. He’s going to be coming back to Exeter Literary Festival this year with that book, and he’s being interviewed by Dan Provost, who both teaches English at the high school and is also a baseball coach. So I think that should be a really fun conversation,” she said.
“I like where we are right now. I like being able to be fundamentally a one-day event because the Exeter Town Hall is this really cool historic building and it’s also right in the middle of downtown where we have so many great shops, including our bookstore and restaurants. It’s great to be able to bring people here and collaborate with the local businesses and make it sort of a great community day,” Adams continued. “We have really worked on offering a variety of authors, perspectives, genres, so that we can both meet our readers where they are and also help introduce them to some new voices. That is definitely the balance I’d like to keep going forward,” she said.
Exeter Lit Fest
All events are free and open to the public.
Saturday, April 5
9:30 a.m. – Cynthia Copeland, author of middle-grade graphic novels Drive and Cub, at Exeter Public Library
Town Hall Main Events (Exeter Town Hall, 9 Front St.)
11 a.m. – J. Courtney Sullivan in conversation with Katie Adams 12:15 p.m. – Keith O’Brien in conversation with Dan Provost 12:15 p.m. – Independent Publishing in the Modern World featuring authors Renay Allen, Michael Cameron Ward, Justin Corriss and Sara North, moderated by Lara Bricker 1:30 p.m.– Damsels and Dragons: Romance, Fantasy, and Marrying the Two featuring authors Jacquelyn Benson, Laura Mayo, and Lyra Selene, moderated by Naomi Farr 1:30 p.m. – Echoes of Now: Poets of the Present Moment featuring poets K. Iver, Cate Marvin and Nathan McClain, curated by Diannely Antigua 2:45 p.m. – Family and Finding Home featuring authors Jane Brox and Alexandra Chan, moderated by Stef Kiper Schmidt 2:45 p.m. – Exeter High School Student Poetry 4 p.m. – Dr. Tiya Miles in conversation with Caleb Gale
More: exeterlitfest.com
Featured photo: Kids Con NE. Photo courtesy of Emily Drouin.
The peregrine falcons at the Brady Sullivan tower in downtown Manchester welcomed a second egg on March 27, according to a log recording action at the nest. This new speckled egg joins an egg laid a little more than five days earlier on March 22. You can watch the couple and their progress at the Peregrine cam at nhaudubon.org/education/birds-and-birding/peregrine-cam, where the New Hampshire Audubon offers three live views of the nest with support of Peregrine Networks and Brady Sullivan Properties, the website said.
NH literacy
The New Hampshire Department of Education has launched a survey to get community input about literacy education in the state, according to a press release. The “New Hampshire’s Literacy Landscape Survey” asks to rate satisfaction in literacy education at local schools and about instruction in literacy elements as well as what tools might be needed, according to the survey, which is available at education.nh.gov. (Find the March 31 press release about the survey for the link.) The survey will close on June 3, the release said. “As part of the state’s commitment to improving literacy outcomes for all students, NHED is conducting this needs assessment survey to identify the most pressing needs and opportunities to achieve the goals outlined in the creation of the State Literacy Plan,” the release said.
Sustainability
The Boys & Girls Club of Souhegan Valley (56 Mont Vernon St., Milford) will hold the 2025 Souhegan Sustainability Fair on Saturday, April 5, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Bring a non-perishable food item to donate to the local food pantry SHARE, according to a press release. The fair will feature live music, food, a guided hike, a story walk, kids crafts, 34 exhibits, presentations and more, according to the release. Admission is free.
Juneteenth event
The Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire will hold a discussion on Ona Marie Judge, the woman who eventually settled in New Hampshire after escaping enslavement at George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate, at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester on Thursday, June 12, at 5:30 p.m., according to a press release from the Black Heritage Trail. Judge, the focus of the book Never Caught by Erica Armstrong Dunbar, escaped to Portsmouth, and the event will include a dramatic reading of her 1845 interview published in The Granite Freeman, the release said. New Hampshire actress Sandi Clarke Kaddy will perform as Ona Judge, after which Armstrong Dunbar will discuss Judge’s story, the release said. Admission is free; reserve a spot at blackheritagetrailnh.org or by calling 570-8469.
The artist reception for “Revive, Renew, Reconnect,” an art exhibit from Concord-based Art Alley Cats (artalleycats.com) and DIY Craft & Thrift (diycraftandthrift.com) at Kimball Jenkins (266 N. Main St., Concord, kimballjenkins.com), will be on Saturday, April 12, from 5 to 7 p.m. The event was originally scheduled last weekend but was postponed due to weather.
The Evolution Expo, with the tagline “mind, body & spirit,” will be held Sunday, April 6, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Grappone Conference Center, 70 Constitution Ave. in Concord, and will feature exhibitors, demonstrations, workshops and more, according to holisticnh.org/evolution-expo, where tickets are free (admission costs $10 at the door).
Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom (169 Ocean Blvd., HamptonBeach, casinoballroom.com) will kick off its new season with Experience Hendrix (a multi-artist show featuring Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Christone Kingfish Ingram, Zakk Wylde, Eric Johnson, Devon Allman and Samantha Fish) on Thursday, April 3, at 8 p.m. and Melissa Etheridge on Sunday, April 6, at 8 p.m.
The Milford Garden Club will hold a program on purple martins, birds native to North America, featuring Pamela D. Hunt, a biologist for avian conservation at the New Hampshire Audubon, on Monday, April 14, at 10:30 a.m. at the First Congregational Church Parish House, 10 Union St. in Milford. The meeting is free and open to the public.
