Princess Lolly from Candy Land, the classic board game that taught us kids all about colors and sugar.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The ninth annual Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″) just wrapped another three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, Funko Pops, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. Each year C2E2 keeps inching ever closer to its goal of becoming the Midwest’s answer to the legendary San Diego Comic Con and other famous cons in larger, more popular states. My wife Anne and I missed the first year, but have attended every year since 2011 as a team.

In this special miniseries I’ll be sharing memories and photos from our own C2E2 experience and its plethora of pizzazz. If it’s a convention, that means it’s time for more cosplay photos! Anne and I are fans of costumes and try to keep an eye out for heroes, villains, antiheroes, supporting casts, and various oddities that look impressive and/or we haven’t seen at other cons…

Part Two featured the majority of Marvel characters we met; Part Three covered more Marvel, DC Comics, Star Wars, and a bit of video games. This time around: all the cosplay that’s fit to print and left to post. Same disclaimers apply as in Part Two. Enjoy! Some more! Still!

G-FORCE! Tiny and Jason from Battle of the Planets. Or Gatchaman, if you’re hardcore.

Ralph Hinkley, the original Greatest American Hero.

Dream a.k.a. Morpheus from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, and Elsa Lanchester, Bride of Frankenstein.

Sophia from The Golden Girls is easily recognizable to us Gen-X-ers, but Anne and I debated quite a bit over which ones the other two were.

The Rocketeer, doing Dave Stevens proud.

Kaylee’ s lovely ball gown (and strawberries) from the Firefly episode “Shindig”.

Quidditch team representing for the world of Harry Potter, along with an accidental Syndrome from The Incredibles. I usually leave unintentional Easter-egg cosplayers unlabeled for readers to discover on their own, but what the hey.

One of our convention traditions is a little game called “Cosplay Stumpers”, in which we photograph a few cool costumes we don’t recognize and see if my son knows them later. He failed to identify this winged warrior and forfeited many points.

Also stumping us: similar to one of Aquaman’s old color schemes, but a design akin to Princess Ariel’s.

My original caption was “Medieval knights from that one thing with the medieval knights in it”, but I just now dug more deeply and confirmed these are Riften guards from Skyrim, which should’ve been included in Part Three with other gaming characters. My bad!

The Egyptian god Anubis.

Dueling Reptars from Nickelodeon’s Rugrats.

Dueling Walter Whites from not-Nickelodeon’s Breaking Bad.

The Queen of Hearts from Tim Burton’s colorful but depressing Alice in Wonderland sequel.

Aang from Avatar: the Last Airbender.

It’s rare to see sports-legend cosplayers, such as Super Bowl XLIX breakout star Left Shark.

Moana and Hei Hei, who thankfully didn’t keep running headlong into dealer displays.

Miguel from Pixar’s Coco, my favorite film of 2017. I still tear up every time I think of “Remember Me”.

To be continued! Other chapters in this very special MCC miniseries:

Part 1: Another Jazz Hands Gallery!
Part 2: Marvel Cosplay!
Part 3: More Cosplay!
Part 5: Comics Creators Cavalcade
Part 6: Who Else We Met and What We Did
Part 7: Random Acts of Pop Culture

This year’s new C2E2 reading pile. Part one.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The ninth annual Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″) just wrapped another three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, Funko Pops, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. Each year C2E2 keeps inching ever closer to its goal of becoming the Midwest’s answer to the legendary San Diego Comic Con and other famous cons in larger, more popular states. My wife Anne and I missed the first year, but have attended every year since 2011 as a team.

In this special miniseries I’ll be sharing memories and photos from our own C2E2 experience and its plethora of pizzazz…

…which as always includes the densest Artists Alley in the Midwest. Eleven double-length rows of writers, artists, cartoonists, painters, print makers, button sellers, novelists, professionals, amateurs, up-‘n’-comers, elder statesmen, internet sensations, and quiet ones you gotta watch. Diversity fans could find something to their tastes in virtually every conceivable corner of the medium. I tried to walk it twice per my annual ritual, and saw every table at least once — with or without their assigned artist at them — but had to bow out a few rows before the end of the second run-through when exhaustion and budgetary conscience both began tearing me down.

Many talented creators put up with my wife and me within the space of a valuable moment of their time at C2E2 in between finishing commissioned sketches and other, more desirable endeavors. I made a point of throwing money at them and once again added several pounds to my reading pile and our convention bags. Anne did what she could to help me out when my back began failing under the accumulated weight, but now I owe her a new bag for the damage done. Next year I need to remind myself to wait till the end of the day before splurging on any hardcovers.

Some of the winners of my money and gratitude in exchange for arts rendered, in order by their books pictured above:

Adam Fotos, showing off his most recent, intricately illustrated book Beyond Paper Walls, about his travels to Japan. I grabbed a copy of his first book, The Panopticorn, a Twilight Zone-ish tale involving a most peculiar cornfield.

Hannah Blumenreich captured the attention of Marvel fans with a few funny Peter Parker short stories that neatly summed up the heart-filled nature of his best stories from back in the day. I bought a Regular Show collection from her, read the entire thing later that evening, and confirmed her contribution “Fancy Dinner” was simply the best. The day after C2E2 came the announcement of her next gig as writer of the upcoming IDW series Big Hero 6, based on the very good Disney film based on the forgotten Marvel comic.

I first heard of Amy Chu when she appeared as a panelist at Indiana Comic Con 2015. Since then she’s racked up credits at Marvel, DC, and Dynamite, where she’s now having to endure the wrath of Green Hornet fans and their long laundry list of everything wrong with every version ever, not just hers, because the 273-year-old Green Hornet canon is of course Serious Business and woe betide any who dare fail to uphold established continuity from ye olde vacuum-tube radio serials.

We keep bugging Charles Soule every time he’s at C2E2. This year he took a break from the 73 different Marvel series he’s presently writing to hold a Friday-only two-hour signing of his first novel The Oracle Year, which was just released the week before. You can read his recent essay on its premise over at John Scalzi’s blog.

Tyler Ellis, creator of the ongoing SF webcomic Chimera and nominee/finalist for the 2018 Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics as bestowed each year at the Long Beach Comic Expo.

Justin Greenwood, current artist on Greg Rucka’s Oni Press detective series Stumptown. He also illustrated a biography of Alexander Hamilton and had an animated discussion with Anne about historian/journalist Ron Chernow’s massive tome on the same subject.

Max Allan Collins is a longtime detective writer whose fictionalized Eliot Ness novels were a fun part of my late-’80s reading diet. In the world of comics, his resumé includes 15 years of the Dick Tracy comic strip, a short stint on post-Crisis Batman (where he helped reboot Jason Todd), the graphic novel Road to Perdition (later adapted into a movie starring Tom Hanks and Paul Newman), and the antihero Wild Dog, a version of which now costars on TV’s Arrow.

But wait! There’s more to this year’s C2E2 pile. Some days I wish I could write more quickly — or go back to sleeping less — so I could have more time for reading.

Writer/artist Ray Fawkes has done numerous creator-owned projects for Image, Oni, and Top Shelf, but has also been dabbling in the darker corners of the DC universe with Constantine, Batman, and a recent creepy revamp of Ragman, as formerly seen on TV’s Arrow.

Chicago journalist/writer Markisan Naso touted his ongoing Action Lab series Voracious, about a chef with a crappy life who develops a time-travel specialty in dinosaur cuisine. The first collection Diners, Dinosaurs & Dives had me at the title and at one of the two best covers I saw all weekend long. (Bad timing on my part: artist Jason Muhr was away from the table when I came by.)

I first saw the work of artist N. Steven Harris on a Grant Morrison project for DC called Aztek, which was one heck of a weird place to enter the field. Of late he’s worked on the indie series Watson & Holmes and the DC reboot spin-off The Wild Storm: Michael Cray, in which the titular gunman is assigned the grim task of hunting down corrupted alternate-Earth versions of DC’s biggest names.

The works of Andrew MacLean include the Dark Horse book ApocalyptiGirl and the Image Comics ongoing Head Lopper, for which I saw a recommendation from one of the more eclectic comics fans I follow on Twitter.

Two artists met but not pictured: Hollywood animator Stephan Franck, whom I first met at C2E2 2015 (likewise sans photo) and who’s now into Volume Three of his graphic novel series Silver; and writer/artist Jeremy Haun, who had the other best cover of the Alley, an homage to one of the Dungeons & Dragons sets of yesteryear adorning the hardcover collection of The Realm (colored by Nick Filardi — cf. C2E2 2016). I walk briskly past comic-book covers that just show a character standing motionlessly and staring at you without any indication of premise or any discernible activity that requires more than a single verb to summarize. If your dude is just standing, running, or flying, and that’s your entire cover, then I’m walking.

Knowledgeable comics fans may notice a dearth of ostensible “hot” A-list talents on the list. That’s not for lack of trying. Tom King, one of my favorite writers of the moment who ranks near the top of my Must List, is currently driving Batman up the sales charts and was therefore too, too beloved for me to get to, based on the hour-by-hour schedule he tweeted for Friday and Saturday. As soon as we general-admission fans were allowed inside Saturday at 9:55, I made a beeline for King’s table in Artists Alley, only to find that over five dozen VIP fans had already beaten me there. And his first signing was only an hour long before he had to go tend to other panels and appointments. The math didn’t work out. I never saw his line any shorter the rest of the weekend and reluctantly gave up. Maybe I’ll have a shot at saying hi when he’s 60, or if he ever flies out to the Superman Celebration in Metropolis.

King wasn’t the only hot ticket in the house. Also blessed with long lines were writer Gerry Duggan (Deadpool, Guardians of the Galaxy), eternal British fan favorite Alan Davis, and Big Hero 6 creator Chris Claremont, still an icon after the many decades he spent overseeing the fates of the X-Men. Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Millar were deemed so popular that C2E2 let them use actor-sized autograph booths for their respective signings. Millar — the creator of Wanted, Kingsman: The Secret Service, and the elderly version of Wolverine that was a big influence on James Mangold’s Logan — was also deemed soooo massive that fans with lots of disposable income could buy pricey VIP admission packages in his honor with shiny perks. (Marvel’s and DC’s respective booths had their own signing schedules and perpetually long lines as well, but I knew better than to pay attention to those.)

That sweetheart Anne tried taking a surreptitious pic of Chris Claremont, but only got his head floating over Adam Fotos’ comics. She also has a blurry pic of the thigh of a dude who walked between her and Tom King.

That’s not to say all my dreams were dashed upon the unforgiving rocks of frustration and failure and futility. One writer who deserved to have a line reaching from Artists Alley to the show floor entrance and out the front doors of McCormick Place did not, sadly, have such a line. General audiences should at the very least know of Christopher Priest as the inventive genius whose significant contributions to the Black Panther mythos factored heavily into director Ryan Coogler’s recent runaway blockbuster. Currently he’s wrapping up a ten-issue run on Justice League while continuing the knotty machinations of Deathstroke, my favorite DC Rebirth title to date. Going back farther, I’d have to begin typing voluminous paragraphs about Quantum & Woody and Power Man & Iron Fist, to say nothing of obscure gems such as The Falcon, The Crew, The Ray, and Xero, plus there was that time he was the first black editor at Marvel Comics, where he gave future comics writer Peter David his first opportunities, and jump-started the careers of who knows how many other comics pros.

Priest was and is cool, in person and on Usenet’s comics newsgroups when those were a thing. Priest is hyper-intelligent and fun to listen to even when he’s answering other fans’ questions before he gets to you. Meeting Priest essentially made my C2E2 2018. Even if we’d left and gone home right after his table, it would’ve been money well spent.

For the record, Anne showed the photo to Priest for his approval, which he did grant, acknowledging an occasional penchant for “bridge troll” pics.

He didn’t have any books for sale, but he graciously signed my copy of Quantum & Woody #1, which artist/co-creator Mark Bright signed for me at Cincinnati Comic Expo 2016. My entire 2018 in comic conventions is hereby made. I’m dead now. Also, Priest was one of several established talents who had donation buckets at their tables on behalf of the Hero Initiative, a non-profit tasked with drumming up support for elderly or ill comics creators in dire need of financial assistance. Making comics is reportedly a blast, but it’s not a career that comes with a built-in pension or health insurance.

Most recently they confirmed they’ll be lending assistance to former DC writer William Messner-Loebs. Check out their official site for more about what they do for other legends of the medium.

I wish I could’ve bought more than this, but our funds and time were regrettably finite. Now if I can just figure out where to store all these new books, I’ll be all set…at least until our next convention, whenever that is.

Slightly over half of C2E2’s Artists Alley this year, cutting off a good six rows or more because we had no drone to take the shot for us.

To be continued! Other chapters in this very special MCC miniseries:

Part 1: Another Jazz Hands Gallery!
Part 2: Marvel Cosplay!
Part 3: More Cosplay!
Part 4: Last Call for Cosplay!
Part 6: Who Else We Met and What We Did
Part 7: Random Acts of Pop Culture

Warrior Woody Woodpecker cosplayer interviewed by Chicago’s own late-night horror-flick host Svengoolie. Can it get more comic-con than this?

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The ninth annual Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″) just wrapped another three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, Funko Pops, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. Each year C2E2 keeps inching ever closer to its goal of becoming the Midwest’s answer to the legendary San Diego Comic Con and other famous cons in larger, more popular states. My wife Anne and I missed the first year, but have attended every year since 2011 as a team.

In this special miniseries I’ll be sharing memories and photos from our own C2E2 experience and its plethora of pizzazz…

We’ve covered our latest additions to our jazz hands catalog. We’ve shared nearly five dozen cosplay photos. We’ve saluted the comics creators who successfully divested us of cash. That wasn’t all the fun that C2E2 had in store for us this year.

(The following narrative of our two-day C2E2 walkabout will make more sense if you’ve already read Part One and Part Five. As you go, you should see where the photos from those entries slot into the storytelling.)

Lines, lines, lines, lines. Photo of me by Anne while she sat on the unforgiving concrete floor and waited for the geek stampede to begin.

Last year we made the mistake of treating Friday like a casual affair and arrived at McCormick Place around 11:30, a half-hour after the doors had already opened. By that time the most convenient parking in Lot A was full — all 2,100 spaces — forcing us to settle for the much farther Lot B, a giant gravel patch south of the convention center. We do need exercise, but we’re getting to that age when excessive exercise can effectively destroy our day. This time we made sure we were ready to leave home earlier, especially since this year the show floor would open at 10 on Friday.

Miracle of miracles, our timing worked out. I-65 construction was minimal and not too drastic. Chicago’s infamous Dan Ryan Expressway was running so unnaturally smoothly that we never came to a complete halt on the interstate once, never had to slow down below 8 MPH even when navigating the awkward merge from the Dan Ryan to I-55 North. We entered the center shortly after 8:30, scratched our heads while trying to figure out the bizarre walking path they’d set up to insert security checkpoints into the process, and picked up a pair of badges from Will Call to replace the ones they’d allegedly mailed but hadn’t arrived by the time we left Indianapolis. We joined the already swelling entry line and waited and waited and waited and grace was heaped upon us once again as the Powers That Be began ushering everyone inside a few minutes before 10.

We headed straight for Gina Torres’ autograph booth and commenced waiting and waiting and waiting some more. Once again we found another fun group of fans who enjoy sharing convention war stories and victories. Such camaraderie is the best way to pass the time while waiting for events to happen. Anne initiates conversation much better than I do, but I’ll roll with it, especially if it helps distract me from using up my phone battery prematurely. I recall exchanging pleasantries with a Harley Quinn cosplayer who’d brought a Funco Pop figure to have signed, and who complimented the large Tony Stark reactor button I had pinned to my bag.

Ms. Torres arrived shortly after 11:15 and was a pleasure to meet. She signed the Firefly DVD set I’ve been using to collect cast signatures. When I told her which two actors I’m still missing, she defiantly placed her autograph across Morena Baccarin’s unmarked cleavage as a long-term practical joke, that should pay off nicely if I ever have the opportunity and funds to meet the Deadpool costar someday.

A few rows down was someone else I’d looked forward to meeting: actor Susan Eisenberg, best known as the voice of Wonder Woman in the great Justice League and Justice League Unlimited animated series, as well as the last few DC video games. I’d previously met three other actors from the show and was delighted to meet the woman who helped bring Princess Diana to life in the dark ages between Lynda Carter and Gal Gadot.

Mostly we talked about tourism and things to do around the city. Chicago and its endless options are cool like that.

By 11:30 we were done with autographs for the day and ready to take on Artists Alley, always my favorite part of C2E2, and sometimes one of the most crowded areas, especially on Saturday. We slowly worked our way through the first four aisles, threatened to overfill my bag with new goodies far too early in the day, and took our lunch break around 12:30. We fetched a big batch of calories from the McCormick Place barbecue stand, adjourned to the second-floor café seating, and sat down for the first time in four hours.

Our view of roughly one-third of the exhibit hall.

At 1 p.m. the “C2E2 Live Stage” (an small stage in one corner of the exhibit hall, as opposed to the Main Stage upstairs) was scheduled to hold a short Q&A with special guests Dave Bautista and Sean Gunn from Guardians of the Galaxy. We walked over a few minutes early and were treated to the end of the 12:45 interview featuring Breckin Meyer, best known as Jon Arbuckle from the two Garfield movies and costar of the kinda amusing Rat Race. His current paycheck is an animated series on Crackle (one of those channels that now comes free with every TV and Blu-ray player) called SuperMansion, which I guess is about something, but I wasn’t paying close attention. I remember chuckling at least twice at their banter, which is a good sign.

The SuperMansion think tank, left to right: former Wizard Magazine staffer and Robot Chicken co-creator Matthew Senreich behind a pole, the erstwhile Jon Arbuckle, and writer Zeb Wells, who toiled in comics for several years before his move to Crackle. And that’s the unnamed moderator at far right.

The SuperMansion men wrapped up a few minutes later. By 1:10 we saw no sign of any Guardians and had other things to do. We headed for the hall’s main gate with the intent to head out and up the escalators to the fourth floor. We made the mistake of walking through a large unlabeled gap between the wall and the C2E2 souvenir stand, and found ourselves officially “exiting” the convention, absolutely not our intent. Guards prohibited us from walking backwards ten whole feet and insisted we now had to walk to the opposite end of the third floor, go through the security checkpoints all over again, and officially reenter the con. This was silly and added dozens of superfluous footsteps to our already considerable count for the day.

We played their game, reached the escalators, and rode upward to our next event: a 1:30 Q&A with Phil Lamarr, IMHO one of the best in the biz. You may have heard his work on such TV shows as MadTV, Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, Futurama, Static Shock, Samurai Jack, and Osmosis Jones. (Lamarr jokingly brought up that last one himself, quickly following in faux-Chris Rock tones with, “No, you didn’t! No one watched Osmosis Jones!”)

Chatting with him for 20 minutes at a dead convention in 2014 remains one of my all-time favorite con memories.

Obviously the idea of this hour was to listen to him crack jokes in funny voices, but in a stroke of genius, the moderator announced that the four or five fans who asked the best questions would receive freebies at the end. I couldn’t think of any, but many fans suddenly found the inspiration to dig a little deeper, become journalists for a minute, and avoid the usual panel-killers such as “Where do you get your ideas?” or “What was it like working with this one famous person that I’d rather meet than you?” or “This isn’t a question, just a statement: Thanks for being awesome!” or “Can I have your autograph here for free instead of paying at the table like I’m supposed to?” or “Can I have a hug?” or “I have a two-part question, which is a flat-out lie, because they’re actually two separate questions that have nothing to do with each other…” and so on. We can never repay the moderator for his noble deed that day.

Highlights from the Phil Lamarr Q&A:

• A passionate argument about the fate and worth of a particular Samurai Jack character in the series finale, which he had to conclude for the sake of time by literally declaring “End of Thread”
• Repeated references to The Weekenders, which I had to look up
• Appreciation for his cameos on Veep, which were the idea of showrunner David Mandel, with whom he worked on the short-lived Clerks animated series
• A few tips and tricks for vocal care when your job is talking for several hours a day
• Interesting notes on diversity and representation in general, and some insistence that it’s not just him and Khary Payton dividing up all the animated black-guy roles between them
• The repetitive weirdness of doing voices for video game characters, which often means recording a wide variety of pain noises and death screams
• Respect paid to influential improv coach Del Close, who also wrote comics for a short time back in the ’80s (I still have all 18 issues of Wasteland)
• Light snickering at anyone who hated the John Stewart/Hawkgirl coupling on Justice League Unlimited.

He also gave sobering advice on the hardest part of his job: not rejection as many artists would say, but rather the uncertainty inherent in a freelance artist’s life. As a “glorified temp”, it’s hard not knowing when the next job will be or how long it will last, not being able to live on a stable budget, watching your fortunes go up and down. One of the darkest parts of his life was a period in which he had regular roles on four TV cartoons at the same time, only to have all four canceled within a three-month span. And yet, he racked up enough guest-starring roles in the subsequent months that his total income for the year came out about the same. Lamarr knows of voice actors who left the field because they couldn’t handle the constant uneasiness that came with such risk.

Otherwise, extremely fun panel, 11/10 would sit through and laugh again, and maybe bring questions next time.

From there we sped back down to the exhibit hall for Charles Soule’s 2:45 novel signing. While in line we had fun watching Svengoolie a few booths down, in character, signing one free autograph per fan, with a rubber chicken at the ready just in case. I’ve seen bits of his late-night wackiness on MeTV, but missed the rubber chicken context.

The rest of our afternoon was wide open. We finally finished the rest of Artist Alley, gandered at a few publishers’ booths, saw roughly three half-aisles’ worth of dealers and merchandisers, and surrendered to fatigue around 5-ish.

One of many super-sized ads at the Marvel booth. Cloak & Dagger is their next super-hero TV series, coming soon to Freeform, based on a pair of characters I thought were cool when I was a kid.

Meanwhile at the DC Comics booth, the spotlight was on the new Syfy series Krypton, based on all the most boring parts of the Superman mythos. When I told Anne, major WWII history aficionado that she is, that the main character’s name is Seg-El, words cannot describe the look of horror on her face.

Emperor Anne relaxes and/or plans galactic domination in the Emperor’s chair at the 501st Legion’s area. Force-lightning effects to be added in post-production, of course.

* * * * *

Saturday morning arrived too soon. We drove from our hotel back to McCormick Place and got in shortly after 8:30, later than I would’ve liked, but still achieved the same prime parking in Lot A that we needed to survive the end of the day. We also wound up in roughly the same spot in the exhibit hall line anyway. Our third walk through the security checkpoint brought compliments for my Doctor Who shirt, which I promise I won’t wear to every con. But sometimes compliments — about, like, anything at all that we do — are nice to hear. We paced back and forth in our limited square footage, we enjoyed chatting with a lady named Maureen and her teenage son, and we rejoiced when the volunteers once again began ushering us all in before 10 a.m.

Anne sped off to the celebrity autograph area to reserve a spot for Justin Hartley, costar of NBC’s This Is Us and former Green Arrow from Smallville. Meanwhile, I walked literally half the perimeter of the entire exhibit hall to reach its polar opposite corner, where comics writer Tom King’s booth stood at the far end of Artists Alley. His schedule had been chopped and diced into hourly increments at various locations, including a temporary position at his assigned table from 10 to 11. Alas, roughly 60 VIP fans had had the same idea and beat me there. I’d already been stymied all Friday long, and decided at that moment to give up on him for the rest of the con. I walked the next one-fourth of the exhibit hall’s perimeter to rejoin Anne in her position. Less than ten minutes after opening, and I’d already gotten all my steps in for the entire day.

We spent the next 50+ minutes talking to the fans around us, including a very lively young lady who was a massive fan of Doctor Who and The CW’s super-hero shows. We didn’t have many pauses in the convo. Meanwhile we noticed that actors Mark Sheppard and This Is Us costar Milo Ventimiglia had both commenced quite a few minutes before their expected 11 a.m. start time.

Justin Hartley emerged from the curtains at precisely 11, and by 11:10 had finished adding to Anne’s collection of Superman-related autographs. We had two photo-op appointments later, but otherwise spent much of the day wandering the rest of the exhibit hall…which, after a while, felt like we were using an extraordinary amount of energy to peruse so many hundreds of booths while purchasing items from 5% of them at best. I dislike the idea of possibly curtailing our long strolls around future exhibit halls when we’re not even in the market for back issues, toys, costume accessories, high-end collectibles, bootleg Blu-rays, amateur novels, club memberships, Funco Pops, or cumulative stuff in general. Such walks do count as exercise we sorely need, to say nothing of all the cosplay photos we catch along the way. And yet…so many booths, so few reasons for us jaded geezers to stop. Food for thought.

Speaking of which: after the 12:30 Legends of Tomorrow photo, lunch was convention center foodstuffs again, this time from a burger booth. Anne got a mushroom burger; I got a cheddar burger. Those were the only menu options. Hers had a chipotle sauce on the bun that she didn’t care for, so we traded bun halves — her crown for my heel. The results didn’t impress but sufficed. We do what we can to survive under less-than-ideal conditions.

More wandering ensued. The next appointment on my list was a 1:45 signing by Max Allan Collins, longtime novelist and former comics writer. Like Charles Soule the day before, his was a one-day signing at one of the celebrity booths. I had planned to pick up his latest book for signing. When we arrived circa 1:40, we saw no books for sale or waiting on his table, where he wasn’t yet. Rather than risk saying hi to him empty-handed, I decided to go check out the booth for his publisher HarperCollins, assuming they’d have options. A quick check of the map confirmed they were on the opposite end of the show floor, just on the other side of the Marvel booth. Of course they were.

While Anne held my spot in Collins’ line, I sallied forth for more calisthenics. I paused on the way to gawk at a much, much, much longer autograph line, for Goosebumps mastermind R.L. Stine.

The end of Stine’s line when I passed. His booth was below that emergency exit sign in the distance. Later the volunteers began doubling up the line, but for a while his fans were extended halfway down Artists Alley.

I slowly squirmed my way through several aisles filled with thousands of slow walkers and loiterers separating me from HarperCollins. Days later I arrived and asked the first woman I saw behind the counter if they had any Max Allan Collins. Her eyes went glassy, then she smiled and confirmed she was in charge of the children’s-book half of the booth. That’s definitely not Collins’ half.

She kindly directed my attention to the other booth attendant, who thought for a second and then remembered the HarperCollins booth ironically had no Collins books. They were supposed to be on sale at Collins’ table.

I paused, reenacted the “white guy blinking” GIF, did an about-face, and sped back toward Collins’ booth, though “sped” is relative in a sea of endless crowds. Sometime shortly before the year 2021 I arrived back at the autograph area, only to notice that a booksellers’ table had sprouted from nothingness while I was gone and was now selling selected works by both Collins and Stine. I briefly rejoined Anne and the two amiable fans on either side of her in line, who all super helpfully told me about the new table. I don’t remember exactly what I said to them but it was about sixty words in four seconds. One of my most rarely used talents is, when the adrenaline is flowing and I’m at peak aggravation levels, I can sound like a Frasier episode written by Aaron Sorkin.

I returned to the pop-up table, bought one of Collins’ crime novels that didn’t have a risqué exploitation cover (which, frankly, narrowed my choices), and rejoined the line, which was now moving, albeit slowly because Collins is an extremely friendly gentleman happy to answer questions and offer insights. Our turn came at 2:26, which I recall distinctly because that’s also the very minute I remembered our Justin Hartley photo op was at 2:30. Collins signed my book with clarity and flourish and sweeping penmanship, responded in kind to a comment I made about his Eliot Ness novels, posed for a photo, and then suggested I join him for a second photo, which I did while trying not to nervously count off the minutes aloud as they ticked by.

Once we’d thanked him and made way for the next fan in line, we picked up the pace to head back to the photo-op area, only to realize it was no more than 200 feet away, practically a hop compared to the marathon I’d just run. Between the parking lot walk, the Collins book escapade, the quixotic Tom King quest, and our adventures the day before, if I’d had a Fitbit it would’ve rolled over like a beaten Pac-Man machine.

With our last photo op of the weekend completed, we had hours more to roam before our final events. I bought a thing or two, picked up freebies from Marvel, did an encore saunter through most of Artists Alley, and gaped in astonishment as the good people at Aftershock Comics accomplished the exceptional feat of convincing Anne to buy a graphic novel for herself. Shout-out to Adam Glass and old pro Patrick Olliffe, creators of the series Rough Riders, which is League of Extraordinary Gentlemen but composed of early-20th-century American teammates like Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Edison, and Harry Houdini, banding together against evil and whatnot. For the second time this weekend, a combination of comics and deep-dive history caught her attention.

By 5 p.m. we were ready for bedtime, but couldn’t succumb just yet. We had to return to the registration area for a quick wristband pickup. Anne had bought us tickets to see a live Saturday night performance from punk legend Henry Rollins, who’s been doing spoken-word gigs since the late ’80s, drawing from tales of his old band Black Flag or his later project the Rollins Band, in between occasional acting bits and frequent world travels. I last saw him in 2008 here in Indianapolis from lousy seats; this time Anne decided to spoil me with “premium” seating. Wristbands weren’t available till 5 p.m., so we’d had to bide our time till that moment.

At first we were disappointed that Rollins wasn’t scheduled to do photo ops or autographs like all the Hollywood actors. That disappointment evaporated Thursday night when Anne and a few dozen other “premium” ticketholders received an email inviting them to a special 5:30 meet-and-greet down on the first floor of the building.

So with wristbands at the ready, we marched down all the escalators and crossed off an unexpected bucket-list item for me.

Alternate jazz-hands take slightly differing from the one I posted in Part One. Afterward we discussed how the green wall would lend itself to all kinds of Photoshopping.

The line for the feature presentation wouldn’t begin forming till 6:30. Since we were parked at McCormick Place, that left us with the options of either (a) leaving to go somewhere decent for dinner, then paying a second parking fee upon our return; or (b) eating convention center food for dinner. We chose the latter because sometimes those are the hard choices we have to make. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

My first choice, the food court on floor 2½, was closed. We reluctantly made our fourth and final journey through the security checkpoint — receiving one last Doctor Who shirt compliment for good measure — so we could rejoin the main show floor on the third floor and try the next food court near registration. It had people inside, but was locked, presumably while the final customers of the day finished their meals. Then we realized that the short detour from the main show floor to the other food court — twenty scant feet, tops — had technically taken us once more outside what they considered the “main show floor”. Which would mean a fifth time through the security checkpoint in order to continue. Granted, their bag checks and wand-scanning had been cursory and perfunctory, but on principle we were annoyed.

We walked about thirty feet toward the nearest checkpoint, stopped several dozen feet early, ducked behind a very large sign, joined another lady in ducking under an adjacent railing, and presto! We were back on the “main show floor”. If only the maddening bureaucracy of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil had been this easygoing.

By this time Anne was very much dead and needed food and seating badly. I did some math and realized in the previous nine hours I’d only sat down once, at lunchtime. We both developed tolerance for standing around for hours back when we were in the restaurant biz, but today my endurance is a bit higher than hers. That meant settling for the first available foods for dinner.

The first open food stand only had churros. Tempting, but no. We were no John Scalzi.

The next two were closed. This was not promising. Anne didn’t have the strength to make it to the rib stand near the back wall, and there was no guarantee they were still operating.

What passed for salvation appeared at the fourth place down: a pizza stand with only a couple of full pies left, both of them just cheese pizza. We each got one slice. I added a bag of Cheetos. I hoped that Rollins’ performance would induce enough euphoria to make me overlook my appetite when it would surely return later. We staked out a bit of wall to hang out. Anne sat down on the concrete once more and got to recovering. That’s painful for me nowadays, so I settled for leaning against the wall and gobbled my inadequate dinner of cheesy carbs with a side of cheesy carbs.

Rollins’ event was upstairs, which was faraway but mercifully carpeted. The line wasn’t yet long, and was soon ushered inside the room for second-row seats, after a short conversation with an older fan about the Chicagoland government’s horrid tax laws and egregiously gouging fees for any- and everything. Throughout our Artists Alley travels we’d heard several creators’ similar complaints about how much it costs to do business at a Chicago con, about the additional amounts they have to recoup if you pay with a card versus hard cash. One couple recounted the year they’d failed to charge their Chicago buyers for tax and got clobbered by the IRS after the fact. This gentleman’s comments therefore weren’t too far removed from what everyone else was saying. Mind you, none of this was C2E2’s fault, but entirely a Chicago drawback.

Rollins, ever the professional, took the stage early at 8:55 p.m. and exited at precisely 10:55 p.m.

The man. The myth. The monster. You may remember him from such films as The Chase or Johnny Mnemonic. It’s okay if you don’t.

In between were two solid hours filled with:

• Light sociopolitical commentary! Very nearly bipartisan, even!
• An optimistic attitude about how we as individuals can make a positive difference in the world around us even when our ostensible leaders have basically abandoned us!
• Reminiscences from a 57-year-old man who knows he can’t win too many fights like he did in his angry hardcore youth!
• New travel stories! Like that time he visited a Manila cemetery where homeless families live, or that time he slept a night in Antarctica while surrounded by filthy penguins and listening to The Stooges’ Raw Power on earbuds
• Thoughts on his reluctance for wasting time and how he coldly calculates both how long his tasks take and exactly how much his groceries cost
• Head-shaking amusement at that time people thought he was dating RuPaul

…and more, more, more. Rollins can still bellow when he wants to, can still affect a stern glare and an unsettling vehemence, only to chuck it moments later as he settles back in for more epic storytelling adventures.

At 11 p.m., 14½ hours after our morning arrival, we were at long last finished with our C2E2 experience and ready to call it a con. We paused for a moment of reflection on the way out.

C2E2 after dark: silent and empty except for the cleaning crew. Thank the Lord they have one.

Thankfully we made it back to the hotel without falling asleep at the wheel. Also thankfully, they hadn’t given us up for dead. Also even more thankfully, the nearby streetwalkers left us alone. Sometimes Chicago can be rough, but sometimes it’s polite and accommodating when you need it to be.

To be concluded! Our grand finale is more photos and far fewer words, I promise.

Other chapters in this very special MCC miniseries:

Part 1: Another Jazz Hands Gallery!
Part 2: Marvel Cosplay!
Part 3: More Cosplay!
Part 4: Last Call for Cosplay!
Part 5: Comics Creators Cavalcade
Part 7: Random Acts of Pop Culture

We don’t play Cards Against Humanity, but their advertising is always the best.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The ninth annual Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″) just wrapped another three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, Funko Pops, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. Each year C2E2 keeps inching ever closer to its goal of becoming the Midwest’s answer to the legendary San Diego Comic Con and other famous cons in larger, more popular states. My wife Anne and I missed the first year, but have attended every year since 2011 as a team.

In this special miniseries I’ll be sharing memories and photos from our own C2E2 experience and its plethora of pizzazz…

…and it all comes down to this: photos of stuff and things around the exhibit hall. If you’ve never attended a comics or entertainment convention, or if you missed this year’s C2E2, or if you just really like photos of stuff and things, please enjoy this gallery of geek sights and eye-catching outtakes, guaranteed to have 65% fewer words than Part Five and 85% fewer words than Part Six. Yay pictures!

Wonder Woman and Superman looming over the DC Comics booth.

DC bought out MAD Magazine several years ago and is planning a relaunch with a new #1. Kids, be sure to ask your grandparents who Alfred E. Neuman was.

Valiant Comics reminds everyone they’re still publishing the once-great Quantum & Woody without the participation of creators Christopher Priest and Mark Bright.

Famed superhero painter Alex Ross stopped doing conventions a bit before Anne and I began doing them regularly, but this year he sent his people to hawk his wares in his place.

Next door to DC, a giant ad for the animated project Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors features Squirrel Girl, Ms. Marvel, Captain Marvel, Spider-Gwen, Quake from Agents of SHIELD, Inhumans star Lockjaw, America Chavez, Patriot from the Young Avengers, and some Inhuman I don’t know named Inferno.

Tauntaun a la taxidermy at the 501st Legion’s base camp.

Mandatory astromech droids.

An Imperial Officer guided this remote-control Mouse Droid around the middle of the show floor and somehow didn’t hit me.

The car from the original Mad Max, not The Road Warrior. You may recognize the vehicle in the next space.

We’re not sure if Atreyu from The NeverEnding Story was a team costume like a Chinese dragon or just a humongous stuffed animal.

Funko Pops continue to rule the merchandise booths and are in no danger of going the way of Beanie Babies yet. Give ’em a little more time.

Retro gamers enjoyed classic consoles on ye olde-tyme CRT-TVs. I braked when I noticed the second gamer from left was playing one of the Crash Bandicoot games.

State-of-the-art meets vintage nostalgia in these Skyrim pinball machines.

Glitch Gear carries more Borderlands merchandise (including this Psycho prop mask) than any other booth around — perfect timing for me since I just finished Borderlands 2 a month ago. I remain years behind the average gamer.

The most brilliant marketing idea we saw, courtesy of Bernina: in a room filled with hundreds of fans in homemade costumes, someone’s gonna need sewing machines.

The last thing we saw as we departed McCormick Place at 11 p.m. Saturday.

The End. Thanks for viewing! Lord willing and guest list pending, we’ll see you again next year.

Other chapters in this very special MCC miniseries:

Part 1: Another Jazz Hands Gallery!
Part 2: Marvel Cosplay!
Part 3: More Cosplay!
Part 4: Last Call for Cosplay!
Part 5: Comics Creators Cavalcade
Part 6: Who Else We Met and What We Did

One-third of this year’s FCBD reading pile.

It’s that time of year again! Today marked the seventeenth Free Comic Book Day, that annual celebration when comic shops nationwide offer no-strings-attached goodies as a form of community outreach in honor of that time-honored medium where words and pictures dance in unison on the printed page, whether in the form of super-heroes, monsters, cartoon all-stars, licensed merchandise, or entertaining ordinary folk. It’s one of the best holidays ever for hobbyists like me who’ve been comics readers since the days when drugstores sold them for thirty-five cents each and Jean Grey had never died before.

Each year, America’s remaining comic book shops (and a handful in the UK that can afford the extra shipping charges) lure fans and curious onlookers inside their brick-and-mortar hideaways with a great big batch of free new comics from all the major publishers and a bevy of smaller competitors deserving shelf space and consideration. It’s easy to remember when to pin it on the calendar because it’s always the first Saturday of every May and virtually always coincidental with a major movie release. Some folks were concerned about a break in tradition when Avengers: Infinity War moved up a week, but millions of psychologically devastated viewers still have it fresh in mind and haunting them to this day, so there’s no danger of anyone forgetting about superheroes in the near future.

The second third of this year’s FCBD reading pile.

Normally my wife Anne and I venture to one of Indianapolis’ six or seven remaining comic shops an hour or two before they open, hang out in line with other fans, avail ourselves of any freebies offered while we’re waiting, march inside when the figurative starter pistols are fired, grab some of the free offerings, and spend money on a few extra items as our way of thanking them for their service in the field of literacy.

It’s worth remembering Free Comic Book Day is not free for shop owners. The publishers and distributor still charge money for all these comics, which shops then turn around and pass out to anyone who asks for $0.00 apiece. Participation is not cheap. Whether they do it for love of comics, or because they don’t want to look like miserly super-villains, most comic shops join in the fun anyway. No one expects newcomers to the medium to be aware of that, to feel guilty, or to chip in like it’s a charity.

For longtime readers? It depends on our conscience.

And now, the exciting conclusion of this year’s FCBD reading pile.

This year my Free Comic Book Day involvement took on a different form. My local shop offered a special deal that sounds crazy on the face of it: for a fair sum of money, we could pre-purchase a bundle of all 52 Free Comic Book Day comics that their stores planned to order. Normally these would all be free, but you’d look like a schmuck for casually walking in, picking up all 52, and walking right back out. I’m reminded of a moral that Anne and I frequently invoke for many situations: just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should.

For the one flat fee up front, they set aside copies of all those comics, bagged ’em up, and let buyers pick them up late Saturday afternoon, once all the furor and hubbub had subsided. So I went for it. I liked the idea of playing the role of patron, donating extra cash to help facilitate Free Comic Book Day for other folks in town, in a way that would help my shop offset the costs. If you really like comics, then sometimes you do things to ensure there will be more comics. And the economic realities of the comics business have not been kind to shops over the past 20+ years. It’s kind of a miracle that Indianapolis still has this many active shops, far more than a lot of large or even larger cities can say. I rather like the idea of them staying in business for as long as I remain attached to their wares.

Now that I’ve done my part, next is the harder part: reading all of these. The next step in my weekend will be to plow through these as quickly as possible, in 100% random order, collating thoughts and images as quickly as I can for sharing with You, The Viewers at Home. Once I finish this entry and a few other errands, I’ll be reading and tossing tidbits online as I go, either on Twitter or on Instagram, or both, depending on my mood. Fair warning to anyone who already follows me on either account: you’re about to see me either flooding my feed, or failing and flailing. Who knows where my time and attention span will take me. At least I know the roads in either direction will be paved with worlds of wonder and pallets of pure imagination. And apparently some Power Rangers, which is not my thing at all, so that comic better not suck.

Actual wedding cake.

Dear Mr. Kotter,

Please excuse Randy and Anne Golden for skipping the Superman Celebration, Wizard World Columbus, and Indy Pop Con all at the same time. As evidence of their whereabouts, I submit Exhibit A: a photo of the official cake from the wedding they attended Saturday afternoon. Anne’s cousin and his new bride were the heart and soul of a wondrous occasion that marked quite a happy ending to a story that’s none of your business, if I may say so without you giving everyone detention. Also, in reply to your weird expression, yes, that is too a wedding cake.

In their defense, scheduling all three shows simultaneously wasn’t the best idea in the world. Believe it or not, June has more than one weekend. So does the entire summer, for that matter. Sure, they were in three different states, and the ongoing glut of Midwest events makes it harder and harder to keep everything spaced apart. It was inevitable that fans would have to start making tough choices about which shows to skip. The more you keep relocating some of those cons, the likelier it is that some fans will get left behind with schedule conflicts.

That’s one of the many reasons why the Superman Celebration in Metropolis, IL, is their favorite of those three shows. Every year the Goldens know it’ll be on the second weekend of June and they can plan accordingly. They pin it on their calendar and they wait for the guest list announcements. Alas, their cousin staked his “Save the Date” claim months before Metropolis made a move and basically called dibs on that Saturday first. If Metropolis could’ve afforded to bring in, say, Henry Cavill or one of those nice youngsters from The Flash, they might’ve had a real quandary on their hands and the opportunity to be total jerks and let that cousin get stood up. In looking at it, though, they’ve already met this year’s main guest, that exceedingly nice young man Brandon Routh, at the polar opposite end of Illinois in previous years (Wizard World Chicago 2013 and C2E2 2018). As for the other two headliners, the Goldens can’t bring themselves to watch Syfy’s Krypton and intentionally missed that boat.

On the other hand, Wizard World Columbus had a couple of guests they wouldn’t have minded meeting. Anne loves classic TV stars, and Randy has two (2) cast members from TV’s Firefly who haven’t autographed his DVD set yet. Each of them would’ve had one guest to look forward to at WWColumbus. They’ve proven they can handle a one-day trip to and from Columbus. (They owe big thanks to Cartoon Crossroads Columbus, the impetus for them to learn that lesson.) Unfortunately for WWCol, those two (2) guests weren’t added to the roster till Randy and Anne had already made up their minds not to check it out. In a world where actors can cancel an appearance with less than twelve hours’ notice (ANNE IS GLARING IN YOUR DIRECTION, KATE MULGREW), it’s understandable that some showrunners might be hesitant to unleash all their announcements too early for fear of the cancellation blues (THOUSANDS OF US ARE GLARING IN YOUR DIRECTION, FANDOM FEST). That hesitation is unhelpful to fans who pride themselves on being planners and need to know this stuff ASAP.

Then again, even the earliest, most diligent announcements from a top-of-the-line social media team may fall flat if fans and guests don’t click. Indy PopCon has some of the liveliest staff and volunteers around when it comes to drumming up enthusiasm from their followers on Facebook and Twitter…but each year their guest lists keep skewing harder toward Generation YouTube, which has been a bonanza for them in reaching a totally untapped market. From a convention perspective, that’s sharp-eyed geek-world acumen. From a fortysomething’s perspective, that’s reclassifying the proto-geezers as an undesirable sales demographic. PopCon effectively covered all the Goldens’ YouTube fandom needs when they brought in Epic Voice Guy for their 2016 edition. But it looks like there’re approximately seventeen million other famous YouTube all-stars out there waiting for their turn at an Indy PopCon invite, who’ll no doubt receive adulation and attention a-plenty from all those youngsters and their parents. It was nice of PopCon to add a few actors from geek-fave shows into the mix as well…but, again, the Goldens either met them already or don’t watch their shows. There’s one legend that Randy might’ve liked to meet, but that actor is also scheduled at a September show that’s still on their radar. There’s that competition between cons creeping in again, even between shows in different states and different months.

To be fair, Randy and Anne gave a few seconds’ thought to attending PopCon on Friday, thus bypassing the wedding dilemma altogether, but (a) the one actor wouldn’t be there Friday, (b) they had some time limits that day, and (c) paying $30 apiece just to walk into the exhibit hall, say hi to friendly familiar faces, maybe buy a graphic novel or two, take fifty cosplay photos, then leave the Convention Center an hour later…it was tempting for a few minutes, until it wasn’t.

In conclusion, please forgive the Goldens for missing out on three major opportunities for geek reunions, geek networking, geek shopping, all-out wall-to-wall geek fun, and some much-needed exercise. But in this case, family came first. If the wedding hadn’t been on this Saturday of all possible Saturdays…well, who knows how this weekend would’ve turned out for them. The only real certainty they can affirm in that alternate timeline is that they still wouldn’t be watching Krypton.

Signed,
Juan Epstein’s Mother, who refuses to explain her own pop culture significance to any puzzled youngsters reading this and insists they go ask their parents or maybe go YouTube her or whatever

Doctor Octopus is ready for battle, as is the brand new carpeting in the Stephens Center lobby!

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife and I made another journey up to Wizard World Chicago in scenic Rosemont, IL, where we found ample enjoyment and new purchases alongside peers and aficionados of comics and genre entertainment. A few guest cancellations dampened our spirits somewhat, but we persevered and enjoyed our couple’s outing anyway, especially since Anne’s entire weekend admission was free as a consolation prize given to her and a couple thousand other fans after David Tennant’s last-minute cancellation last year.

Once again we lead off a new convention miniseries with the mandatory cosplay galleries. We captured whoever we could while wandering the show floor Friday and Saturday in between the autograph lines, the random bits of shopping, and the nightmarish photo-op area, whose Saturday morning state I previously described on Facebook as “a dumpster fire run over by Pamplona bulls being chased by multiple Sharknados.” Anyway: the first three chapters will represent a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the costumes that were in the house. Because I always feel the need to divide cosplayers into arbitrary categories, our first set spotlights the stars of screen and page from the multimedia worlds of Marvel and DC Comics. As always, keep in mind we’re not paid professionals with $3000 cameras. We’re a pair of geeks all too happy to share photos and give away amateur journalism for free. Enjoy!

An old-school Doc Ock mixing it up with his worst enemy.

Okoye! Black Panther! Ulysses Klaue! Killmonger!

Ant-Man and the Wasp and their new bouncer Drax.

Scarlet Witch and Dr. Strange, who probably could’ve taken Thanos together if CERTAIN HEROES hadn’t SCREWED UP.

Years into it, the Deadpool cosplay craze still hasn’t died. This one brought his own unicorn pool-pal.

Another Deadpool insists that’s not an inflatable unicorn. This is an inflatable unicorn.

Everyone loves Deadpool’s unicorn, from Harley Quinn…

…to Poison Ivy. Well, maybe Rey and Kylo Ren don’t love Deadpool.

Another Deadpool accompanies a classic villain called Taskmaster, who duplicated all the weapons and physical abilities of the Avengers. Sadly for him, none of the Avengers was a unicorn.

Bob Rosspool, all but certain his favorite happy place is in a unicorn painting.

Wolverine was dead for awhile recently, and Deadpool was right there with the tasteless protest at his funeral.

Beverly Goldbergpool is more about ducks than unicorns.

Mandatory Squirrel Girl. I’d post an entire Squirrel Girl cosplay gallery if only we’d met more. Rats.

Starfire and Raven of the Teen Titans, now in theaters! Unlike Squirrel Girl, who is not.

The great Mary Marvel, who probably won’t be in next year’s Shazam movie unless they can find a less litigious name.

A better Green Lantern than Ryan Reynolds. Then again, who hasn’t been.

I didn’t mind Mark Strong as Sinestro, but this one is a contender for that coveted yellow ring.

Special shout-out to Jimmy Olsen, who kept my wife company in Tom Welling’s autograph line while I was off bulldozing my way through a crowd of upset Outlander fans. They agreed Olsen was a far better photographer than Peter Parker, glorified master of super-selfies.

Speaking of which: Spider-Man and his amazing variants!

To be continued! Other chapters in this special MCC miniseries:

Part 2: Movie Cosplay!
Part 3: Last Call for Cosplay!
Part 4: Ghostbusters!
Part 5: Who Else We Met, What Else We Did
Part 6: Objects of Affection

Costume Contest winners, Group/Duo division: various ghosts from the cast of Beetlejuice, including Michael Keaton and Alec Baldwin!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife and I made another journey up to Wizard World Chicago in scenic Rosemont, IL, where we found ample enjoyment and new purchases alongside peers and aficionados of comics and genre entertainment. Once again we lead off a new convention miniseries with the mandatory cosplay galleries. We captured whoever we could while wandering the show floor Friday and Saturday…

Rather than piling 50-60 photos into a single entry that takes weeks to scroll through, our process of arbitrary gallery groupings continues, this time with a batch of characters from assorted movies, both live-action and animated. Some are admittedly movie-adjacent, but the point is costumes. Enjoy!

A different kind of spirit: a pair of Pennywises from Stephen King’s It.

Li’l Georgie Denbrough, floating up here.

Ghostface, leader and sole member of the Occupy Sidney movement.

Cruella DeVil carrying her future hat.

Jack Skellington and Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

An awfully chummy Ripley and xenomorph remind viewers that Alien Resurrection is canon whether they like it or not.

I know zilch about Star Wars New Canon outside the movies, so for all I know this Sith could be on the list.

Or they’re both “Bring Back Legends” characters that my wife never mentioned. Or she mentioned them but didn’t show me photos.

From the new hit film, Christopher Robin with pals Pooh and Piglet.

The soon-to-be-rebooted Hellboy hanging out with Mad Moxxi from Borderlands.

You might remember Lady Liberty from such films as Planet of the Apes, Cloverfield, X-Men, and Ghostbusters 2.

Elastigirl gets a helping hand from TV’s the Tick and Bob the Builder,

Also from The Incredibles: Edna Mode and Dash, naturally looking fabulous.

To be continued! Other chapters in this special MCC miniseries:

Part 1: Marvel and DC Cosplay!
Part 3: Last Call for Cosplay!
Part 4: Ghostbusters!
Part 5: Who Else We Met, What Else We Did
Part 6: Objects of Affection

Yutaro Katori from The Brave Fighter of Sun Fighbird. Or if you’re on Twitter a lot, the “IS THIS A PIGEON?” meme, live and in 3-D!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife and I made another journey up to Wizard World Chicago in scenic Rosemont, IL, where we found ample enjoyment and new purchases alongside peers and aficionados of comics and genre entertainment. Once again we lead off a new convention miniseries with the mandatory cosplay galleries. We captured whoever we could while wandering the show floor Friday and Saturday…

…and here are all the rest, all the other cosplayers whose works we appreciated and whose souls we captured. We apologize sincerely for the hundreds of other great cosplayers we didn’t photograph, but: (a) we were trapped in lines a lot; (b) we’re getting older and recognizing fewer costumes; (c) Deadpool variants notwithstanding, we tend to sidestep characters that show up in packs of fifty; (d) I’m getting less excited every year about competing with roving herds of Instagrammers who don’t even bother to learn the names of the characters they photograph; (e) we don’t do costume contests anymore; (f) no ever runs up to us and demands we take and post their pic, which would be most welcome and super convenient for us if they did; and (g) by 5 p.m. Saturday we’d accomplished all our goals and lost our wills to walk.

If you don’t see yourself here, I’m really sorry, but I do hope you get to see a few other fellow cosplayers that you missed this weekend. We saw a lot of fine efforts all around the Stephens Center, breathing new life into favorite characters and generally enriching the WWC experience. Enjoy!

Skeletor, another Costume Contest winner.

The Energizer Bunny! The other side of his drum had a very special message written on it, but I’m keeping it all to myself to make myself feel special inside.

Princess Peach, in exactly the right castle.

Big in-joke for fans who convened on the scene to meet the four main cast members from Boy Meets World. Sadly, William Daniels could not be reached for comment.

The Tick’s partner Arthur, represented by one of several pro performers from Acrobatica Infiniti Circus.

Also from Acrobatica Infiniti: Katara from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

From The Simpsons: Prom King Artie Ziff, Jimbo Jones with Milhouse wrapped in VOTE QUIMBY tape, naturally Homer, and Selma with Jub-Jub. Our best guess on the lady in green is…someone else from Acrobatica Infiniti? Maybe? No?

From the Department of I’m a Horrible Person, Part 1: Ariel and Captain Planet’s Planeteers, but I cut off one teammate at the end. Really sorry.

Department of I’m a Horrible Person, Part 2: I thought this was the fighting chicken from that one Family Guy episode, but it’s actually Richard from Hotline Miami. His two companions were from the same game, but I snapped this before I realized it and cut them out and feel bad about it and have more guilt.

A green Dalek insisting if the the Doctor can have companions, so can they.

Also old-school: Klingons!

SPAAAAAAAACE GHOOOOOOOOOST!

Guards from Resident Evil‘s Umbrella Corporation.

Cthulhu and campaign manager. In this climate I wouldn’t count them out.

A Skull Kid from The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.

Some people aren’t into costumes, like Jim Halpert in his 3-hole punch getup from The Office‘s season-2 Halloween episode.

As seen on the Disney Channel, the cast of Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir — Plagg, Cat Noir, Tikki, Ladybug, and Gabriel Agreste with Nooroo.

(Special thanks to my son for naming assistance on two of these. Old or not, I still like learning about new and unknown universes.)

That’s practically all the costume photos we have, but the chronicle of our Wizard World Chicago weekend is far from over. To be continued!

Other chapters in this special MCC miniseries:

Part 1: Marvel and DC Cosplay!
Part 2: Movie Cosplay!
Part 4: Ghostbusters!
Part 5: Who Else We Met, What Else We Did
Part 6: Objects of Affection

Who knew that all these decades later, Casper’s Uncle Fatso would be better remembered than he is.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife and I made another journey up to Wizard World Chicago in scenic Rosemont, IL, where we found ample enjoyment and new purchases alongside peers and aficionados of comics and genre entertainment. A few guest cancellations dampened our spirits somewhat, but we persevered and enjoyed our couple’s outing anyway…

…especially after a last-minute major addition to the guest list spawned an entire additional programming track. For the Ghostbusters fans out there, Ernie Hudson — a.k.a. Winston Zedmore, “the black one” — had been scheduled to attend for a while. One week before showtime, another name popped up on the guest schedule: Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman himself. Hollywood directors are a rarity on the WWC roster (e.g. John Carpenter, Robert Rodriguez, actor/directors like Jonathan Frakes) and I wish we had opportunities to meet more of them.

Back in 1984 Ghostbusters was the very first movie I ever saw in an officially sold-out theater, alongside hundreds of other Hoosiers crammed into one of the two General Cinemas screens inside Lafayette Square Mall. I grew up in a strictly drive-in family that had had to adapt after our nearby Westlake Drive-In was shuttered in 1982. Even when we got used to indoor theaters, we tended to go at weird times with maybe a few dozen others in the audience at any given time, at most. Ghostbusters gave me my first real experience enjoying awesome comedy as a shared experience with a massive group.

It left a mark on my brain. I braked for it whenever I flipped channels. I became one of those fans who bought a new copy whenever it was re-released in a new, higher-quality medium. Longtime internet friends still remember when I used to reference the movie way too often. My enthusiasm for this year’s WWC had been increasingly dimming in the weeks leading up to it, but the Reitman announcement escalated my low-key anticipation into genuine excitement.

Not everything about the Ghostbusters experience went smoothly, but we pulled off the most difficult aspect of it thanks entirely to one integral component from my mental toolbox: social awkwardness.

An inflatable Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, an ECTO-1 Ghostbustin’-mobile, and a fraction of the total Ghostbuster workforce on duty.

Saturday would be the grand occasion, Reitman’s only day at the show. Ghostbusters fan clubs were in the house, gathering and confabbing and performing their Ghostbusting outreach as always, this time bringing along the props shown above. Hudson was also there Friday through Sunday, but to be honest, Anne and I had already met him at C2E2 in 2014.

Close-up from our 2014 photo op, the only time anyone’s ever trusted me with a proton pack. Thanks for believing in me, Mr. Hudson!

We did make a point of attending one relevant Friday panel: a Q&A with Violet Ramis Stiel, author of the recently released memoir Ghostbuster’s Daughter: Life with My Dad, Harold Ramis. The title recaps the salient points of her bio as her book recounts the story of her close relationship with her father the actor/director/book-smart Ghostbuster, who passed away far too soon in 2014. She often traveled with him to his various film sets, knew his friends and coworkers to varying degrees, and had a lot of stories to tell.

Nothing said at the Q&A implied any shocking revelations or seedy behind-the-scenes scandals, unless you count that one time she and Harold once stole a Christmas tree even though they were Jewish. (I’m aware of a secret that came up during pre-release articles from last spring, but no one brought it up this weekend.)

Our least worst pic of Violet Ramis Stiel.

She was charming, humble, and amenable to answering any question lobbed at her to the best of her recollection. No one went for the throat in some brutal display of gotcha journalism, which was fine by us. She also had a table in Artists Alley, but we never saw any copies of her book around. Either they sold out within minutes, or weren’t shipped out in time, or something. I was prepared to buy a copy and would’ve loved an autograph, but it wasn’t meant to be this weekend.

Table features included a Harold Ramis slideshow, celebrating his life and making me miss his talents more.

Friday night, Anne and I hung out in our hotel room, our usual post-convention ritual because we don’t drink, party, or get invited to drink at parties. She, ever the chipper morning person, was exhausted and fell asleep in minutes. I, the eternal night-owl, was restlessly whiling away the minutes with my nightly internet free time. I was blowing off steam after being informed that our favorite Rosemont hotel had begun charging for parking effective this year — not the sort of thing you want to find out as you’re checking in — and I was anxious because Wizard World had been waffling on the details of Reitman’s Saturday itinerary. We’d been told in advance that he would be doing a dual photo-op with Ernie Hudson (for which I bought my ticket literally seconds after hearing), and that he would be signing free (!) autographs, limit one per person…uh, like, sometime. After a “TBA” placeholder listing for a day or two, his signing was slotted at 1 p.m. Then it went “TBA” for another day. Then it was moved to 11:30 a.m. Their photo op likewise moved around on the schedule, but was finally nailed down at 10:45 a.m.

Whenever Reitman’s signing would be, though, it sounded too good to be true. I wanted more details. I wanted to know what the catch was.

As hundreds of other con-goers spent their Friday nights either attending late-night panels, checking each other out in bars, or flying their freak flags in the official WWC hotel block, I was blocks away, surfing and scrolling in silence when around 9:30 p.m. CDT, a promotional email from Wizard World brought headlines of Saturday’s bigger events and included a link for getting on the waitlist for Reitman’s free signing.

This was their first use of the word “waitlist” in conjunction with anything this entire weekend. I clicked hard, I signed myself up, then I signed Anne up while she snored lightly. We were missing out on fan camaraderie, but as far as the Reitman freebie experience, we were in. Moments later, a text informed me his signing would be at 1 p.m.

The following morning, Anne awoke and wondered why she had a weird text from Wizard World, but ignored it in favor of checking her email. She found the same WWC mailer, clicked the link, and found the waitlist full. Then I came out of the bathroom and explained what she’d missed, including the text.

Later on the scene, while in line waiting for the con to reopen, we both got another text around 8:30 confirming the Reitman signing had been rescheduled for 11:30, the same time most recently listed on their site. Whatever. Fine. At least we were kept in the loop.

Once we were allowed on the show floor at 10, we found something super fun to do for a few minutes, then went our separate ways. Anne recused herself from the Reitman/Hudson photo op because she had a high-priority autograph line scheduled to commence at 10:30, assuming the star arrived on time. Stars are almost always late. They miss their planes, they sleep in till 2 p.m., their driver is a no-show — stuff happens. We’re used to it.

In a stunning turn of events, her actor arrived at 10:20. He wasn’t the only guest to arrive early, either. In this sense, at least, Wizard World Chicago 2018 could lay claim to a few miracles.

We agreed to reunite later in Reitman’s line, assuming she could get there in time. Meanwhile, I’d get my picture taken with the guys, then probably get to Reitman’s line before her. We had a plan.

And then I had a monkey wrench thrown at me the size of ancient Scotland.

The WWC photo op area was a catastrophe. Someone in charge thought it was a brilliant idea to schedule ops first thing with cast members from Outlander and The X-Files all at the same time, in addition to ops with slightly smaller fan bases — e.g., Reitman/Hudson, apparently. Outlander in particular was a nonstop avalanche all weekend long as thousands of fans of the Showtime series and the original Diana Gabaldon novels flocked to Rosemont to see and/or meet several main cast members as well as Ms. Gabaldon herself. Many of them were brand new to the world of geek conventions and gave a Saturn V-sized adrenalin shot to WWC’s attendance figures. Their dedicated and mighty population overwhelmed the two or three volunteers in charge of photo-op ticket-taking.

The Powers That Be thought hundreds and hundreds of fans could be checked in for ops a mere 30-40 minutes after opening by a virtual skeleton crew. The Powers That Be were supremely poor planners.

At 10:20 I walked into pure pandemonium. I joined the multi-pronged line, several hundreds of fans deep, leading to an unruly crowd that ostensibly led in turn to those vastly outnumbered gatekeepers to my Reitman/Hudson experience. Beyond their checkpoint lay the actual lines for each respective photo op. It wasn’t hard to deduce mine was the one with the most Ghostbuster costumes standing in it. Every so often, a volunteer would shout instructions audible only to the five or ten people standing next to them. No reader boards with handy updates like C2E2 had. No microphones, no megaphones, no magazines to roll up into megaphones. Their notification efforts were drowned out by the teeming masses and their breath was wasted.

The overlong line to get to my line crept and crept and crept. By 10:50 the Ghostbusters line hadn’t moved. I figured I was safe, trapped as I was behind hopeful hordes of Outlanderers and X-Philes and a sizable batch of Ian Somerhalder followers, who soon learned he’d be hours late due to air travel issues. I tried to stay calm.

A few minutes before 11, the Ghostbusters began to file forward. I panicked.

At that moment, an Outlander fan plowed past me and through the throngs on a torpedo-like collision course for the gatekeepers. She wasn’t quite as wide as me, but left a wake large enough for me to follow. Thanks to her own panic, I reached the ticketing bottleneck at last. Meanwhile, at least half the Ghostbusters had now passed through the curtain to meet their idols.

I tried eschewing protocol, dodged around the volunteers and headed directly for the curtain. The volunteers at that station welcomed me and would’ve been happy to let me pass under the circumstances (one of them took a second to compliment my shirt, which, y’know, was nice), but the photography crew insisted the ticket had to be scanned in. I flew back to the bottleneck, tried to wheedle my way into anyone’s attention without elbowing, and kept repeating “Ghostbusters dual op Ghostbusters dual op Ghostbusters dual op” till one of them realized I was talking and had a problem.

They scanned my ticket and I ran back to the booth. The volunteers saw me coming and yelled “ONE MORE!” to the photogs, who by this time were taking snapshots of the two celebs with other WWC volunteers, always the last step before a photo op is officially over. For some reason they were taking many shots of the same volunteer, while I stood there patiently and out of breath.

Eventually I was noticed, and permitted to step up, and got what I paid for, the wish granted.

On my way out, the multi-photographed volunteer complimented the buttons on my convention bag, which, y’know, was nice.

I picked up my photo seconds later, happy but ticked off. A fun fan experience shouldn’t be this stressful and shouldn’t require me to act like a jerk to overcome the convention’s shortcomings.

It wasn’t hard to figure out where to go next. Mister Stay Puft had relocated and led the way.

I sped over to Reitman’s autograph line around 11:10, and was cheerfully escorted to the “waitlist” part of the line, ahead of other disgruntled fans who hadn’t gotten the email in time, but who were permitted to stick around and keep their fingers crossed that Reitman might keep signing beyond the waitlist. Based on later bitter comments online, I don’t think he stayed over much.

The person in front of me in the waitlist line…was, lo and behold, Anne.

At last I could relax for a bit and let my temper subside. Thankfully the Ghostbusters fan clubs were happy to make that happen. They entertained, they brought props, and they even brought pups.

Autographed proton pack.

Ectoplasm, ghost trap, and incidental voice actor.

Miscellaneous Ghostbusting paraphernalia and unintentional bonus Marvel movie costar, who also arrived shockingly early.

Slimer pretending he can do magic tricks but failing to find a single quarter behind this young man’s ear.

Stay Puft doggo! H*ckin good Ghostbowser, 12/10 would cross the streams to pet.

Reitman was in place promptly at 11:30, and the line commenced as any such line would. A guy with a laptop made sure we were on the waitlist and ushered us toward comedy greatness. The acclaimed director of such films as Meatballs, Stripes, Twins, Kindergarten Cop, Dave, and Junior (the one with a pregnant Schwarzenegger) was rather gracious to Anne, who was in charge of asking him to sign a Ghostbusters poster on behalf of a coworker of mine who now owes me a tremendous favor. Anne also asked politely if he would mind her taking a photo, if it wasn’t against the rules.

Reitman replied, “There are no rules.”

The man, the myth, the merrymaker.

I got my turn as well, was gifted with an autograph, and we went on our way. We love it when a plan comes together.

Next step in that plan: go back to the car, drop off the poster so we wouldn’t lose or damage it, then go grab anything besides convention center food for lunch.

Reitman and Hudson were next scheduled for a panel at 2:45. I’d love to post photos and a recap here, but the truth is we had to opt out. The two of us had another, unrelated photo op confirmed at 4:00. Ostensibly their panel would’ve ended around 3:30, leaving a narrow margin between the two events, plenty of time under normal circumstances. After the way my morning photo op had gone, we couldn’t risk casually returning to the photo booths in that sort of disaster state. We needed to get there early, which meant sacrificing some of our planned Ghostbusters entertainment.

But, harried though it was, at least I got my photo op with them, which was nice.

And there’s something to be said for the joy of a shared experience with a massive group.

To be continued! Other chapters in this special MCC miniseries:

Part 1: Marvel and DC Cosplay!
Part 2: Movie Cosplay!
Part 3: Last Call for Cosplay!
Part 5: Who Else We Met, What Else We Did
Part 6: Objects of Affection

It’s David Krumholtz! You might remember him from such films as The Santa Clause, Serenity, and Addams Family Values, plus the CBS series Numbers!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife and I made another journey up to Wizard World Chicago in scenic Rosemont, IL, where we found ample enjoyment and new purchases alongside peers and aficionados of comics and genre entertainment. A few guest cancellations dampened our spirits somewhat, but we persevered and enjoyed our couple’s outing anyway, especially since Anne’s entire weekend admission was free as a consolation prize given to her and a couple thousand other fans after David Tennant’s last-minute cancellation last year.

Despite the Saturday morning photo op debacle, we ended up having a lot more fun than expected, in terms of meeting both fine actors met and comics creators I zealously paid in exchange for new reading material. The weeks leading up to the shindig weren’t without their stressful moments. Anne had most been looking forward to meeting TV’s Henry Winkler, a.k.a. Dr. Saperstein from Parks and Recreation, among other acclaimed characters. Despite Anne’s free pass, we weren’t officially committed to WWC till I paid for my own ticket two weeks before showtime. Naturally the Fonz canceled literally two days later.

I, in turn, had been hopping up and down in anticipation of meeting comics maker Ryan North, best known for writing the last four years’ worth of Marvel’s amazing colossal Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, plus a short but amusing Jughead arc last year.. A few days before WWC, after months of silence from North on the subject, a curious fan approached him on Twitter, only to be told that he wouldn’t be coming and had submitted cancellation of his appearance to Wizard World before they’d added him to their website in the first place. I took a few hours to compose myself and remember the pros of self-restraint. I realized I had to move on and also try not to think about the part where we would be missing a hometown show, HorrorHound Indy, which changed venue and rescheduled for the same weekend. Simply put, we had to make the most of WWC.

Just like a Dear John letter, if John didn’t know he was in a relationship.

With no summer action blockbuster A-listers on our meeting agenda for Friday, we had no reason to observe our normal con strategy of arriving hours before the doors opened. We took Anne to a doctor’s appointment (one of those easy “yep, you’re getting better, NEXT!” two-minute wastes of time), drove up from Indianapolis to Chicago sans urgency, stopped for lunch so we could avoid convention center food, got caught in a traffic jam less than a mile from our destination, parked conveniently in the same old garage despite late arrival, and strolled into the exhibit hall shortly after 12 noon. They slapped our ugly weekend wristbands on us, because we didn’t shell out extra for shiny VIP badges or lanyards, and let us go run amok.

Throughout the day a handful of actors showed up at their Autograph Area tables reasonably close to the posted appointment times. Most of them had short lines, including the first one we met — the afore-pictured David Krumholtz. He popped in shortly before 1:00, only to find his table had no customary 8×10 photos ready for autographing. When we approached, he was negotiating with a Wizard World staffer and brainstorming ideas for characters to go grab from Google Image or wherever. Krumholtz was a friendly gentleman despite this behind-the-scenes housekeeping, and we chatted a bit about Queens and other famous folks who’ve hailed from his old neighborhood.

Meanwhile across the way, we noted the early days of the newly established kingdom of Graham McTavish Land. The costar of Outlander, The Hobbit trilogy, and AMC’s Preacher attracted a crowd across the fandoms and had the longest of all the Friday lines I saw.

I briefly spotted him later on through the gaps between his constituents. Looks tough, smiles huge.

On Thursday I’d accepted another side quest from a coworker who never attends cons and really, really wanted an autograph from Will Friedle, one of four guests in town for a big Boy Meets World reunion. I was given cash in advance, and accepted knowing that we would have time Friday to accommodate as long as Friedle wasn’t as popular as, say, a Stan Lee or a Norman Reedus. As a value-added bonus, I chipped in a few extra bucks for a “combo” package that added a selfie for myself at a fair discount. Win/win, except for the part where the receipt told me nearly 15% of the total purchase price would be going toward taxes. Chicago knows cons are a big business and absolutely wants a piece of the action. Artists Alley vendors at this year’s C2E2 had similar complaints about the cost of doing business in the Windy City.

We were roughly eighth or tenth in Friedle’s line at first. Soon after, the volunteer who had been loosely grouping us into a line-shaped order vanished and was never seen again. Soon other fans joined the “line”, which began to diverge in two or more directions. VIPs who were supposed to have first dibs on Friedle’s attention found themselves scattered among us — a few up front and next to each other, some not so much. When our man Will arrived around 2-ish, we realized no one had been keeping track of which fans arrived first or who should move forward in what order. No one wanted to be mean about it, and no one attempted to incite a riot. We all gently surged slightly forward a few inches at a time — first the handful of fans nearest the table, then several VIPs that we were totally fine with letting ahead of us. If we saw a VIP badge, we stepped back. Eventually we got a turn, and it’s to the credit of every single Friedle fan that not a single temper exploded while we were there. We take no responsibility for any happenings after we left, though.

Full disclosure: I was never a Boy Meets World fan. I tuned in ages ago for exactly one episode, which appeared to begin with the main cast at school, taking turns making fun of the fat kid in class, because it was funny because he was fat. Nothing about the way it was staged told me this was a very special episode lecturing about the unpleasantness of fat-shaming. I turned the channel and never watched another minute of the show for the rest of my life.

On the other hand, in another life Friedle was the voice of Our Hero in Batman Beyond, which my son and I watched together back in the day. Hence the discount selfie.

…who of course signed a Batman Beyond 8×10 with the special message “I AM BATMAN!”

Friedle was in a chipper mood. To the booth on his left, he shouted a greeting to Kim Possible star Christy Carlson Romano, for whom he once acted as animated sidekick. Then he turned his attention toward the three Boy Meets World booths on his right and prepared to flip a rubber band at Rider Strong on the far end, only to demur when he realized he might hit Danielle Fishel, which he determined would be…unwise. He was clearly having a blast.

Much of Friday between the autograph lines, and before and after the Violet Ramis Thiel panel, was spent walking as much of the exhibit halls as we could in one day. We saw far more off-topic vendors than I would’ve preferred — sellers of home repair, politics, insurance, so many back pain remedies, and other businesses I would expect to run across and ignore at the state fair, but not on hallowed comic-con ground.

Show of hands, who wants a $100 magical heating pad?

Artists Alley felt a bit thin in spots, especially in those far back rows that can be among the loneliest places of all Wizard World. I was happy and lucky to find and buy comics from actual delightful comics makers, including but not limited to old WWC pals Russell Lissau and Trevor Mueller, who each do a fine job of bringing new reading matter every year. (In particular, Mueller’s webcomic Albert the Alien is am award-winning sheer delight.) It was great to catch up with each of them, setting aside the part where we had to dodge around spilled beer in front of Lissau’s booth, courtesy of a drinking fan’s collapsing cup. Thankfully a longtime WW staffer was on top of it within minutes.

Newly met this year: Mark Stegbauer, a longtime inker for Marvel, DC, and other companies, who presently illustrates the all-ages adventure series Ghoul Scouts for indie publisher Action Lab Entertainment.

Recent work includes inking twenty pages in Gregory Graves #1, which I discovered in sampler form on Free Comic Book Day 2018 and had to hunt down when it recently launched for real.

Completely new to me was Kevin M. Glover, purveyor of a twisted magazine-sized series called Fractured Scary Tales — basically, short stories about what if famous non-monster movies had monsters added to them. A few tales had exceptional black-and-white art from a number of contributors, and at least one of them ended with a groaner of a punchline that would’ve made Jay Ward proud.

He was a triple threat of sorts: a congenial personality; comics with covers that actually told a story and weren’t just bland character design pages beneath boring one-word titles; and the Best Vest of the Year.

Later in Hall A, I stumbled across one of the biggest names on the WWC comics guest-list: Eddie Campbell! He’s perhaps best known as the co-creator and artist of Alan Moore’s classic Jack the Ripper saga From Hell. That provocative magnum opus was later adapted into a Johnny Depp vehicle that lacked the depth, nuance, and enormity, but at least it got the name out there. Campbell also worked at one point on the John Constantine Hellblazer series for DC/Vertigo, but I first knew him as the creator of an ’80s black-and-white series called Bacchus, in which the notorious Roman party god waxed eloquent in every issue about how Everything You Know about Greco-Roman Mythology Is Wrong. I picked up issues wherever I could find them, which was rare because original publisher Harrier Comics didn’t see much ordering activity from what few comic shops we had in Indianapolis back then. I had similar problems with locating his later Alec graphic novels, of which I have a few but not a complete collection.

I may have done a bit of flabbergasted blathering in his presence. Possibly a very large bit.

Campbell also handed out free Alan Moore bookmarks and business cards pointing to his latest project, a joint venture with author/wife Audrey Niffenegger.

Campbell was signing and sketching on behalf of Hero Initiative, an upstanding nonprofit that helps comics creators in dire need. We’ve stopped and given at their table at past cons, and I was happy to repeat the experience. I also bought one of Top Shelf Publishing’s two Bacchus omnibuses, which weigh half a ton apiece and would’ve destroyed me if I’d found it at high noon and had to march around for six hours straight with so much heavy-duty aesthetically pleasing baggage.

New additions to my post-con reading stack.

Thankfully we had an excuse to cut our day immediately after acquiring that tome. The time neared for our last Friday event: a Q&A with voice actors Maurice LaMarche and Rob Paulsen, best known to cartoon lovers as the geniuses who, along with those mighty animators at The WB, helped bring Pinky and the Brain to life.

The men. The myths. The mice.

They each have a resumé two miles long, though — unlike countless hopefuls in the field today — neither of them grew up telling themselves, “When I grow up, I wanna be a voice actor!” Paulsen first tried his hand at being an actor-actor, while LaMarche began his career as a stand-up comic with solid impressionist skills. Each of them just so happened to parlay their talents into cartoon side gigs that later became fully bill-paying gigs.

We previously met LaMarche at Indiana Comic Con 2016, where he was equally a pleasure.

In a rare but extremely welcome moment of Q&A boundaries, they told the audience up front they weren’t interested in any questions beginning with, “Would you do the voice of…?” They refused in advance to record personalized greetings right there in the room, and had to politely shoot down one young fan who attempted to beg for a free autograph in front of a live audience, which rarely goes well in your better-managed cons.

My favorite among our Friday photos of Paulsen.

Nevertheless, a fun time was had by all, and of course we were treated to multiple voices from each professional as moods, questions, and random inspiration struck. Highlights included LaMarche nearly laughing till he cried at Paulsen’s impression of frequent Match Game guest Foster Brooks, a throwback reference for the ancient among us (present writer included); and LaMarche’s tribute to the powerful debts he owes to Frank Welker, another even bigger legend in their field without whom LaMarche would be in a very different place today.

The most thoughtful responses were elicited by a fan asking what they thought about famous Hollywood actors who take animation gigs — and, it was implied, take away roles from awesome folks like themselves who are seen as “just” voice actors. Neither found the notion particularly threatening. Paulsen pointed out some of his own experiences that belied any attempt at generalizing about it. A-list celebs didn’t help The Ant Bully overcome its multiple weaknesses. On the other hand, the original Jimmy Neutron movie cleared $100 million in international box office with a mostly Nickelodeon crew whose biggest name was Martin Short. On the other other hand, an Academy Award-winning actress and the star of TV’s Coach certainly didn’t hamper reception for The Incredibles. Animation has exploded in so many directions, from theaters to eleventy million cable channels to eight zillion streaming services, there’s plenty of voice work to be had somewhere out there for actors with skills and/or work ethic and/or connections.

LaMarche was a bit more blunt: “If you have a SAG card, you’re an actor.” He didn’t care about distinguishing or diminishing one actor type over or under another, but added that, if live-action actors can keep crossing over into their animated world for work, wouldn’t it be lovely if voice actors would be allowed to cross over into their TV/movie-award ceremonies and categories.

Also, he noticed early on that the chandeliers in the panel room eerily resembled Brain’s head.

When the average cartoon character gets an idea, a light bulb pops up over their head. I imagine this is what the Brain sees instead.

Thus ended Friday after a few more cosplay photos on our way out the door.

Saturday morning, we awoke in Central time but our body clocks were still on Eastern time. Doors would open at 8 a.m.; WWC would resume programming at 10. We had no problem returning to the Stephens Center by 7:30 a.m. to nab spots near the head of the line. We got a near-perfect spot in the big garage and took the Skybridge, across and over the street, toward the first baggage-check area. Security hadn’t even clocked in yet.

I suppose we could’ve plugged in the metal detectors and warmed them up as a favor.

For fun we figured we’d keep walking and see how far we could get before anyone stopped us. If they did stop us, we would’ve understood and complied. We got several hundred feet farther before a pair of locked glass doors halted our journey at a three-way intersection. One (1) fan was there ahead of us. Stragglers joined us, one or two at a time. A few were aware enough to realize we were all gathered for a reason and joined us without protest. More than a few arrivals thought we were all dumb and kept walking past us, only to discover the locked doors and realize we weren’t pesky mallrats loitering for fun.

One dedicated fan brought his own way-cool Rocket Raccoon statue for two Guardians of the Galaxy actors to sign.

A few minutes before 8, a security guard arrived on the other side of the doors. He knocked. He wiggled the doors. He had no keys. He couldn’t get through on his side, either. By 8:05 three more guards had showed up on his side, all equally keyless, while 21 fans stood and stared back at them. The first guard stared back at us more, pointing at the floor on our side and yelling in good-natured frustration, “I DON’T GET PAID TILL I’M RIGHT THERE!”

Some fans got impatient and decided to retreat all the way back to the now-faraway parking garage and walk the long length a third time to the ground-level entrances instead. Many of us were stubborn and refused to budge. We’d picked these doors to enter, and we meant to enter them. Somehow.

At 8:15 some sort of elderly Rosemont officer showed up with keys, and the day was saved. As a special reward for our patience, security waved us all past and waived our mandatory screenings. But only just this once. Good enough for us.

The ground-level doors had indeed opened on schedule, but not too many attendees had beaten us to the waiting lines. The next 100 minutes flew by, mostly in conversation with an older gentleman behind us. Two different Wizard World reps tried to entertain the crowd at various points, neither of them audible. One had a microphone of sorts that turned every exuberant proclamation into distorted Peanuts-adult babble.

With the show’s blessing we non-VIPs entered Hall F a few minutes before 10. We headed straight for Anne’s primary objective: the autograph line for Tom Welling, star of TV’s Smallville, who’s at long last been doing conventions this year. A couple dozen VIPs had beaten us there. One volunteer said they had too many people in line already — partly because they stuck him in a too-tiny space, the same inadequate size as Will Friedle’s — and asked if we could go do a lap around, then maybe try rejoining later.

We humored her, skipped across the walkway, and met someone else first: Rob “Pinky” Paulsen!

Narf!

We were second and third in line. Paulsen was scheduled for 10 a.m. sharp but ran a few minutes late. He arrived, shook the hands of us hardy first few, then apologized as he went to go fetch coffee before commencing. Either he was stopped by twenty other fans along the way or Starbucks refused to let a Famous Actor cut in line, but we were content to bide those extra minutes and greet him no less excitedly upon his return.

Meanwhile on the other side, Welling was scheduled at 10:30. He arrived at 10:20. He wasn’t the only actor to beat the clock. A few booths down we could see Pom Klementieff also reporting for con duty and defying the odds-makers who thought she’d cancel. After Paulsen, Anne immediately joined Welling’s ever-burgeoning line, while I went and had Worst Photo Op Experience Ever, which we already covered at length. Welling fans were treated to happy moments and speedy service, netting Anne her autograph and exit around 11:05 or so, which is how she beat me to Ivan Reitman’s autograph line.

A bit after 12 we returned to the parking garage, dropped off that unwieldy Ghostbusters poster at the car, and grabbed lunch at the hotel next door because we were dead set against eating convention center food if at all possible. I’m proud to boast we kept that resolution for once, though we had to overspend a tad.

We had one appointment remaining, a bit more show floor to see, and no more autographs to fetch, either for ourselves or friends. In hindsight we’re relieved we didn’t have to entertain favors from anyone who watches Outlander, because wow, did their entire nation make a fantastic showing for the supporting cast and for author Diana Gabaldon herself.

The nation-state of Gabaldonia on Saturday afternoon.

Our shopping had its ups and downs. The usually stellar crew at Stylin Online left me hanging and disappointed — every single shirt I asked about, they didn’t have in my size. That stunk. Anne had an awkward moment when her drawstring bag collapsed. I wasn’t sure we could find a replacement among the dealers, but sure enough, fandom found a way. We owe special thanks to the folks at Windy City Workshop, who just so happened to carry a selection of Anne’s favorite kind of convention carryall.

And they knew she likes Superman! They’re wizards, they are.

Our final appointment was a 4 p.m. dual photo op with Smallville costars Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum. We’d previously met Rosenbaum in Metropolis in 2006 and at WWC 2013, but we’d never gotten a solid photo of him. I had hoped to rectify that oversight.

By 3:00 we sighed with relief to find the photo op area’s previous overpopulation issues had mostly subsided, leaving just a couple hundred customers to gather and wait rather than 3-5 times as many. Welling had a solo op scheduled first, followed by the dual. Pre-line lines had been formed in front of the ticket takers — one for the line to get into the solo-op line, and one for the line to get into the dual-op line. The former was twice the size of the latter. Honestly, i was just happy there were actual lines this time instead of mobs, and that we could tell the lines apart. I wasn’t eager to repeat the morning’s misery.

The volunteers found a way to make things slightly awkward anyway.

Eventually it was our turn to hand over our tickets and get ushered from the pre-line line to the actual line. We walked up to the next available teller. Anne handed over her ticket. Other fans pelted said teller with questions at the same moment. She scanned our ticket, half-answered someone’s question, told Anne “FOUR”, then finished answering the other. Anne didn’t hear her, but I did. I knew we’d all be divided into separate numbered lines, but I didn’t know which numbers corresponded to which designations. All I knew is we were told “FOUR”.

We dutifully walked up to line 4 and waited. A few minutes later we realized we didn’t match the other people in line. To our right was a line of fans with extra-shiny VIP badges for Welling, Rosenbaum, and/or Smallville in general. To our left was a line of fans with no badges or lanyards, only wristbands like ours.

In front of and behind us were fans with VIP badges, whether for other actors or non-specific but nonetheless upgraded VIP status.

They’d sent us to the wrong line. The cosplayer in front of us overheard our realization, but said he didn’t care.

My regenerating patience was ebbing once again. We rolled our eyes and decided, much as we’d done with morning security, let’s just do as we were told, stay in line 4 where they specifically told us to go, and see how far we get before we’re ordered to relocate. If they did stop us, we would’ve understood and complied.

Not long after 4:00, the Gold VIP line moved toward the curtains and their historic rendezvous with Clark Kent and Lex Luthor. We held our breath and waited to get caught and shamed for following bad instructions.

Once the Gold VIPs had all moved on, the non-Gold VIP line followed after them. When the line began to crowd in front of the booth, the volunteer overseeing dismissal stopped us until the photographers could catch up. We stood right in front of him, 100% badgeless. It’s not like we were even wearing fake badges, or folding our arms over our chests to obscure imaginary badges.

Another senior volunteer walked up to chat with our volunteer for a moment about reshoots that needed to be organized after the Smallville ops were done, due to technology issues with one or more previous ops. It sounded like they had a mess on their hands and needed to make good on some disappointments.

The senior volunteer walked away. The photo booth was still a bit congested. Our volunteer turned toward us, the badge-free duo now at the head of the VIP line.

Anne expressed her sympathy to the volunteer, one customer service provider to another, about how it’s no fun when things go wrong and it takes enormous energy to fix them and make everyone happy again, or at least satisfy them enough to leave you alone. He sighed a bit, relaxed and began chatting about a relevant experience he’d had in Cleveland to that effect.

A minute later, he ushered us and the rest of our line toward the booth. And that’s the story of how we Leverage‘d our way into a photo op from the VIP line and saved ourselves maybe 5-10 minutes of waiting, tops.

Super jazz hands!

The good news is we got the photo. The bad news is either the photographer was drunk or the printers were. Technically it’s a better Rosenbaum photo than the last two we took of him, but I have to wonder if the digital copy contained more of his body and didn’t cleave him in twain like the hard copy did.

Regardless, mission accomplished. By Saturday 4:30 we’d officially achieved all our goals for Wizard World Chicago 2018.

We wandered one last time through the crowded lobby, stuffed with more cosplayers than you can shake a proton pack at, photographed as many as we could till all our energy was depleted, checked another completed convention off our 2018 to-do list, and prayed that we’ll enjoy better photography and line management at our next shows. And if they refuse to let us get away with any benign sneakiness, we’ll understand and comply.

To be concluded! Other chapters in this special MCC miniseries:

Part 1: Marvel and DC Cosplay!
Part 2: Movie Cosplay!
Part 3: Last Call for Cosplay!
Part 4: Ghostbusters!
Part 6: Objects of Affection

Space taxidermy! Me and a Sister of Plenitude from Doctor Who.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife and I made another journey up to Wizard World Chicago in scenic Rosemont, IL, where we found ample enjoyment and new purchases alongside peers and aficionados of comics and genre entertainment. A few guest cancellations dampened our spirits somewhat, but we persevered and enjoyed our couple’s outing anyway, especially since Anne’s entire weekend admission was free as a consolation prize given to her and a couple thousand other fans after David Tennant’s last-minute cancellation last year.

Now that site traffic has subsided to its normal insignificant levels and all our visitors and new acquaintances have retreated to their respective internet corners, we wrap our miniseries with one last photo gallery in honor of what it’s all about: all that stuff around the convention. Everywhere we walk in an exhibit hall, we’re surrounded by millions or nifty items , whether for sale or for display only. Two organizations in particular brought their finest collections to entertain, to educate, to raise funds, and/or to treat fans to deeper glimpses into revered elements from their favorite fictional multiverses.

The good Doctor-fearing folks at Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey are no strangers to WWC, and brought a different selection of backdrops and statues than they did last year. Doctor Who has no shortage of aliens or environments to choose from when it comes to decorating for any special occasion.

Anne enjoying all the elbow room inside a certain near-infinite time machine.

A Judoon sentry standing in the Earthlight.

An Empty Child and Big Ben, the second-largest time-related device ever to grace London.

Replica of The History of the Time War made from an old, giant Bible.

In another exhibit hall was a special array of movie props courtesy of a fan-run nonprofit called The Horror & Sci-Fi Prop Preservation Association. As the name implies, they’re trying to do for decaying, neglected film props what Martin Scorsese and friends have done in the past for decaying, neglected films. We’ve seen more than our share of pop culture exhibits in museums, but not all parts of Hollywood have been treated with reverence or stored carefully after their days on set were over. This particular weekend, they were raising funds for the purpose of restoring parts of John Candy’s 30-year-old Barf costume from Spaceballs that are looking mangy and falling to pieces. It’s hard not to look when a booth is begging all passersby to “Help Save Barf”.

Bill and Ted’s excellent outfits.

Amazons may seem immortal, but Wonder Woman’s lasso isn’t.

You don’t tug on Superman’s cape, because it might tear and you’ll have an angry Dean Cain on your hands.

Just as the elderly save all their old letters, so is the HSPPA trying to save Harry Potter’s school correspondence.

Foe show: Naboo grenade, never used.

The best possible HSPPA TV spot would have the camera watching fur fall out of this Gizmo from Gremlins 2: The New Batch to the tune of Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel”.

…and of course there was more more MORE from the hundreds of vendors in the house. Curiously, though Wizard World decided against using the second floor of the Stephens Center this year, the overall booth turnout was nonetheless strong. At times a lot more fans could be found hanging out in the lobby for cosplay-chasing purposes than shopping in the halls, but we tried to do our part for the geek economy where we could. And for those times when we didn’t, at least we never lacked for not-boring things to ogle.

Once again the good bakers at Max and Benny’s brought all the best iced sugar cookies, including this salute to the Boy Meets World cast reunion.

Max and Benny faced tough competition from Crumby Art Bakehouse and Cakery, who brought other kinds of cookies like these Kawaii macaroons.

Also on sale at the show but not recommended for dessert: McDonald’s Szechuan sauce for the Rick & Morty freaks.

More kitty ears on display with the Ian Somerhalder Foundation, a nonprofit serving multiple causes on behalf of the eponymous actor and his wife Nikki Reed.

Another face on cardboard we’ve never met in person: Bob Ross, who had Mystery Boxes crafted in his name at more than one table. I presume these are filled with unwashed paintbrushes and happy little trees.

Another classic TV star on a box: TV’s Columbo, the home-game version. Anne has been getting into the reruns on MeTV lately, but $25 was a bit steep for what looked like a Clue ripoff.

Another cool name that wasn’t coming home with us: original art by the recently departed Steve Ditko from Amazing Spider-Man #6, the first appearance of the Lizard. 75 grand is a bit steep for me until and unless I can write the Best-Selling American Travel Memoir of All Time, or sell our house and go live in a van down by the river.

We conclude with the last scene we saw before retreating to the Sky Bridge and calling it a wrap on Wizard World Chicago 2018. At left, the locked and unneeded second-floor Hall G. At right, a con volunteer wrestling Deadpool’s giant inflatable unicorn up the stairs.

Who doesn’t love an apt dichotomy.

The End. Thanks for reading! Depending on the guest list, maybe we’ll see you next year?

Other chapters in this special MCC miniseries:

Part 1: Marvel and DC Cosplay!
Part 2: Movie Cosplay!
Part 3: Last Call for Cosplay!
Part 4: Ghostbusters!
Part 5: Who Else We Met, What Else We Did

Guarding the front door were Ruby Rose, Yang Xiao Long, and Blake Belladonna from RWBY.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: in March 2017 my wife Anne and I attended the inaugural Hall of Heroes Comic Con in Elkhart, Indiana. Under the same ownership as the nearby Hall of Heroes Museum (which we’d visited the year before), HoHCC was a two-day convention contained entirely in Elkhart’s historic Lerner Theatre, a beautiful 94-year-old venue for live plays and other cultural events. The organizers made creative use of the available spaces and had the assistance of a bevy of friendly volunteers. Initial response from fans statewide and beyond was so overwhelming, they earned themselves an encore presentation, this year in a much warmer September as opposed to that wintry March.

Before we narrate any further, once again we lead off a new convention miniseries with the mandatory cosplay photos. For logistical reasons (a bit more on that in Part 2) we were only able to attend Sunday this year, traditionally a less crowded and activity-filled day at comic cons. That means we fell far short of our usual goal of catching at least 5,000 different cosplayers in one day. To be fair, we never meet that goal, but I like to think it’s nice that we have goals. In the meantime, quite a few fascinating folks caught our eyes…

V, he of the infamous Vendetta. Meanwhile, a volunteer sneaks Ghost Rider’s motorcycle past us.

Lego Scarlet Witch, an ideal hero for a world in which nearly every character has the super-power of magical Lego-kinesis.

Deadpool and trusty unicorn pal on their way to — wait for it — a ‘pool party. Bonus points for the chimichanga hat.

A stylish Catwoman, a.k.a. MissChibiArtist, one of the fine artists in attendance.

One of many helpful volunteers sporting a sound-effects suit that reminds me of my Doctor Who shirt. I was shocked to learn this is actually available from Kohls.

A dancing wizard, trying to bring da noise AND da funk all by his lonesome.

…and that was nearly it for our Sunday until shortly after 1:00, when a Cosplay Parade was listed on the schedule at the Main Street Stage, part of this year’s much-needed and smartly planned outdoor expansion onto Main Street Elkhart. We assumed we’d find cosplayers in a single line, marching in formation to…somewhere? What we found instead: COSPLAY DANCE PARTY! Because why not.

While a DJ in a Mandalorian helmet spun some tunes, fans got down with their bad selves. Let’s see C2E2 match that.

Like a classic masquerade ball minus the upper-class privilege or tragic horror ending.

More Mandalorians, blowing off steam after a hard day at the office.

Buddy Christ, Alice, Star-Lord, Rick, an Imperial officer, Batman, and Gwenpool jump on the line. (We’ve actually met Batman before. Hi, Shane!)

Riddler, Scarecrow, Green Arrow, Joker, and Penguin were like, “Uhhhhh, we were told this would be a parade?”

“Look, guys, I don’t know, just roll with it!” shrugs Malcolm Merlyn.

Spider-Man and an anime furry make room on the dance floor for Li’l Super Saiyan Goku.

Without Joker or Ivy around, Harley Quinn finds a new partner in a Warcraft Orc. Hijinks ensue!

As always, these folks were a fraction of the available talents in attendance. We left before the official costume contests began, but hope folks had as fun a time as we did, especially considering how humdrum our outfits were by comparison.

To be continued!

It’s William Katt! The Greatest American Hero! Believe it or not!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

In March 2017 my wife Anne and I attended the inaugural Hall of Heroes Comic Con in Elkhart, Indiana. Under the same ownership as the nearby Hall of Heroes Museum (which we’d visited the year before), HoHCC was a two-day convention contained entirely in Elkhart’s historic Lerner Theatre, a beautiful 94-year-old venue for live plays and other cultural events. The organizers made creative use of the available spaces and had the assistance of a bevy of friendly volunteers. Initial response from fans statewide and beyond was so overwhelming, they earned themselves an encore presentation, this year in a much warmer September as opposed to that wintry March…

…and it very nearly didn’t happen for us. Our original plan called for driving three hours from Indianapolis to Elkhart on Saturday, enjoying HoHCC, and returning home the same evening; then on Sunday driving 70-odd minutes west of Indy out to Turkey Run State Park for Anne’s annual family reunion. We would’ve been wasted come Monday if Plan A had happened. All lights were green through early Friday evening. Then a couple of things spun out of our control.

The weather, first and foremost, destroyed outdoor plans for countless Hoosiers and organizations all weekend long. Central Indiana found itself under a solid two-day deluge from western to eastern border. Our backyard lawn looks fantastic now, but a state park foray was out of the question. Relatives had already begun to drop out by the time the cancellation was made official. Anne had already been bummed from a hard week at work and was disappointed by the development, but yelling at God about the ruinous shenanigans of our uncooperative planet rarely result in an immediate thundercloud disintegration.

Then came surprise illness. Never fun, never welcome, and never when you need it, which is never. Again, though, some things can’t be helped. It was clear upon awakening Saturday morning that a six-hour round trip was out of the question for us. I figured Hall of Heroes could keep our prepaid Saturday admissions as a donation of sorts, and was prepared to leave it at that. It sucked and our moods weren’t great. Later I peeked at their Facebook page and noticed they’d posted a few live videos — gray skies all around, but plenty of smiles and no rain-out. I was glad for them in a sense, but that didn’t help our moods.

By mid-Saturday illness began to fade a tad — not altogether cured, but improved. We talked about the possibility of doing HohCC Sunday instead, provided that we were careful and didn’t overexert. We normally don’t do cons on Sunday because we’re either at church or recovering from a Saturday con experience. We’d previously cleared out that Sunday for the reunion. With that dismantled, Sunday was technically free if we were up for it.

“NO REFUNDS OR EXCHANGES”, warned the killjoy disclaimer on our tickets that threatened to dash our last hope. I called the convention’s box office, explained the situation, and asked if exchanging Saturday for Sunday would be possible under the circumstances. They took my name and number, and said to check in at Will Call on Sunday and they’d see what they could do.

Three hours later, based on the scant info I’d given to them, I received an email with revised tickets. Hall of Heroes were officially deemed awesome lifesavers in our household that day.

Thankfully no horrible relapse occurred overnight. Sunday we were on our way. All we had to do was ignore any and all ill omens along the way, such as the two stalled cars we passed or the rains that continued flooding Indy.

A semi with omega-shaped taillights was not encouraging.

About 80-90 miles down the road we left the storms behind. We arrived in Elkhart shortly before 9:30, half an hour before showtime. We parked in an empty public lot two blocks west of the Lerner Theatre and walked beneath ugly clouds to Main Street, cordoned and ready for another day of festivities.

We previously did an art-walk around downtown Elkhart back in 2016. We noticed a few new decorations added since then, such as this jazzed-up electrical box.

Friendly volunteers at the Will Call tent traded us a pair of Sunday wristbands for our tickets and sent us to the entry line. Soon, fun would be ours for the having.

The light crowd on a Sunday morning. Hundreds more joined the scene by early afternoon once all local church services dismissed for the day.

Last year’s con had been contained entirely inside the Lerner. The space was interesting and the art ‘n’ architecture had been fascinating to behold, but everyone had found themselves jam-packed wall-to-wall and in danger of arousing the fire marshal’s ire. Hundreds had to be kept waiting outside for any of us to depart and trade places with them. In an early March with lingering winter keeping temps in the 30s or lower, the outdoor experience wasn’t pleasant. This year they rethought that part and not only moved the show to September, but they also expanded onto Main Street, with a large tent containing over two dozen vendors, an extra stage, and a selection of local food trucks and concession stands.

In short, they effectively co-opted the model used each year by the famous Superman Celebration down in Metropolis, Illinois. As long as the weather cooperates, we’re big fans of that model. When we arrived this year, temps began in the mid-50s and inched upward throughout the day — basically twice as warm as last year. Better still, it never rained while we were in Elkhart. Northern Indiana in general and the con in particular had been blessedly spared. I hadn’t bothered to check the weather and had worn shorts ill-suited for the mid-50s, but that’s my fault, not theirs.

VIPs were escorted inside promptly at 9:30, with us General Admission folks exactly half an hour later. Once inside, we headed straight for the most important attraction of all: the bathrooms. We are old now, and both three-hour drives and chilly outdoor waits have bigger drawbacks than they used to.

Then we headed straight for the line to the celebrity autograph room. Once again the line reached back to the upper balcony of the Lerner stage, where fans could watch programming while they waited.

Now showing in this wondrous setting: 10 a.m. cartoon mini-marathon featuring Batman: The Animated Series.

We’d already met two of the celebrity guests and didn’t watch the shows in which two others costarred, but as kids Anne and I were both huge fans of TV’s William Katt, star of the hit series The Greatest American Hero. Those were dark times when super-hero TV shows were an extreme rarity rather than the overstocked commodity they’ve become today, even after the success of Christopher Reeve as Superman. Leave it to genius showrunner Stephen J. Cannell to see a hole and fill a hole in the pop culture landscape.

The plot was brilliant to us: bright schoolteacher Ralph Hinkley stumbled across an alien spaceship that gifted him with a caped super-suit but failed to give him the instructions before they took off. Hilarity and life lessons ensued as Ralph tried to figure out its many random powers, which resulted in him flying into every brick wall in town, cringing as bullets bounced off him, turning invisible in short spurts until losing concentration at the worst times, and apologizing for breaking so many collapsible props. As kids we ate it up and thought highly of Mr. Hinkley.

We also remember him from such films as House, Carrie, the late-’80s Perry Mason TV-movies, and Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend, a near-forgotten dinosaurs-live predecessor to Jurassic Park. William Katt was our #1 reason for showing up, and would’ve been our biggest regret if we’d had to suffer the heartbreak of missing the con. Katt was a patient and ebullient gentleman, seemed happy to hear Anne also waxing eloquent about his mom (actress Barbara Hale, who’d played Perry Mason’s assistant Della Street for decades), and — in a surprising moment that warmed my heart — became the fourth actor we’ve ever met who knew about jazz hands in general and the late Bob Fosse in particular. I had no idea he’d done Pippin (see also: Barry Williams), but now I do.

But our HoHCC experience didn’t stop there. Other fine folks in the house included longtime comics writer Tony Isabella. I’d met him twice before (most recently at Indy Pop Con 2015), but figured third time’s the charm. Everything’s been coming up Tony lately ever since one of his creations, DC Comics’ own Black Lightning, was adapted into his own TV series for The CW.

He has a new book out, volume 1 in a series called July 1963: A Pivotal Month in the Comic Book Life of Tony Isabella, in which he plans to read and review every comic book published the same month as Fantastic Four Annual #1, the comic that changed his life.

We attended part of his 11 a.m. Q&A with Hall of Heroes owner Allen Stewart. Among the topics of conversation were his uniformly positive experiences with the cast and crew of Black Lightning; his undying love of Godzilla; that time he hung out with Sinbad, the first actor ever to don the Black Lightning costume on TV; and the joy of seeing Lawrence Fishburne play Bill Foster in Ant-Man and the Wasp, a character Isabella later helped upconvert into a superhero named Black Goliath. (The editor refused to let him reuse “Giant-Man”.) Isabella also confirmed that the residuals for Black Lightning’s appearances in video games (three and counting) are significantly more awesome than his comics residuals.

Also up for an MCC reunion: Luther M. Siler, self-published SF author and fellow WordPress user. Previous crossovers include Starbase Indy 2015, C2E2 2016, and Indy Pop Con 2016. As it turns out, Siler had a great time at Hall of Heroes and took far more cosplay photos than we did.

Siler also has a very fun idea in store for future convention appearances and his Patreon supporters…

I also found a comics vendor with boxes full of $5 graphic novels, from which I dug up two rarities that had to come home with me. A few other bonus sights along our path:

Joining the ranks of upstanding geek snack vendors were Mini Delights Bake Shoppe, who offered brownies with tiny character toppers and a lineup of iced sugar cookies that weren’t excessively sweet, and were thin and crispy instead of thick and chalky.

It wouldn’t feel like a real con without Terry Huddleston, one of the most recognizable ubiquitous artists in the Midwest convention scene.

Iron Man statue!

For lunch we adjourned to the outside vendors’ block near the Main Street Stage. The winner of my money: Ron’s River Dogs, because sometimes a solid hot dog is just the thing for a festival atmosphere.

I recommend the Dogzilla, a quarter-pound chili dog. From the optional toppings at their fixings bar, I added shredded cheese, jalapeno mustard and dried shoestring potatoes. 11/10 would gulp down again.

The Main Street Stage schedule said the 11-noon hour would feature a local act called Wesley and the Crushers. Their website claims six members; we saw only one DJ in a Mandalorian helmet. For DJ stylings he laid down the beats fine, but I’m not 100% sure he was them.

Unless he was Wesley and “the Crushers” were his equipment and toys.

We returned indoors for one last event: a noon Q&A with John Schneider, star of TV’s The Dukes of Hazzard and Smallville. He’s costarred in Tyler Perry’s The Haves and the Have Nots for five seasons and counting, and continues to record and release new music independently through Louisiana-based John Schneider Studios, whose Facebook page he insisted everyone go and like — several times tongue-in-cheek yet not insincerely. Anne had previously met him at Wizard World Chicago 2010, but this was our first time seeing him answer questions live.

The man, the myth, the Duke boy, the Pa Kent.

Schneider was self-effacing, downright hilarious, and candid on any number of topics. He addressed the time he and Tom Wopat left Dukes for a while, reminisced about Christmas Comes to Willow Creek, honored the great father figure that was Denver Pyle, remembered how Burt Reynolds used to hang around the Dukes set a lot because he was close friends with James Best, swapped regrets about the pains of divorce with our host, and revealed that he appeared in the Smallville series finale basically for SAG minimum pay because they couldn’t afford to grant him one last series-regular paycheck.

He had zero kind things to say about the raunchy 2005 Dukes movie (“It would have to be better to suck”), but his eyes lit up while discussing fingerstyle guitar playing with an enthusiastic young learner. He took a serious but caring tone while offering advice from a personal perspective on dealing with Asperger’s syndrome, which one of his children has. He confirmed he’d be appearing on the next episode of Inside Edition, but didn’t tell us why because he wasn’t sure what angle the segment would take. (Looking it up in hindsight tonight, call me a bit…um, taken off-guard at the results, which explain more things than I expected.)

In all, hindsight aside, the Schneider panel in itself was a rollicking experience, though I’m kicking myself now for not asking him about the time he played a villainous country singer in an episode of Leverage. I’ll have to save that one for his next appearance.

After his panel and the subsequent costume parade, we officially considered ourselves done for the day. Other events and Q&As were on the schedule, but we had one more three-hour drive ahead of us, and a work day looming large the following morning. We walked the two blocks back to our car, where a handful of other fans’s cars had joined us.

It was cool to know we were in good company.

About 60-70 miles down the road, we ran into those central Indiana rains, still dropping strong and dousing the rest of our weekend. It couldn’t touch the best parts, though.

And that’s the con that was. Lord willing, physical health and budget permitting, we’ll see you next con, and maybe next year in Elkhart. This was indeed a fun time and we’d love to do it again.

Imprisoned in Azkaban for the heinous crime of practicing signing “Mrs. Sirius Black” in a notebook 500 times.

There were some thing Thor would never agree to do. That’s why Loki needs more pals like us.

Hey. So. How was your day?

We’re just up in Chicago at the inaugural Ace Comic Con Midwest celebrating Anne’s birthday. After spending half the day roaming through downtown Chicago — some of that in light rain, all of it in numbing autumn temps — then we headed over to Navy Pier, an odd place for a comic con. A few miles of walking over several hours left us basically dead by night’s end. The more birthdays the celebrate, the tougher these exciting expeditions get.

Our tales and photos of who we met and what we did will mostly have to wait till we get home. Until then, please enjoy this fleeting moment of jazz hands with Tom Hiddleston. You may remember him from such works as The Night Manager and Kong: Skull Island. Among other stuff.

No more typing. Must lapse into happy coma now.

Just me hanging out with Emmy Award Nominee Zazie Beetz. With my wife’s permission, honest!

This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the inaugural Ace Comic Con Midwest, the third show from the new geek-convention company that previously exhibited in Seattle and in Glendale, AZ, before turning their attention to someplace within our driving distance. The creators were previously the bigwigs behind the Wizard World empire, but parted ways a while back, decided to do their own separate thing, and took all their learned lessons and deep Hollywood connections with them.

We’re used to Chicagoland cons taking place in large-scale venues such as McCormick Place and the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont. Whether due to creative choice or limited options so late in the year, Ace instead took place at Chicago’s famous Navy Pier on the shores of occasionally beautiful Lake Michigan. Few attendees knew Navy Pier has an event space big enough to hold a con. Beyond the Pier’s shops, restaurants, Children’s Museum, climate-controlled Ferris wheel, and other forms of entertainment, on the second floor near the eastern end is a Festival Hall with a 60-foot ceiling and tens of thousands of square footage waiting for big companies to come fill it with booths, fans, and fun.

One catch: the transportation situation. A lot of folks can take buses, cabs, Uber, or Lyft into the area. The trains will only get you so far and require a Plan B to span the remaining distance. For those who prefer to steer their own destinies, the Pier has its own parking garages with 1500 spaces available at $30 per day. If you’re planning to hang around the area for more than a few hours, $30 is pretty competitive with the exorbitant Chicago parking scene. If that’s too rich for your blood, there’re better offers to be had with certain parking apps, as long as you don’t mind the extra walking.

That’s why Anne and I arrived at the show Friday afternoon already dead tired. As part of her big birthday weekend we parked two blocks away from the Pier for $24, but then spent the four hours preceding the con walking all over downtown Chicago — over to the Magnificent Mile for a stop, down to the lakeside park area, over to the Loop for light shopping, then all the way back to the Navy Pier for our feature presentation. It didn’t help that temperatures had been in the mid-40s all day, or that light rain at one point dampened our clothes and spirits while we looked for things to do. We’re now in our late 40s, clearly not at peak health as our photos might attest, and perhaps should’ve thought a little harder about our tourism strategy.

We reach the Pier around 3:30 local time, already fairly in pain. We’d walked its length once before, five years ago — not quite enough exposure to have the layout memorized. We assumed we’d see signs of where to go on the outside, so we charged onward through the long, outdoor march. On our right, cruise ships had signs promising Lake Michigan tours but had no takers in the gray autumn doldrums. On our left, one long, long building that never seemed to end and said “Ace Comic Con” at exactly zero points on the outside. Blocks later, the sidewalk ended at a deserted beer garden and a set of doors leading inside, where we found signs of conventioning at last, and, more importantly, heat and shelter.

Sign art by Ace guest Ron Lim, no doubt drawn before major headliner Josh Brolin had to cancel due to family plans.

Everyone was herded upstairs toward the easternmost entrances to the Festival Hall and divided into VIP and General Admission lines. At 3:40 we joined the GA line behind hundreds of other fans far more energetic and dry than we were. The line headed back west, past a series of sections under unsightly construction that hampered our view of ostensibly scenic Lake Michigan.

Not too many seagulls or smiling suns out there in October.

The doors were scheduled to open at 4:00. Based on line size alone, we had serious doubts about getting anywhere convention happiness anytime before 6:00. We were pleasantly surprised to discover a speedy admission process that got us wristbands by 4:30, even from our faraway position in the crowd GA, even including a walk through the first round of security checkpoints immediately at the front door. They saved us a bit of time by barely glancing into our bags, but got bit consternated with me setting off the metal detector in dumbfounded ignorance until I remembered I was wearing steel-toe sneakers. That’s what I get for shoe-shopping only a week before showtime and promptly forgetting my footwear had special features. Fortunately at least one security guard knew shoes and recognized steel-toes when she saw them. They didn’t double-check to ensure I didn’t also have a 9mm tucked in my belt, but I promise I didn’t.

Thirty feet beyond the front door were tables where we traded admission tickets for wristbands with no delays or complications. At last, it was time to go crazy, comic-con style.

Based on our readings about the first two Ace Comic Cons, we knew their primary focus was on the celebrity interaction experience. The average Ace guest list is shorter than the average Wizard World roster, but not bolstered by character actors, B-listers, and retirees. We’ve been perfectly happy to meet folks from all of those career levels and will likely continue to do so in the future, but Ace’s roster boasts actors more popular and (for now) stratospherically higher on the Hollywood food chain, drawing especially heavily from the world of superhero films. The showrunners behind the most recent Wizard World Chicago struggled to tap that vein and in some respects also appeared to have forgotten how to run a convention. By and large, Ace Midwest did not share their problems.

Ace had its own set of drawbacks, which bothered some fans but left others unaffected. Artists Alley offered only 20-25 creators, and the entire Festival Hall sported about thirty vendors. That’s a significant pullback when you’re used to seeing hundreds and hundreds of dealers, shop owners, publishers and self-publishers sprawled across multiple halls. More could have been accommodated in exchange for narrower walkways, but apparently that’s not Ace’s thing. To be candid, Anne and I find ourselves buying fewer and fewer items from typical exhibit halls, and were exhausted enough that it was a sort of perverse relief not to have all that extra walking, window-shopping and not-buying to do.

On the other hand, I’m much happier when Artists Alley is bursting with recognizable names and visibly talented newcomers, which is why C2E2 has remained a must-see for me every year. Most of the Ace lineup comprised creators who’ve shown up at other Midwest cons. I made a point of buying from one who’d impressed me previously — Ryan Ruffatti, creator/writer of a series called Teleport (illustrated by Moomie Swan), of which I’d bought #1 from him at Cincinnati Comic Expo 2017. I jumped as soon as I saw he had #2 at his table.

Between Friday and Saturday, we made what we could of the show floor.

FYE representing on the major-corporate tip and selling geek novelties such as cartoon cereal.

Acme Design Inc., a company specializing in digital modeling and 3-D printing on demand, brought decorations such as this replica of Chicago’s “Cloud Gate”, a.k.a. “the Bean”.

One vendor dared fans to lift Thor’s hammer in exchange for prizes and presumably glory in Valhalla.

Midwest con-goers can never get enough of Wild Bill’s lifetime-refillable soft drinks, which we won’t go near because we hate spilling things. Scuttlebutt is they have plans afoot to figure out how lids work in 2019. Huge if true.

Jabba surveying the lay of the land from on high.

We had no appointments until 6 p.m. and killed a little time enjoying seats for a Main Stage Q&A starring a pair of WWE wrestlers. We don’t watch wrestling, but we needed to sit down. The shortest exhibit hall is still a burden when you’re old and you’ve overextended yourself. Anne took a few shots while we recuperated. The Friday night celeb lineup was mostly wrestlers, but their fans appreciated them coming out.

Our view from the back rows, where we couldn’t make out the stage but could stare upward at that Navy Pier ceiling. All these empty seats were filled when it came time for Saturday’s biggest panel event.

Anne’s best shot of Seth Rollins and Alexa Bliss, who I’m told are famous.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover we shared the highlight of our Friday night: meeting Tom Hiddleston, star of the BBC miniseries The Night Manager, which aired in the U.S. on AMC and whose finale begat one of my all-time biggest live-tweeting nights on record. Also, he was Loki and tried to murder Thor a few times. Ladies apparently love him. Like, lots. Lots and lots and lots.

Those jazz hands again. Several Tom Hiddleston fansites shared this pic on Instagram and made MCC’s own traffic look pathetic. Thanks, Instagram, sort of, I guess!

When we first planned to do Ace Comic Con for Anne’s birthday weekend, we drew a line and determined we could only spend up to a certain limit to meet any given actor. When Don Cheadle was announced as an Ace guest on September 29th, we tiptoed a few inches over the line and bought a prepaid photo-op with him. When Cheadle canceled on October 7th due to last-minute filming changes, we were bummed and in a vulnerable state. Not until Thursday the 11th — literally 24 hours before this moment — did we decide to go wild and overindulge in this brief brush with Hiddleston. His line began moving a bit late, but not unforgivably so. He was in good spirits, about nine feet tall, and far more energetic than we were. Clearly he hadn’t spent all day strolling up and down Michigan Avenue before clocking in and filling the Festival Hall with awe and wonder.

The only other hard part about doing his photo-op besides the asking price was the mandatory extra security gauntlet. Every Ace Comic Con to date has included a second wave of metal detectors in front of their autograph/photo-op sections. Even if you entered the front doors without a problem, you had to do the same thing all over again. At Ace Midwest the main difference was the second wave of security cared even less if we were packing than the first wave. They stared at us as we approached, hardly moving, not even to offer the courtesy of pushing us one of those doggie dishes where you’re supposed to dump everything from your pockets. They didn’t touch our proffered bags, not a single poke. They seemed even more tired than we were, or simply intensely bored, and about as enthusiastic as extras playing security guards in the final half-hour of Saturday Night Live.

Naturally I had to complicate the process by getting my jacket and bag strap tangled up and looking like an idiot dancing in place while trying to remove things obediently. This time, though, at least I knew to announce “steel-toe shoes!” before walking through the detectors. They checked our photo-op ticket, but didn’t bother to see if I was also carrying a nasty, jagged shiv that I’d somehow cobbled together from spare table parts after clearing the front-door check, but I promise I didn’t.

Once we’d finished with Hiddleston at 7:20. we died. Then we walked back through the now-darkened halls of Navy Pier, having realized we didn’t have to walk it entirely outdoors. We grabbed dinner at a chicken place that took over twenty minutes to cook our order, then got our separate “original” and “spicy” requests backwards, much to Anne’s burning regret. We died while waiting, ate half our meals, continued onward, eventually reached our parking garage, died inside our car, had to beg security to let us drive out when the ticket reader didn’t recognize our prepaid status, drove out to our hotel in Oak Brook, and then spent the rest of the night continuing to die, but at least now we could lie down while dying.

* * * * *

COSPLAY INTERMISSION TIME!

Full disclosure: we took very few costume photos. I know fans love them and search for them and share them far and wide, but the truth is not much stood out to us. Much of the Ace population comprised newcomers to the convention scene — some flying in from as far away as England, Japan, and Argentina — and had fun joining the crowd in their own ways. In many cases this meant either no costumes, Halloween costumes, or dressing as Marvel heroes. That’s cool and I hope everyone felt welcome and had as much of a blast as we ultimately did, but in recent years we’ve gotten extremely finicky about what we photograph and save for posterity. Also, when crowds thickened Saturday, stopping cosplayers midstream grew increasingly challenging. Also also, that severe exhaustion I mentioned dulled our reflexes and our attention spans.

Behold what passes for our Ace Comic Con cosplay photo gallery for Friday and Saturday:

Loki and Tersseract, naturally.

2 Loki 2 Thor.

Heimdall, on break from Bifrost.

A walking Infinity Gauntlet, size Galactus.

Lydia from Beetlejuice enjoying some light reading.

Also bringing their own reading material: my favorites of the show, Sam and Suzy from Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom.

END TINY COSPLAY INTERMISSION.

* * * * *

Sleep provided a bit of recovery, but my legs were still aching when we showed up Saturday morning over an hour before the Festival Hall was scheduled to reopen at 10. To our relief, apparently everyone behind the scenes got really hyper and started letting us in early. Also to our relief, another guard recognized steel-toe shoes and let me in without touching my bag. Less of a relief was the argument we got to overhear while waiting for the detectors, in which another guard kept bickering over his walkie-talkie about someone named “Keena” who was clearly doing something that upset him enough to make him curse in front of an all-ages crowd. The respondent on the other end ultimately pulled rank and said approximately, “Let’s not do this over the walkie-talkie…” at which point he stormed off, presumably to go throttle Keena.

Saturday was the big day for all the biggest guests to be in the house, actors as well as comics creators. Two gentlemen in particular have been doing fine works since I was a kid and were a pleasure to meet. Most famous among them was Jim Starlin, best known as the creator of such Marvel personalities as Thanos, Gamora, and Drax the Destroyer. He also played a major role in the life of the original Captain Marvel until his death from cancer, and orchestrated all the best stories starring Adam Warlock, that vague outline of a being revealed at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 who may mean more in future films. Over at DC Comics he co-created the Superman villain Mongul as well as a Batman foe named the KGBeast, who was brought to the big screen as a henchman in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. While playing in their universe he also famously helped murder Robin through a publishing stunt that allowed fans to call a 1-900 number and sentence him to death. As a kid I also dug his creator-owned sci-fi series Dreadstar.

Starlin signed my 36-year-old copy of The Death of Captain Marvel and, when I began to rattle on about how it had affected me at age 10, turned to Anne and apologized for the damage.

Also appearing was Ron Lim, whose career dates back to the late ’80s and such titles I collected such as Captain America, Silver Surfer, Badger, Psi-Force, and the back half of the original Infinity Gauntlet miniseries — i.e., the basis of the next Avengers film. He had an energetic style that lent itself well to the action heroes of the time, especially Badger because the Badger was awesome. Most recently he drew a few pages of Nazi-punching action in this year’s Captain America Annual, which I’d picked up right before the show.

As of this writing, his Wikipedia bibliography fails to include Badger #33-36, 40-51 as well as Psi-Force #16-23. Someone please feel free to reference my comic collection up in there. I’d do myself but I’m sure some petty editor would gripe at me.

Ron Lim and Jim Starlin also did an 11 a.m. Main Stage Q&A about The Infinity Gauntlet and other comics-related matters. Starlin is a much funnier man in person than his classic death-filled stories convey.

Big-screen version of same panel with our moderator Angélique Roché, whose pop-culture hosting credits include work with Marvel, Syfy, SiriusXM, and the social-media influential Black Girl Nerds.

(Ron Lim was a late addition to that panel, which was originally scheduled to feature Starlin, creator of Thanos, and Donny Cates, who writes Marvel’s current Thanos series. A few days before showtime his name was quietly deleted from the panel description. Ace’s official site listed him as a guest for the weekend anyway, but neither fan comments nor his own Twitter feed confirm his presence there.)

The rest of our Saturday focused on meeting actors. Of those on hand, we’d already met Matt Smith (cf. Wizard World Chicago 2014) and Karen Gillan (the first and only Wizard World Indianapolis in 2015); we don’t watch wrestling or TV’s Lucifer; and we kept waffling over whether or not Elizabeth Olsen would be amenable to jazz hands.

And then there was the super-sensational Chris Evans. Once he was added to the guest list, his Saturday opportunities sold out at light speed. We couldn’t attend Sunday, and even if we had, his prices were at least as out-of-this-world as Hiddleston’s. We couldn’t possibly do both, though Evans’ sold-out status made our self-control easier in his case.

Nonetheless, we had two more guests to meet. This meant more trips through the second-wave metal detectors, but my system of announcing “steel-toe shoes!” was saving some seconds and awkwardness. Once again they didn’t bother to touch our bags, and didn’t check to see if I’d also gone out Friday night after the show and bought a shotgun from Turk in a van down by the river, but I promise I didn’t.

The only actor autograph I’d purchased was for Lee Pace. You might remember him from such films as Guardians of the Galaxy, in which he was the big blue jerk Ronan (who’s returning next spring for the retro-set Captain Marvel), and in The Hobbit trilogy as the creepy elf lord Thranduil. More recently, viewers caught him as the star of AMC’s Halt and Catch Fire, while New Yorkers may have caught him on Broadway in this year’s Tony-winning revival of Angels in America. But Anne and I knew him best as Ned the Piemaker, hero of the late, lamented Pushing Daisies, which ABC couldn’t figure out how to promote or connect with viewers. A young Pace had to master the fine art of machine-gun-speed baroque dialogue while surrounded by outlandishly cultivated Barry Sonnenfeld/Bo Welch set decorations, a top-notch supporting cast, and the dead bodies he had to bring back to life for quick, bizarre testimonies. This very show was his first American convention appearance. We preferred not to miss it.

We joined the autograph line at 11:30 behind several dozen other folks. We were scheduled for his photo op at 1:00. At 12:20 an Ace volunteer loudly insisted everyone with the tickets for the photo op should leave the autograph line now now now, go join the photo-op line early, and then rejoin the autograph line much later. After several people in front of us bought this scenario and left, we found ourselves maybe 10-12 equally stubborn fans away from Pace’s table. We stuck it out, got to his table right at 12:30, and enjoyed the moment and the pleasantries and Ned the Piemaker in reality minus superpowers.

Then we did the photo op. And, um, kind of wish we’d been in a position to ask for a retake.

He smiled fine in other photos. I’m fairly certain the photographer snapped a millisecond too soon before he could assume full Piemaker-face.

My loot pile effectively stopped accumulating around this point. Two autographs, one new comic, a Black Panther magnet for my work desk, a free sticker, and a few business fliers isn’t as much to show off as we normally have from an average con experience, admittedly.

something something quality over quantity

While we waited in line for Pace’s photo, we enjoyed one of Ace’s other perks: TVs around the show floor live-streaming events as they occurred at the Main Stage. If I’m not mistaken, the venues for the two previous Ace shows had advantageous super-sized Jumbotron-ish screens that could broadcast the goings-on writ large for all to see while trapped in lines or milling around the show floor. Navy Pier had no such amenities — hence the TVs. They were a nice perk if you could get near one and the sound was turned up loudly enough. From Pace’s line I could catch much of the Q&A with Zazie Beetz, the last actor I’d be meeting later.

Accidentally censored at right was her host, comedian and fellow guest Brian Posehn.

Marvel fans know her best as Domino from this year’s smash hit Deadpool 2, returning to theaters this December but whittled down to PG-13 so now it’ll be fun for the whole family like most other superhero films, some of which made less money than either Deadpool movie. But I knew her first from TV’s Atlanta, the Emmy-nominated FX series starring, created and produced by TV’s Donald Glover. While much of the show focuses on Glover’s character Earn and his misadventures as a would-be manager for his rap-star cousin — when it’s not ignoring the “rules” of half-hour TV shows and experimenting with narrative and format — Beetz is up in there as Van, mother of Earn’s daughter, trying not to strangle him throughout their on-again off-again relationship. The show is risky, audacious, inventive, subversive, thought-provoking, and never boring. Beetz has played a major part in that.

She was among the first guests announced after Ace Midwest itself was announced. I was sorry her Q&A conflicted with the Lee Pace schedule, but I appreciated the opportunity to experience much of it secondhand but still live. In case I had missed it, one comics news site later turned nearly every other thing she said into separate news articles, which amused me to no end and failed to improve my opinion of them.

Beetz, on the other hand, remained classy, as seen in our lead photo. Her photo op was our last activity of the entire convention. In a rare shocking move, they began ushering her line through early. She complimented my shirt (twice!) and…well, you can see the results. It took all my remaining energy reserves to come remotely close to keeping up with her spirit in that shot.

(Special shout-out to Ace for making digital copies of every single photo op a free perk, not an upcharged item as they are at Wizard World and many other shows. That rocked.)

Meanwhile at Ace Comic Con, thousands of attendees took nearly all the chairs at the Main Stage for the 2:30 Avengers panel starring Karen “Nebula” Gillan, Lee “Ronan” Pace, and Captain America himself, Chris Evans. For the majority it was their one and only chance to see Cap without putting his superstar fees on their credit cards. My spot in Beetz’ line left me far away from any TVs and 100% unable to hear what was going on. When we began filing into her photo booth I took a few shots of the nearest TV before it was my turn to move on.

Our Heroes — Evans, Pace, and Gillan — confab with the returning Ms. Roché.

Arguably our least worst shot of Chris Evans, and probably the closest we’ll ever get to him.

I’m aware all the Q&As have now been posted on Ace’s Facebook page in full for watching anytime. That’s an option, but once the show is over, such artifacts lose a bit of their power and sway.

Thanks to the unexpected acceleration of that final line, our Ace Comic Con experience ended around 3:10 p.m. Saturday. We had a few regrets, but another round of memories and souvenirs to cherish for some time to come. We left the Festival Hall, walked the full Navy Pier length one last time, returned to the parking garage, had to petition security to let us ago yet again without double-charging us, then returned to the hotel and died yet again.

So far there’s no official word as to whether or not Ace Midwest will become a permanent annual event, whether it’ll return to Navy Pier or move to a commoner venue, or whether it’ll even stay in Chicago or hop around the Midwest according to the showrunners’ moods and negotiations. We wanted to try it at least once and we’re satisfied with our results to the extent that we knew what we were getting into. Our heads are still buzzing from all that fan overload, but as to whether or not it’ll be an annual ritual for us…at these prices, I can’t promise it will.

That awkward moment when you don’t get to do jazz hands with world-famous actors.

On Friday my wife Anne and I had the sincere pleasure of attending the inaugural Louisville Supercon, run by the company responsible for Florida Supercon since 2014 and Raleigh Supercon since 2017. Like many convention companies they’ve now turned their attention to the Midwest, which has been enticing and enthralling show promoters for a good five years now, ever since they noticed some of our states have money and geeks in them, in that order. Mind you, I’m not complaining.

Longtime MCC readers may recall the last time we attended a con in Louisville, it didn’t go so well, if I may understate it grandly while I’m reminiscing about that time MCC did something loosely approximating journalism. Louisville is only two hours from our hometown of Indianapolis, an easy ride for road-trippers like us, but a fiasco like that wasn’t a good look for their city and didn’t encourage us to keep tabs on their local scene.

On the bright side, that show’s official website has disappeared and the URL is officially up for grabs, for the price of mere spare change, slightly more than its net worth.

If I knew how to rig a redirected URL, I would absolutely be tempted to lay down a buck and have it redirect to our own write-up.

When we heard about Louisville Supercon, we had other reservations beyond the one time we were burned. Late fall/early winter tends to see harsher weather that discourages large-scale events that depend on a number of attendees wearing thin outfits that offer little protection from the elements. The weekend after Thanksgiving is usually reserved for lying around the house comatose and catching up on all the rest we couldn’t possibly have gotten over the busy holidays. And the Christmas shopping season generally isn’t a great time for unplanned expenditures. We had expected October’s Ace Comic Con to be our final outing of the year. We were reluctant to commit to Supercon for months.

After much deliberation and waiting, a few names on the Louisville Supercon guest list — actors as well as comics creators — lured us in. We kept ourselves to a tighter budget than normal. We reviewed the guest list for autograph/photo-op possibilities and vetted the names with extreme finickiness. As an added budgetary measure, we decided to attend Friday rather than Saturday, which worked well because (a) we both had vacation time to use up before year’s end; (b) Friday tickets were nearly half the cost of Saturday’s; and (c) nearly every actor we wanted to meet would be there Friday as well, which is uncommon for cons. (Our biggest regret: special guest Richard Dreyfuss would be there Saturday only. Another time, perhaps, hopefully someday.)

Thus we were off and running. A two-hour drive brought us to downtown Louisville and the Kentucky International Convention Center. It reopened last August after a two-year renovation project and really doesn’t look like a forty-year-old facility. In a bit of wondrous timing, temperatures were in the 50s most of the day.

The main entrance as viewed from the closest parking garage.

On Friday the show floor would open at noon. We arrived in town shortly before 11 a.m. and found parking as near as possible. Not only is excessive walking getting harder as we get older, but Anne has been dealing with a sprained foot the past few weeks. That strategic move, plus her space-age bandage and our ibuprofen supply, helped save her energy and discomfort.

The crowds were light but in good spirits. Registration was a cinch. Locating the main entrance on the Upper Concourse wasn’t hard. We joined the short entry line, where Anne sat down on the floor and we watched teens in anime costumes enjoying each other’s company and taking turns posing for pics and whatnot.

A photo-op setup near the entrance starring Supercon’s official mascot, who appears to be a small child bitten by a radioactive urinal cake.

Ten minutes till showtime, cameras gathered for brief, unofficial opening speeches by a representative on behalf of the showrunners, a local city-councilwoman, and Supercon guest John Wesley Shipp — star of TV’s original The Flash, recurring guest on The CW’s current version, and accredited graduate of a Louisville high school.

We met him last year at a con in Knoxville. Great guy, highly recommended.

We all flooded into the exhibit hall promptly at noon and made a beeline for the celebrity autograph area, which were to Anne’s dismay in the corner farthest away from the doors. We had no idea what time to expect any actors because no autograph schedule had ever been released. As we walked through the autograph area, a handful of celebrities were already at their stations and ready to meet-‘n’-greet, including the original Creature from the Black Lagoon, Jabba the Hutt’s slave dancer, and the voice of Skeletor. Anne was afraid to look around because she didn’t want to be distracted from her primary objective.

Thus we continued without stopping and set up base camp for the next hour in front of the table reserved for TV’s Henry Winkler. Despite her infirmity we were first in line.

You might remember him from such shows and films as Better Late Than Never, Barry, Happy Days, The Waterboy, and more more more.

For us this would be delayed gratification realized at last. Winkler had been previously scheduled to attend last August’s Wizard World Chicago, but had canceled two days after we bought our tickets. Anne was disappointed at the time but held out hope that one day she’d meet Arthur Fonzarelli himself.

The Fonz arrived around 1:00, by which time a dozen of us were in line. He greeted each of us individually, gave a solid pitch for the various forms of merchandise he had for sale, then did the extra-friendly thing where he stood in front of his table to converse and sign instead of sitting behind the table.

Among the vast selection of 8×10 photos available, Anne was tempted by one from the Parks & Recreation episode in which Dr. Saperstein and his terrible son Jean-Ralphio spent the day watching cartoons in matching bathrobes. Winkler was very helpful in talking her through the photo choices, like a benevolent salesman trying to match the right car to the right driver. With his coaching she landed upon a candid photo of him at home with a happy dog. When Anne meets actors, she prefers to get photos of them as themselves rather than as their characters because that’s who she’s come to meet. Not only did Winkler peg her well, but he sold me on his 2011 book of photographs and non-acting personal memories called I’ve Never Met an Idiot on the River. When in Rome, and so on.

None of our photo-ops were scheduled till late afternoon, freeing up the next hour or so for wandering Artists Alley and the rows reserved for assorted comic book professionals, some of whose contributions date back to my childhood. A fraction of the talents on hand included:

* Fabian Nicieza! Cons love billing him as the co-creator of Deadpool and Cable, which today’s successful Marvel movies have all but guaranteed he’ll be celebrated as for the rest of his life. Back in my day he was the writer of such top-notch and often underrated series as Psi-Force, Thunderbolts, New Warriors (which almost became a TV show), and Troublemakers for Valiant/Acclaim Comics. As someone who highly regarded his Psi-Force run in particular and Marvel’s ill-fated “New Universe” in general, I was stunned when he told me the book was selling 40,000 copies a month when it was canceled because those were low sales back in the late ’80s. Today that figure would make it a Top 10 book.

I missed him at a previous C2E2, where The Co-Creator of Deadpool had a near-infinite line. Here at Supercon on a quiet Friday, line length was not a problem.

* Mark Bagley! Co-creator of the original Ultimate Spider-Man as well as Venom’s villainous spin-off Carnage, he was the long-running artist on such Marvel books as New Warriors, Thunderbolts, Amazing Spider-Man, and the nearly forgotten Strikeforce Morituri.

With a reputation for speed and reliability, he’s among the very few artists still active in the field today who can handle drawing a monthly title, even in an age when computerized coloring technically leaves pencilers and inkers with less work to do.

* Keith Giffen! When I first started reading comics as a kid, he was the regular artist on Legion of Super-Heroes. He went on to co-create DC’s Lobo and Ambush Bug, as well as Marvel’s Rocket Raccoon, though he only drew his first appearance and has hated drawing him ever since. (His detailed list of con sketching prices insists on $500 for Rocket, to ensure no one asks.) He’s widely known as the driving force behind the post-Crisis “funny” version of the Justice League, among other hilarious books that dared to put the “comic” in “comic book”.

In person he’s as cantankerous as I expected, and suspect I may be someday.

* Emi Lenox! A relative newcomer compared to the other guys, her work first caught my eye on the Image miniseries Plutona written by Jeff Lemire. Imagine Stand by Me except the band of teens find the body in the first act and it belongs to a superhero. Their reactions spiral out of control from there as the kids’ flaws turn into disturbing psychodrama.

For what it’s worth, her Tumblr isn’t quite so dark.

Approximately 90% of Supercon’s narrow Artists Alley was arts-and-crafts. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though it’s not what I look for at cons. There was much fine work to be seen, but I don’t have good display space for too many art objects, nor did I really budget for it. I did emerge with purchases from two stands: a anthology from the Louisville Cartoonists Society, which I didn’t know was a thing; and once again from Drew Blank, one of the lone purveyors out there creating unofficial merchandise celebrating the genius of both Parks and Rec and The Office.

The mandatory “stuff I bought at the con” shot, including a small print of the Keith Giffen cover for one of DC’s funniest-ever funnybooks.

After comics came lunch. To our delight, the KICC’s food options weren’t terrible. We enjoyed gyros from a stand that had a tiny grill for cooking the meat strips while we watched. Later in the afternoon came giant ice cream waffle cones from another booth. Other options included pulled pork, Philly steak sandwiches, chicken and waffles, walking tacos, and a bit more. Convention centers have a terrible track record when it comes to edible resources, particularly for shows held in facilities with virtually no affordable restaurant competitors within easy walking range. The KICC is also surrounded with chain restaurants outside, a veritable banquet compared to, say, the grueling lunchtime moonscape that is Wizard World Chicago.

Very few tables stood nearby, none with chairs. Fortunately we found hundreds of empty seats in front of a nearby wrestling ring. There’s something else we don’t see often at other cons.

The big show was later that evening. Promotional photos promised that it would indeed feature guys in costumes beating on each other, forming some unlikely inter-company death-matches.

COSPLAY INTERMISSION TIME!

So, um, about that:

I make no secret of the fact that cosplay photos drive traffic on these convention entries. Like, extremely heavily if we’re on our game. Real talk: convention cosplay and overwrought movie reviews compose the preponderance of any and all MCC back-catalog traffic, which keeps me satisfied that my little hobby-site here isn’t a complete waste of my time. Despite how much weight and effort I put into all these travelogue entries, those are a joy to assemble but generally sink to the bottom within 48 hours because in the long term no one cares much about those. At all.

Unfortunately, we took very nearly zero cosplay photos due to a number of factors:

• We spent more time in lines than on wandering the exhibit hall
• Fridays typically have far fewer cosplayers walking the floor than Saturdays do
• The narrow aisles between vendors wasn’t conducive to cosplayers wanting to walk the floor much
• We tend to skip costumes we don’t recognize, which gets complicated when the field is overtaken by characters from universes I know zilch about such as Overwatch, Fortnite, and today’s hip anime
• It’s harder to chase down cosplayers when they’re in a hurry and we’re older and have injuries

with that in mind, sincere apologies for the paltry costume gallery. In keeping with past efforts, readers will note once again half the pics are Deadpool variants.

Professor Pyg, a dark 21st-century Batman villain who could fit in really well in a grim-and-gritty Bioshock-meets-“Pigs in Space” crossover.

Roninpool with Infinity Gauntlet, preparing not to halve but to double the number of chimichangas in the universe.

…

…uhhh, END INTERMISSION.

Also, as with other shows, we found super fun props.

The 501st Legion brought an AT-ST and two speeder bikes. That’s me doing my best Slim Pickens impression.

Someone sculpted part of the Iron Giant. Hopefully they can finish the rest in time for next show.

We made time for one panel, which unfortunately resulted in some awkwardness. The main panel rooms were not easy to find . The convention map failed to explain the spatial relationship between those rooms and the rest of the show, simply diagramming them as a disembodied blueprint floating in space. I had to go to the KICC’s own website, not Supercon’s. to determine those rooms were located in the KICC’s east wing. Neither site showed how to get there from here. Without actual printed instructions or functional drawings, I figured the simplest way would be to go down to the ground floor and head east.

We tried this, but hit a dead end in the middle of the center. We stepped out the nearest exit and headed down the sidewalk to the east wing. We pulled on the nearest door and found it locked. Standing inside a hundred feet away was a con volunteer silently shaking her head, pointing westward, and refusing to approach or provide verbal or useful assistance.

We returned to the doors we’d just exited from the building’s west half. They’d locked behind us, one way only. We had to walk back to the doors at the far northwest corner of the Center, reenter, head back upstairs, walk toward the exhibit hall, divert to the easily overlooked narrow hallway to the left of the exhibit hall, take that toward the east wing, travel two escalators down, and then walk the full north-south length of the center to reach the room we’d wanted.

I’m glad we figured it out, but I was not happy that Louisville Supercon’s maps sucked. Somehow Anne’s foot was fine through all this, possibly in the end stages of the healing process. But now my feet were killing me.

With that out of the way, we walked into a conference room — college auditorium, style, complete with desks and laptop outlets, a great resource for anyone needing to charge their phones — and settled in to find the previous presentation was running long. Up front, artist/writer/editor Al Milgrom was finishing up a sketch of the Hulk while overhead projectors let us watch his work in progress. Once he finished blacking the last shadows in Hulk’s feet, he presented the completed work to a lucky audience member, and then their panel was over.

Next up was a Q&A with the aforementioned Fabian Nicieza, co-creator of a famous movie character who, by the other co-creator’s own description, was basically Spider-Man meets the Punisher.

Interview conducted by frequent local comic-con guest Victor Dandridge, Jr.

Topics covered throughout their chat:

• Nicieza’s birth in Argentina, move to the U.S. as a four-year-old, and discovery of comics
• His early days in the work force that led to his gig in Marvel marketing
• His breakthrough as a comics writer, which he somehow handled in addition to his full-time job
• Some of the marketing gimmicks he spearheaded, such as the Avengers ID card that came free with the first issue of Solo Avengers, which I think I still have in a scrapbook somewhere
• His time as part of the team that took over the X-Men books during the poorly handled tradition away from previous longtime writer Chris Claremont
• The thought processes behind giving the Merc with a Mouth his own Spidey-like sarcastic personality and tragic backstory
• How Writers Are Getting Deadpool So Very Wrong Today
• Why Marvel’s NFL SuperPro was a thing that existed
• His current Webtoons webcomic Outrage (with artist Reilly Brown), which has had more readers than any printed comics he’s written in the last fifteen years

Beyond the Q&A, our afternoon saw three photo-ops in all. We’d originally planned the first one to be Brent Spiner, but he regretfully canceled due to a number of personal issues. In his place Spiner suggested and the con welcomed his former coworker Jonathan Frakes.

Anne asks, “Can we do jazz hands?” Frakes looks at me and asks, “Are you in?” I say, “absolutely.” And it was ON.

Anne had already met the entire main cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation, nearly half of them at Wizard World Chicago 2014 (which included Frakes). She has all their autographs, but photos of almost none of them. The chances of meeting all of them a second time to collect photos are slim to none, but we figured it might be nice to take advantage of their recurring cameos where possible. We were sad that Spiner was unable to make it, but Frakes was an upstanding substitute.

In addition to his career as Commander William Riker, he’s directed films as well as TV that we’ve enjoyed. Earlier this year Anne and I finally finished watching the TNT series Leverage, for which he directed several episodes, did two cameos, and participated in a few of the entertaining, alcohol-laden DVD commentaries. On one of them, Leverage co-creator John Rogers even convinced him to yell “RED ALERT!” in his best stoic Riker voice. So yeah, I was more than happy to see him again.

Two more photo ops were our final activities of the day. In one, I got to meet the Alice Cooper — legendary rocker, performance artist, Muppet Show guest and Wayne’s World costar. Alas, in finalizing our available funds I found myself forced to choose between autograph or photo op with him. Since I don’t have a vinyl collection for him to sign like some of the other lucky fans I met in line, I went this way instead.

After the pic, Alice says, “A little Fosse, huh?” I shouted “YES! EXACTLY!” and mentally lit off lots of fireworks celebrating the fifth celebrity I’ve met who gets “Fosse fingers”. I’m not worthy.

As our lead photo already spoiled, our Louisville Supercon grand finale was a dual photo op with the aforementioned Henry Winkler and the William Shatner. It sounds like an odd pairing if you’re unaware they’re costars in the NBC reality series Better Late Than Never along with George Foreman and Terry Bradshaw. The two former pro athletes were nowhere to be found, but Captain Kirk and the Fonz were in the house and happy to hang out together.

Anne and I have had the great blessing of meeting — or at least being in the same room as — nearly the entire cast of the original Star Trek. (Alas, that curmudgeonly DeForest Kelley stopped doing cons before our time, and our Leonard Nimoy experience was us sitting at the back of his crowded ballroom Q&A at a con where he only did pre-show signings for us commoners.) But we didn’t get photos the first time around, unless you count the time Anne met Shatner at Wizard World Chicago 2010, where he was surrounded by a wall of fans playing penniless paparazzi and the autograph signing was one of those cattle-call experiences where the actor is in mute, thankless, scribble-NEXT-scribble-NEXT-scribble-NEXT mode all day long. A second chance with Shatner and a first chance with Winkler was too good an opportunity to pass up. Theirs was the one moment where we went over budget. But we forgive us.

We were concerned whether or not this would actually happen, when news came in around 12:30 that Shatner was running a few hours late. Whatever was in his way ultimately didn’t stop him. While we waited in line, we chatted with a mother/daughter duo behind us who showed off their Alice Cooper autograph, under which he’d written “Galatians 2:20”. That was heartwarming on too many levels to recount here.

In deference to Shatner’s stature, Anne insisted we not ask about jazz hands. I understood but put on a state of comic disbelief anyway. As we entered the photo booth, Winkler said, “Nice to see you again!” and we died for a few seconds because the Fonz just remembered us! Shatner stood to the far side, content to abide.

We took our positions. I began to crouch down in front of the others so I wouldn’t block anyone. I was tempted to throw up some jazz hands from down below. I was about a foot down when Shatner protested, “Stand up! You look better that way!” Not in an irritated tone, but in the tone of a parent giving advice to a kid with low self-esteem who ought to be prouder of who they are.

I couldn’t very well explain my partially formed ulterior motive. To be honest, in that split-second I was taken aback because it’s so exceptionally rare for anyone to offer me constructive criticism. On anything. At all. Ever. In that moment I took it as encouragement, thanked him sincerely, and stood tall with comical stymied frustration on my face.

Shatner was right, though.

…

…and that’s the high note on which our Louisville Supercon 2018 experience ended, skipping over the part where my feet were in pain but Anne’s seemed blessedly intact. Now that we have a better idea of the KICC’s overall layout, the one part I thoroughly detested shouldn’t be an issue if we and Supercon return for an encore.

Thanks for reading. See you next convention…

Of all the pics to lead with, of course I’m going with the one Instagram loved most, apparently one of the year’s best Tom Hiddleston photos judging by their reactions. Big thanks to Ace Comic Con Midwest for making this magically possible.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife Anne and I are big fans of geek/comic/entertainment conventions. Sometimes we shell out for photo ops with actors from our favorite movies and TV shows. If they’re amenable and don’t mind taking posing suggestions from a pair of eccentric fortysomethings shaped like two lumpy bags of potatoes, our favorite theme is jazz hands. We’re not dancers and we’ve only attended two Broadway shows so far, but we love the idea of sharing a moment of unbridled joie de vivre with anyone who’s game. We can’t remember which of us had the idea first, though the inspiration surely came from a few different possible sources we share. So it’s our thing now.

We previously compiled collections of our first three years of jazz-hands photos (including one that was once used in Wizard World Chicago advertising materials), followed by a complete roundup of our 2017, the year we attended way too many cons for our own good. We didn’t expect 2018 to resemble 2017, but in tallying up the results it struck me that we had a pretty decent — and, if I may say, jazzy — year after all.

After the way our past two months have gone off the rails, we’re confident 2019 will be dramatically scaled back whether we like it or not. While we’re working on finding ways to make austerity measures entertaining, please enjoy the following clipfest starring a plethora of talented folks who have impressed us in movies or on TV who were willing to play along with all that jazz.

HorrorHound Cincinnati: Julie Benz from TV’s Angel, Dexter, and Syfy’s Defiance.

Indiana Comic Con: “Yeah, we can go back to my Broadway days!” quipped an exhausted and put-upon David Harbour, a.k.a. Chief Hopper from Netflix’s Stranger Things.

C2E2: Justin Hartley from the NBC ratings juggernaut This Is Us as well as Green Arrow from Smallville. A rare instance of a comic-con photo staff asking us to come back for a retake because something went wrong with our first one.

Also C2E2: former Firefly couple Alan Tudyk and Gina Torres, who later found bigger audiences respectively in Disney animation and in USA’s Suits.

C2E2 yet again: Brandon Routh, Caity Lotz and Dominic Purcell from The CW’s Legends of Tomorrow, where jazz hands would honestly sometimes fit right in.

Did I mention C2E2 was really good to us? Nowhere else in all of time or space will you ever see punk icon Henry Rollins workshopping his Cab Calloway impression.

C2E2 extra credit: not actually a celebrity, but an awesome Drax the Destroyer cosplayer we know. We’ve grown accustomed to his face.

Wizard World Chicago, our most stressful con of 2018, also produced the lousiest camera work for Smallville costars Michael Rosenbaum and Tom Welling. Unlike some cons, they charge extra for the digital copy, so we’ll never know if this was a printer issue or a crappy, possibly drunken photographer.

Hall of Heroes Comic Con: William Katt formerly The Greatest American Hero, who was once in a production of Bob Fosse’s Pippin and is one of the only five famous folks we’ve ever met who got our benign oddball request and called it by the proper phrase “Fosse fingers”.

Ace Comic Con Midwest on Chicago’s Navy Pier: our big moment with Lee Pace from Pushing Daisies and The Hobbit and Guardians of the Galaxy, from the Department of How I Wish We Could’ve Done a Retake.

A moment of pizzazz from Ace Midwest with Zazie Beetz, costar of Donald Glover’s amazing Atlanta and the box-office-friendly Deadpool 2.

Louisville Supercon: TV/film director Jonathan Frakes, a Starfleet officer in a previous life.

Also from Louisville Supercon: superstar Alice Cooper became the fifth member of Team Fosse Fingers.

…and that’s the year that was, jazz-hands-wise. I’ve also been keeping a dedicated Pinterest board collating all our jazz hands to date — 56 photos and counting as of today. To be honest it’s the only real use I’ve found for Pinterest so far. I considered creating other MCC collages there, but I’m not sure there’s a demand, need, or whimsical reason to expand my Pinterest interest yet.

For those interested in catching us in action in the future for whatever weird reason, our much shorter 2019 convention schedule so far looks roughly like this:

• March 22: C2E2 in Chicago.
• April 11-13: Star Wars Celebration Chicago, their first time in the Midwest since SWC 2005 in Indianapolis.
• August 29 – September 1: our first DragonCon in Atlanta, which we’ve been considering for years and believe the time has come at last to put up, not shut up.

Events we’re keeping an eye on but haven’t committed 100% to yet unless someone wants to pay our way in advance: HorrorHound Cincinnati; Comic Con Revolution Chicago; the Superman Celebration in Metropolis; Indy Pop Con; Hall of Heroes Comic Con (who’re presently updating their Facebook page more than their site); and next November’s Louisville Supercon, whose extremely early guest list already tempts me deeply.

Events we’ve attended before but will likely be missing this year due to scheduling issues: Wizard World Chicago, HorrorHound Indy, Indiana Comic Con.

Updates and new Fosse Fingers as they occur!

Say hi to Chibi-Captain Spaudling and Chibi-Otis B. Driftwood from Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects.

Convention season is here again!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: last year we attended our first HorrorHound Cincinnati, an annual convention in honor of the scary, icky, disturbing, stabby, psychotropic aspects of pop culture. The folks at HorrorHound Magazine orchestrate the festivities so loyal fans of the deadly and the dead can enjoy a themed geek space of their own apart from Star Wars and Star Trek and whatnot. (Well, mostly.) We’ve attended four of the same company’s HorrorHound Indy shows in our own hometown because, even though horror isn’t a primary focus for our entertainment habits, their overseers have a flair for assembling a top-notch guest list filled with actors we’ve seen in a lot of great works throughout our lives…and who also just so happen to have one or more Halloween-apropos movies or TV shows among their IMDb credits.

This year posed a challenge for us. We were on the fence about attending until a few weeks before showtime, when they added a guest I considered Absolute Must-See. Unfortunately by the time we were prepared to pull the trigger, Saturday passes were sold out. I can’t remember the last time a con ticket sellout threatened to be a major deterrent for us.

Not all guests would be there Friday. The only way to make it work was to attend Sunday, which is a thing we nearly never do. Our Sunday morning was spoken for and tightened our time frame to an uncomfortable degree. The earliest we could leave town was 11 a.m. Cincinnati is a mere two hours away — a bit less if you drive like I do, and if no fools stand in my way — but if we ran afoul of massive road construction or accidents, or if we encountered a heavy snowstorm as we did last year, we were doomed.

My heart sank when I woke up Sunday morning to large snowflakes cascading everywhere. Funny thing: none of them stuck the roads. By 11 they were all melted, we were off and running. With no accidents ahead and a shockingly zero construction sites in progress, we made it to the Sharonville Convention Center around 12:45. The con closed at 5. We had slightly over four hours to check off our entire to-do list.

After paying for parking next door (unlike other late arrivals doing laps and laps and laps around the convention center’s packed spaces) and picking up our wristbands, we made a beeline to the opposite end of the building for the Absolute Must-See actor: Lance Reddick, once known as Lieutenant Daniels from The Wire. You might also remember him as head Agent Phillip Broyles from the Fox SF series Fringe and as the concierge at the Continental from the John Wick series, soon to be a trilogy.

We couldn’t hear each other very well over some other actor’s crowd behind us, but the moment was treasured nonetheless.

Among other subjects, we discussed how the lessons of The Wire still apply today to a lot of large American cities including our own Indianapolis hometown, and how David Simon’s original nonfiction book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets is like a War and Peace for our generation — thick and complex and with an enormous cast, but deeply affecting, essential reading.

Anne cheerfully found a guest of her own to greet. Most folks recognize Carel Struycken as Lurch from the Addams Family movies. Anne also remembers him from several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation as the quiet Mr. Homn, assistant to Deanna Troi’s mom Lwaxana Troi.

Fun trivia: Carel Struycken is nearly two Annes tall.

Our next guest required a scavenger hunt. HorrorHound Cincinnati’s guests were spread out across three exhibit halls. Lance Reddick and the highest-profile guests were in Hall C. Mr. Struycken and assorted other actors at various points in their careers were in Halls A and B. The show floor map alleged our next guy was in Hall A. We searched up and down and saw him nowhere. We tried the information desk. Volunteer 1 deferred to Volunteer 2, who pointed us to Volunteer 3, who graciously walked with us into Hall A to help search, partly because he was curious too. We hadn’t been the first fans to come asking.

Volunteer 3 talked to the right folks and learned we needed to go back to Hall C, ignore all the guests who had visible banners and long lines, and look for a small, unassuming table in a dark corner away from convenient pathways, basic visibility, and human contact. He didn’t word it like that, but that’s where we found Garret Dillahunt. His performance as a reprogrammed Terminator in The Sarah Conner Chronicles was among that show’s many, many unappreciated highlights. I’ve also seen him in season 1 of The Gifted, the one episode of the sitcom Raising Hope I ever watched, and such films as The Road, 12 Years a Slave, Looper, and Winter’s Bone.

if The Sarah Conner Chronicles had lived on, I could totally imagine Cromartie doing jazz hands.

Extremely nice gentleman, but if I were an actor of any size and convention showrunners had tucked me into a distant corner like that with absolutely no way for fans to find me except by mounting an exploratory expedition, I’d be severely ticked.

Our final actor of the weekend may have the most familiar face of all. Steven Weber has been all over TV throughout the past two decades, from the NBC sitcom Wings and onward to parts of varying sizes in Studio 60 and Falling Skies, one episode apiece of Community and Sleepy Hollow (which I recapped at the time!) and the starring role of Jack Torrance in the 6-hour miniseries version of The Shining, which hewed more closely to Stephen King’s book than Kubrick’s classic artiness and Jack Nicholson’s over-the-top Nicholsonality did.

Your move, Tim Daly.

Weber was deep in chat with next-door table-neighbor Annabeth Gish when we approached. I hated to interrupt and cheerfully let them go on for a bit. Actors like to have fun at these events too, and it’s a shame when they pause on my account. I considered asking if it bugged him that his last name was misspelled on every single piece of HHC literature, but enjoyed the moment instead.

We did our dutiful tour of the vendors and artists and whatnot, but bought very little because (a) we’re not into accumulating as much stuff as we used to be, and (b) we have another con coming up extremely soon that more accurately caters to my accumulation desires. We did make a point of saying hi to author Mike West, a HorrorHound regular we’ve met at past shows, among other places.

Sample booth sentry.

Even though it was Sunday and full-weekend attendees were probably exhausted and ready to nap wherever they stood, cosplayers nonetheless abounded, raising spirits and property values with their imagination and craftsmanship.

Billy the Puppet from Saw, complete with tricycle with a li’l bell on it.

The Toxic Avenger, plying his wares at the Troma Films booth.

Beetlejuice and Lydia in their wedding attire.

A demon lady whose name I wish I knew, whose wings even worked. By which I mean they folded and unfolded, not that she literally flew. At least, not in front of us.

Harley Quinn! Still everywhere!

Morticia, Gomez, Wednesday and Pugsley Addams, keeping it in the Family.

I suspected this might take hours. It didn’t, for one simple reason: none of these guests had a line. At all. I like to think they spent all day Saturday overwhelmed with thousands of teeming followers descending upon them for attention and selfies, and by Sunday afternoon everyone was just too tired to move and/or thought the actors could use a breather. Whatever the reason, we wrapped up our day to our total satisfaction by 2:00 sharp, 75 minutes spent in all. There were no other panels, no other shopping needs, and not much of our modest budget left.

In all: once again HorrorHound Cincinnati was a super fun experience. We’ll see where fates and moods take us next year, and we’ll see readers again in our next set of con photos, which won’t be a long wait.

Badges! And papers! On every table-shaped surface! So. Many. PAPERS.

My brain is buzzing too much to write paragraphs right now. Our ninth foray to C2E2 in Chicago is this weekend, and I think we’re ready, but I dunno if we’re ready ready.

Our workplaces are left to their own devices and out of our hair for now, which is great because we both need a break. The relatives are notified. The things that need sitters are set for sitting. The Saturday badges and the Friday will-call papers are secured. The trade paperback want-list is slightly updated and reprinted. The Artists Alley MVPs are pinned. A few autographable objects are squared away. The convention’s mammoth event schedule is pared down to a list of a few must-sees, two jazz-hands appointments, and a wealth of optional possibilities. The favor we’re performing for a friend-of-a-friend is mapped out. The bags are packed. My stupid new pills are not being left behind. The wardrobe is selected. The hotel is confirmed. The non-Dunkin donut shops nearest our hotel are on radar. The devices are charging. The checkbooks are balanced. The official C2E2 app is downloaded and ready to be useless to me because I am old and printouts are my jam.

Maybe we’re nearly ready ready, then? All that’s left is to sleep, arise, leave, drive, arrive, line up, get inspected, stampede, say hello to talented strangers, bid farewell to my money, be severely shocked and honored if anyone recognizes us, accept there’s no shame in stopping or resting, pray for the best, and keep in mind whoever says “I’m getting too old for this” loses.

Updates as they occur through my usual social channels, unless signal quality is awful or everything is dull. Otherwise, updates after the fact. if all my accounts go too quiet, assume the worst, by which I mean either illness or broken phones, and feel free to panic for us. I promise we’ll be flattered!