The most vivid mannequin I’ve ever seen in my life.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

April 11-15, 2019, was the ninth American edition of Lucasfilm’s Star Wars Celebration, recurring major convention celebrating their works, creations, actors, fans, and merchandise, not always in that order. After jaunts around the U.S. coast and overseas, this year’s was in Chicago, gracing the Midwest with its products for the first time since 2005. My wife Anne and I attended Thursday through Saturday and fled Sunday morning…

Most attendees of any given con spend a good 90% of their weekend in the exhibit hall. Sure, it’s cool to meet famous people, see the work of impressive artists, photograph cosplayers, and attend panels, and not always in that order. But the average ticketholder does the majority of their walking up and down the aisles past the various licensed merchandisers, collectible dealers, comic shop owners, toy eBay-ers, and other small businesses and large companies dying to trade pop culture miscellanea for all that disposable income.

Times may have been tough for Celebration dealers, though. Thousands of fans were far more interested in the official Celebration Store and its coveted exclusives than in any used-Star-Wars retailers. At a show where the unifying theme was ostensibly Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars STAR WARS, nearly every vendor assumed we were all there to buy nothing but Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars Star Wars STAR WARS. Some booths sold different kinds of Star Wars, but it was still Star-Wars-brand Star Wars. After a while, all those identically stamped and trademarked products began to blend together. By the time we concluded our weekend, the exhibit hall had paradoxically morphed before our very eyes into a rather mundane bazaar.

A few hardy professionals did their best to stand out anyway…

Hundreds lost their minds lining up at the Hallmark booth to gaze upon their “Popminded” line of geek-driven merch. Hallmark: not just for Star Wars ornaments anymore!

Star Wars bean bag chairs for the kids. Now they can sit on a Jabba that can’t slobber all over them!

Star Wars Lego sets looked the same as they ever have to us, but 3-D Lego Luke busting out of a 2-D Lego mural was a nice touch.

Star Wars pinball has been around for decades (our old laundromat used to have a fun Data East machine), but now of course you can buy your own.

Book the right flights to, from, or within Japan and you might get a ride in one of Ana’s ostentatious Star Wars airplanes. Real, actual passenger jets, not just these models.

Don’t like the Celebration guest list? Settle for secondhand autographs at a few different high-end souvenir carriers.

Sample autograph prices at a different booth. A few of them were competitively priced for anyone interested in getting a bargain and not meeting Forest Whitaker in person.

Fans tired of staring at price tags and pegboards and stacks of dusty Kenner boxes could find other areas of the hall to relax. On the side of the hall with the heaviest concentration of Star Wars fan clubs, there was a Star Wars fashion show! All costumes and handicrafts were for-fans-by-fans. Nothing for sale as far as I know, though — these were display models only.

Explore the many phases of Padme Amidala or other characters who ever wore more than one costume.

An Amidala headpiece that could use some bedazzling.

Jango Fett and Vice Admiral Holdo. Call them the Pew-Pew Twins.

I’m amazed at how sturdier fans than me can bear to wear Wookiee costumes and not drown in their own sweat.

Meanwhile back at the vendors’ booths, T-shirts are much more my ventilation level. And we’re long past the old days when they just slapped a simple Luke on a white tee and called it a day. Lots more design options now.

If you’d like to try anything on, just ask Vader and his Porg for assistance.

Chibi-Padme holds court over at Her Universe, pioneers in women’s Star Wars fashion. Founder/designer Ashley Eckstein herself often hung out at the booth and attracted long lines.

One exhibitor encouraged Star Wars graffiti and fan art on a festive wall.

Fans who’d rather stare at accessories than wear them could stop by EFX Collectibles and order a Star Wars war helmet to put on their shelves next to the toys they also never touch.

True helmet connoisseurs were treated to a sneak preview of EFX’s latest objet d’art: a replica crushed Vader helmet. A surfeit of premium items like this, miles above our pay grade, is why Anne stuck to just buying Celebration pins.

To be concluded! Other chapters in this very special maxiseries:

Prologue: Our Star Wars Celebration Chicago 2019 Pre-Show: Who We’ve Already Met
Part Zero: MCC Live-Tweet: Our First Star Wars Celebration Chicago 2019 Line
Part 1: Imperial Cosplay
Part 2: The Right Side of the Force Cosplay
Part 3: Scum and Villainy Cosplay
Part 4: Rising with Skywalkers
Part 5: The Stars in Our Galaxy
Part 6: The Droids We Weren’t Looking For
Part 7: How to Draw Star Wars the Marvel Way
Part 8: Adventures in Official Merchandising
Part 9: World of Wheels and Wings
Part 10: Welcome to Our World of Space Toys
Part 12: [coming soon]

A fond souvenir from our personal archives.

Fans grieved hard enough years ago when Chewbacca died in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, crushed by a moon. Hearing today of the death of Peter Mayhew, the man who brought George Lucas’ original Wookiee to life, was far more sorrowing. Everybody loves Chewbacca. Not even The Star Wars Holiday Special could damage him or our appreciation for the heart and muscle and loyalty he brought to the other, much shorter heroes of that faraway galaxy.

Anne and I had the chance to meet Mayhew at Star Wars Celebration 2002, somehow catching him in a very rare moment without a long line of appreciative fans in front of him, all wanting to express their affection. It’s possible we might have caught him just as he was about to take a break or participate in a panel, but nothing about his response indicated impatience, disturbance, inconvenience, or anything but grace.

Portrait of the artist as a young lad of 57, immortalized on 35mm film before we went digital and stopped using flashes forever.

He was a guest at other cons near us intermittently, often appearing from the distance like a less wispy Joey Ramone and never lacking for company. His final convention appearance was at last month’s Star Wars Celebration Chicago, but some of his schedule had been trimmed due to medical issues. We had no idea of their severity, and were shocked to hear today’s negative update.

All things considered, it was extremely cool that he had the chance to embody the part one last time in The Force Awakens. (And at age 69 when the film was released, at that. We should all be so lucky to still be doing what we love at that age.) As always, Chewbacca was the stalwart partner sticking by his best friend’s side even decades later through thick and thin and infinitely troublesome. When that same best friend dies before his eyes, his fearsome outburst of vengeful rage and sorrow were our rage and sorrow. Though we may not have spoken his language, in that moment he spoke for us.

We feel a different shock today for the loss of that warrior and gentleman, and we pray he rests in peace.

Peter Mayhew when we passed near his booth at Wizard World Chicago 2011. Dunno who the fan is, but I hope he’s doing okay today.

Did YOU spot all the appearances of Donald Glover’s Young Lando in this very special maxiseries? I mean, you don’t win a prize or anything and I’m not even keeping track of them myself. I was just curious, is all.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

April 11-15, 2019, was the ninth American edition of Lucasfilm’s Star Wars Celebration, recurring major convention celebrating their works, creations, actors, fans, and merchandise, not always in that order. After jaunts around the U.S. coast and overseas, this year’s was in Chicago, gracing the Midwest with its products for the first time since 2005. My wife Anne and I attended Thursday through Saturday and fled Sunday morning…

…and it all ends here, by which I mean we finally stop trying to prolong the magic of that eventful weekend. We’ve covered the cosplayers we saw; the actors we met; the big, big trailer we watched with thousands of other fans in an awkward communal setting; the one panel we were permitted to attend; the geek stuff we bought; and the other geek stuff we walked past.

Here on MCC, many such lists end with me promising all that “and more, more, MORE!” At long last, it’s time for the mores.

SWCC ran Thursday through Monday, a most unusual schedule for any convention that isn’t Dragon Con. We attended Thursday through Saturday, drove home Sunday, and decompressed Monday. We knew in advance we would be missing all the hottest tickets of the weekend. The panel covering Lucasfilm’s upcoming streaming series The Mandalorian was on Sunday, and of course we were bitter about losing the lottery for seats to the Episode IX panel. But we were determined to find our fun wherever we could on the premises.

We left Indianapolis Thursday morning and encountered our first fellow fans before we reached the Illinois border.

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On the road to #starwarscelebration, trapped in I-90 construction gridlock behind One Of Us. #starwars #traffic #geek #geeklife

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We reached McCormick Place shortly before 9 a.m. CDT and parked in Lot A, on the fifth out of six floors, a sure sign of crowds to come. Many attendees had beaten us there, as did professionals planning to attend the biennial ProMat Trade Show in the South Building. We encountered two such guys in the garage elevator, gave them walking directions to their shindig, and headed toward the north end of the West Building for the mandatory pre-show security checkpoint. That part, which I’d dreaded, was a breeze. This show was already shaping up to be a vast improvement over our horrid entrance experiences at Celebrations 2002 and 2005, where we sometimes didn’t get into the convention center until an hour after opening.

We joined the line at 9:15. The exhibit hall was scheduled to open at 1 p.m. Yes, we were ridiculously early. And we were hardly first in line. Hardcore Star Wars fans are notorious for their love of lining up for stuff. Since most of them don’t have ritual hunts that test their mettle, they have long, early lines instead. Remember that time Star Wars fans made headlines showing up far too soon for the world premiere of The Phantom Menace as if getting seats would be an issue? Lines and Star Wars stuff weren’t originally, firmly correlated, but eventually that became the norm…though I always found some truth to Roger Ebert’s comment on the phenomenon in his acerbic review of 2009’s Fanboys: “Anyone who would camp out in a tent on the sidewalk for weeks in order to be first in line for a movie is more into camping on the sidewalk than movies.”

McCormick Place foresaw this proclivity and explicitly forbade it. No one was allowed to form a line before 6 a.m. I’m sure a few trailblazers did precisely that, probably even had a countdown. For us 9:15 a.m arrival would be fine. We only had two Thursday morning goals: secure a space in Lot A; and pray that the basic act of entering the exhibit hall wouldn’t be the fiasco it was in 2002 and 2005. I mean, sure, starting to have fun ASAP was a secondary objective, but we would’ve been okay with arriving at 12:59 if circumstances had permitted.

The first of many Celebration banners to come.

That left us with nearly four hours to kill. We tried our best to murder each minute one by one. I checked my phone for signs of life and for any word on the fourth and final lottery we’d entered (this one for permission to buy some new Hasbro toys), were supposed to hear about by Tuesday, and had thus far heard zilch. So we played the waiting game to our best ability. I already chronicled that experience, which means we can fast-forward to when they began ushering all several thousands of us into the exhibit hall at 12:45.

We’ve already shared some of the fun. Have more!

Obviously a bootleg figure. Note the far too many points of articulation.

Sample aisle banner starring that Trainspotting guy.

Selections from the helmet collection of #1 Star Wars fan Steve Sansweet and his Rancho Obi-Wan nonprofit museum.

Dioramas in the fan-club area included this Ewok village and a cosplayer I honestly, totally overlooked until just now.

36,440 Lego Stormtroopers reporting for Lego duty. Later in the weekend, a small, grumpy toddler ran headlong at it and…tragedy ensued.

Star Wars in Japanese vegetable art. Because they can.

Anne the Funko Pop, a Golden Household exclusive variant.

Thursday’s personal highlights included our Sam Witwer photo op, our walk through half the show floor, our stop at the Galaxy’s Edge showplace (which is a big, big, BIIIIG deal to apparently everyone in the universe but us), wand our first glimpse of the Celebration Store line, when numerous customers reported wait times of 7-8 hours.

By 5 p.m. we were ready to call time-out and save the rest of the show floor for another time. We fled, crawled through Chicago rush hour traffic to our hotel on Wacker Drive, drove a second lap around the block because I had no idea where their driveway began, pulled in, checked in, struggled to find their front desk, and followed the familiar faces.

We’d clearly come to the right place.

Our concierge didn’t talk much, but he offered free sugar.

We checked in, we ate heartily elsewhere, and we crashed for the night. We hoped Friday would also not be a fiasco.

We kicked off our morning with a brand new experience: we tried taking the official convention shuttle to the con instead of driving and paying for more parking. We usually don’t stay in “convention block” hotels or availing ourselves of their advantages because we assume every floor is jam-packed with drunken party monsters who stay up overnight, never shut up, never let us sleep, and pull the fire alarm every few hours. This time we’d thrown caution to the wind, and were all too happy to try out the con-block perks for once.

Shuttles ran about every 10-15 minutes, never kept us waiting long, were quite comfy, and saved us $46 in McCormick Place parking fees. Score!

We didn’t care what time we arrived. We disembarked at the transit loading zone, underwent another efficient security check-in, and reached the exhibit hall at 9:55, where we found the crowd had already been ushered inside. The crowd was a bit lighter for the first two hours because thousands of lottery winners were across the street at Wintrust Arena, smirking and living their best lives in their assigned seats for the official Episode IX panel and trailer premiere.

Sure, we didn’t get to be in the same room as Abrams, Kennedy, Ridley, Isaac, Tran, Williams, McDiarmid, the new lady who does not have to be Lando’s daughter, or the droids. But we did get to share space with…uh, this really big banner with the same design that Anne later got on a T-shirt. Cool?

We’ve shared much of the next two hours already. There was our relatively quick but disappointing experience with the Celebration Store, where we got to chat with an Australian fan in line, and the “Star Wars collector pin” bug bit Anne and her temporary infection began…

…followed by our uncomfortable, bitter, yet emotional standing-room-only communion for the world premiere of the first trailer for Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker…

…and we moved on. We grabbed lunch from Robinson’s No. 1 Ribs, one of McCormick Place’s best concession stands. We chatted with a really nice guy from Michigan who’s fighting a long-term battle with colon cancer and emphatically recommends colonoscopies to anyone and everyone he meets. He’s surely saved lives with such chats, though it was a bit of a tough accompaniment to our meat-heavy meals. We wandered more exhibit hall square-footage. We killed more time till my Katee Sackhoff photo op.

We had early-evening plans within walking distance, which left us with more hours to kill and no panels we wanted to attend, not even the exclusive, quickly filled-up ones. In an extremely rare move for us, we instead took an extended break in the animation room, a thing that every con has but we tend to bypass. The Celebration edition had a guy with Blu-rays airing a Clone Wars marathon on high-quality theatrical equipment. Frankly, I was jealous and now I want to watch all my stories that way.

I never memorized the show’s episode titles, but I know one of them featured young Saw Guerrera. I nearly fell asleep at one point. Long, long day. Meanwhile, Anne sat on the floor by the back wall and charged her phone.

Once we finally felt rested and I felt restless, we exited and found ourselves a new side quest: seeing how many of those Celebration exclusive pins we could track down to go with the two that Anne had bought at the Celebration store. Side quests are a fun way to prolong the magic in any given video game, and they can do the same for the duller spots of real life. anne found an animated ad on Celebration’s Facebook page that listed every participating vendor and their locations. We tracked down each and every one, just to see what would happen.

We were told the same thing at nearly all of them: YOU IDIOTS. YOU WAITED TILL 4 PM TO GO HUNTING DOWN HOT ITEMS? OBVIOUSLY WE’RE ALL OUT OF THEM! WE RAN OUT FORTY MINUTES AFTER WE OPENED! DUH! COME BACK TOMORROW WHEN WE’LL HAVE MORE UNTIL WE SELL OUT AGAIN RIGHT BEFORE YOU GET HERE!

Well, more or less. The all-caps were implied. I appreciated that they waited till we were gone before rolling their eyes. However, a big, volume-11 MCC shout-out to EFX Collectibles for actually selling Anne a pin that very afternoon. They were officially awesome and didn’t suck like all the other companies we could mention. Though the FYE clerks were empty-handed and useless to us, in their booth Anne struck up conversation with a young chap from Manchester, UK, a fellow pin collector who traded her a Donald Glover Lando pin for her Captain Rex helmetless-variant pin, which we didn’t know was rare and coveted by some. Both parties were quite satisfied with the arrangement.

More pins would’ve been cool, but Anne had gone about it all wrong by giving it some thought for several hours and then taking the plunge. Alas. She did find a non-exclusive pin she liked at a non-partnered vendor, which was nice.

Our next plan was a late-afternoon autograph from Michael Pennington, a.k.a. Death Star middle-manager Moff Jerjerrod in Return of the Jedi. Then calamity struck: despite all my careful timetable management and note-taking, my brain had crossed a wire and convinced me our Pennington ticket was for Friday afternoon. We approached the celeb-area entry and a kind and gracious volunteer had to read the word “Thursday” on the ticket in our hands. In a bit of above-and-beyond courtesy, the same volunteer cheerfully escorted us to the celeb-ticket booths where we could exchange for another time or actor. Since we’d already missed Pennington’s final appearance of the entire weekend, we had no choice but to trade for another actor. All told, the process was efficient and pleasant except for the part where Anne’s idiot husband slipped a mental cog.

Our Friday night plans were a sort of throwback. Previously at Star Wars Celebration 2005 we’d managed to stuff twenty-three fans from a Star Wars message board into the Pope Room at our local Buca di Beppo. This time we did a Friday night dinner with six of us in all, including two old friends from that engagement of fourteen years ago. Between us we had the worlds of podcasting, cosplay, and blogging covered. Good times all told, though a bit hard to hear amidst the maddening crowd of other fans dining and partying and whatnot.

We still need to get a copy of our group photo from one of them, but in the meantime, please enjoy a gander at this Lemon Pepper Hummus, which the waitress later took away before I was done.

The shuttle lines were long by the time dinner adjourned, but it was wonderful not having to drive through nighttime Chicago myself while exhausted.

Saturday morning came far too soon. On the way down from the hotel elevators to the shuttle stop, Anne got to compare pins with another collector in Jedi robes. At the stop, other fans began asking the collector if they could take her photo and chatted happily about some novel she’d written. After confirming details with reliable sources during the shuttle ride (thanks, Nanci!) I managed to confirm we’d failed to recognize E.K. Johnston, author of Ahsoka, the official New Canon novel starring the famed Clone Wars heroine.

We arrived around 9-ish, again had zero issues with security (this was officially our best Celebration ever), and waited and waited. Anne’s pins continued to unlock closed doors and helped her network with others around her in the know.

We joined the pre-opening exhibit hall line at its absolute worst. We couldn’t see the doors from our position. But we were okay with that.

Our to-do list was short, but gave us long, empty time frames between appointments. We tried tackling Pin Hunt Part II first before our Matt Lanter photo op. Loving hugs to the folks at Kotobukiya for running a tight ship and selling us a darn pin. After that, Anne decided she had all the Star Wars pins she needed. Their prices were adding up a bit too quickly for her tastes. She may also have lost the thrill of the hunt.

We performed one last set of jazz hands with Matt Lanter. By this time the Celebration staff and the con photographers had their system in place and well-oiled from our perspective. And some of them were far more cheerful than the average crew.

“I’M INCLUDED WITH YOUR TICKET!” yelled the happy staffer willing to take photos with anyone who asked.

we ticked off more to-do list items. We got our conciliatory autograph from John Morton, Snowspeeder pilot and Boba Fett stand-in. We caught up with our old friend Mindy, another Celebration 2005 survivor, and shot the breeze for a bit. We found a splendid room full of droids. We grabbed lunch from a McCormick Place food court a bit removed from the exhibit hall.

Behold a calzone that was filling but might earn a C+ at best from Ben Wyatt.

Several minutes after and hundreds of feet away from the food court, Anne realized her camera was missing. While she tried a few possibilities, I speed-walked back to where we’d sat and blessedly found her camera punch on the floor between booth and table leg. The day and hundreds of Celebration photos were saved!

We paced back and forth and killed more time. We saw and appreciated cosplay. We missed a few spontaneous happenings.

We arrived at the Marvel panel forty-five minutes ahead of schedule and were, like, #300 and #301 in line, give or take a hundred. Anne relaxed while I put on an imaginary journalist hat and live-tweeted for kicks.

The Marvel panel ended at 3:30. The hotel shuttles wouldn’t resume running till 5 p.m. We ambled aimlessly for about half an hour. We added a few last cosplay photos to our healthy collection. We got into a lively discussion with a mother-and-son cosplay duo (she was Mon Mothma), Star Wars trivia buffs who weren’t the first fans this weekend to tell us good things about Dragon Con, which is officially on our calendar for the first time.

Then we said “Screw it” and mutually agreed we’d had exactly enough Star Wars. We went downstairs and were among the first several passengers in line for the shuttles, ready to go the second they started their engines.

Our Celebration experience was officially finished. We returned to the hotel and commenced decompression.

We continued to replay large portions of the weekend in our heads, and that trailer on YouTube, for the next several days. I brought home an ugly case of “con crud” and consumed my weight in cough drops in three days flat. When recounting my failures, we took consolation in knowing Michael Pennington is scheduled to appear in the fall at another Midwest con, one that we’re 105% certain to attend if no one stands in my way.

Oh, and we have our keepsake photos of the biggest and best Celebration banner of all, one that spanned most of the length of the main hallway. It was a long, painted tapestry reprising faces and moments from all eleven films in a single, continuous timeline. The far right end of the banner was kept covered all day Thursday and most if not all) of Friday. By Saturday it was unveiled for all to see and enjoy.

Fitting the banner into a single shot was impossible in a stationary photo. We begin at far left.

We pan right, from the prequels to the original trilogy plus nods to the two midquels. Note the secrecy shroud at the end.

The future of Star Wars unveiled. New droid, new jacket for Poe, and new hopes for all.

The End. Thanks for reading. Lord willing, see you next convention.

Other chapters in this very special maxiseries:

Prologue: Our Star Wars Celebration Chicago 2019 Pre-Show: Who We’ve Already Met
Part Zero: MCC Live-Tweet: Our First Star Wars Celebration Chicago 2019 Line
Part 1: Imperial Cosplay
Part 2: The Right Side of the Force Cosplay
Part 3: Scum and Villainy Cosplay
Part 4: Rising with Skywalkers
Part 5: The Stars in Our Galaxy
Part 6: The Droids We Weren’t Looking For
Part 7: How to Draw Star Wars the Marvel Way
Part 8: Adventures in Official Merchandising
Part 9: World of Wheels and Wings
Part 10: Welcome to Our World of Space Toys
Part 11: Fashion and Shopping

This year’s haul, part 1.

It’s that time of year again! Today marked the eighteenth 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 comic book movies were sad, cheapskate abominations.

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 often coincidental with a major movie release. Granted, Avengers: Endgame already opened, but that’s not too far off the mark. In theory, folks should be craving new superhero adventures now more than ever, even if it means trampling guys like me trying to point out there’s a lot more to comics than just superheroes.

My wife Anne and I used to have a tradition of venturing to one of Indianapolis’ several comic shops an hour or two before they open, hanging out in line with other fans, availing ourselves of any freebies offered while we’re waiting, marching inside when the employees have braced themselves for the onslaught ahead, grabbing some of the free offerings, and spending 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.

This year’s haul II: even haulier.

As with last year, my Free Comic Book Day involvement took on a different form. My local comic-shop chain once again offered a special deal that sounds crazy to anyone who worships at the altar of freebies: for a fair sum of money, we could pre-purchase a bundle of all 53 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 53, 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. Best of all, part of that sum will be donated to Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital. Some of the money, as well as some of the comics, will be For The Children. So I went for it again. I liked the idea of playing the role of patron, donating extra cash to a good charity and helping 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, in between chores and family obligations (including a baptism on Sunday afternoon, which is exciting), I’ll be live-tweeting thoughts and images as I go, maybe tossing in an occasional bonus Instagram here and there. Who knows where my time and attention span will take me. Last year’s live-tweeting sparked a few conversations with creators responsible for some of the better books. I didn’t hear back from those involved with the comics that were, um, clearly not for me, but that’s understandable. At least I know the roads in either direction will be paved with worlds of wonder and pallets of pure imagination.

Updates, happy joy, and furrowed brow as they occur. Yay Free Comic Book Day!

Bride of this year’s haul: the trilogy achieves closure.

It is I, Token the White Guy, rarer than a Blue Eyes White Dragon and yet far less in demand!

Every August since 2003 our hometown of Indianapolis has hosted the Wonder of the World that is Gen Con, one of America’s oldest and largest gaming conventions. Whether your gaming mode is RPGs, tabletop games, TCGs, dice games, family board games, or video games, Gen Con has its sights aimed in your direction. Try a new game, pick up supplies for your current campaigns, network with gamers from faraway lands, or just wander the premises and gaze upon the wonders. Attendance over the past two years has topped 60,000 and shows no signs of slowing down. On the occasion of their 50th celebration in 2017, as phenomenal as it was by all accounts, I’m surprised a squad of fire marshals didn’t simply shut the whole city down.

Gen Con logo brought to you by thousands of donated Magic: the Gathering cards.

I attended Gen Con five times between 2008 and 2014, four of those times with my wife Anne. This was back in primitive times when Indianapolis had no other large-scale entertainment or comic conventions to call its own. Small-scale cons were a thing, but Gen Con was the largest possible shindig within easy driving distance where geeks could be geeks and we could hang out with others of our own kind, or at least kind-adjacent. For me it was a little more special when we had a few comics companies mixed in with the exhibit hall — past graphic-novel purveyors have included Oni Press, Giant in the Playground, Kenzer & Company, and creators such as David Petersen (Mouse Guard) and Jim Zub (Skullkickers).

Gateway to Dante’s Inferno. Your Mileage in Hell May Vary.

One problem, though: while we like board games and own a couple dozen, gaming isn’t among our primary geek specialties. Our Gen Con experiences largely comprised an hours-long walk around the amazing colossal exhibit hall, cosplay photos where possible, an interminable wait to get into the annual costume contest, a half-hour of pre-show belly-dancing, and then one of the best costume contests ever, which reminded me why I was willing to endure the interminable wait to get in. But then…that was it for our weekend. Gen Con used to invite media guests as well, but that aspect was minimized and then taken off the table once the showrunners realized tens of thousands of fans were happy to flock into our Indiana Convention Center and multiple surrounding venues for just the gaming. It was a totally understandable move, and yet…ultimately it wasn’t a one-hundred-percent perfect fit for our specific interests.

Once comic-con planners finally noticed Indy has a population with geeks in it, and once we picked up the necessary road-tripping skills to attend cons in other major metropolises (metropoli?), we quietly stepped away from Gen Con as an annual appointment. It remains an awesome thing I highly recommend whenever family or coworkers ask, though. And someone always does.

Game demonstrations can be fun, more so if performed in character.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover, I’ve shared photos from four of our Gen Con experiences. If you’re interested, links to those photo galleries break down as follows:

2008 (done-in-one): our very first Gen Con, at which we met an old message-board friend who was once a costumed reality-show contestant
2012 Part 1 (our first Gen Con after MCC’s launch): costume contest winners
2012 Part 2: More costumes; special guests Wil Wheaton, Nichelle Nichols, Wes Bentley, and author Michael Stackpole; and one (1) photo of a special gathering of League of Legends cosplayers (which in turn was responsible for the following true data: this entry resulted in the second-highest day in MCC’s 7-year site-traffic history)
2012 Part 3: Last call for costumes, including extra blurry ones at the bottom of the barrel, but there’s also a pic of Wil Wheaton taking a selfie with his copy of Android: Netrunner, which he bought at the Fantasy Flight booth on the way to his autograph table
2012 Part 4: Exhibit hall samples, including statues from the Dungeons & Dragons mega-booth — I reused one photo for my recent mini-memoir about my Dungeons & Dragons experiences as a kid

Rogzor from Monsterpocalypse welcomes you to the Privateer Press booth.

2013 Part Zero:: Scenes from the annual Wednesday night pre-con party on Georgia Street, featuring food trucks and musical guests such as the great Five-Year Mission
2013 Part 1: Costume contest winners, including some of the best steampunk work I’ve seen to date
2013 Part 2: More costume contest, many from games I’ve never played
2013 Part 3: Last call for the costume contest, in which the commenters helped me figure out orientation tags were a thing that turned several photos upside-down (which I’ve now hopefully fixed over the past tedious hour)
2013 Part 4: Superhero and cartoon costumes
2013 Part 5: Still more costumes, including mandatory Star Wars
2013 Part 6: Exhibit hall fun, plus the second time my face was ever slapped on a Yu-Gi-Oh! card

Musical guests brighten the halls here and there, including this Celtic duo called the Muses.

2014 Part 1: Costume contest winners
2014 Part 2: More costume contest entrants
2014 Part 3: Last call for costume contest, featuring the greatest Bane variant ever
2014 Part 4: More non-contest costumes, including superheroes and Star Wars and whatnot
2014 Part 5: The last Gen Con costumes I ever photographed (I mean, I wouldn’t be opposed to returning someday if circumstances lined up, but for now these are the last ones)
2014 Part 6: Our last time in a Gen Con exhibit hall (for now)

Giant-sized Magic: the Gathering playoffs. Good luck finding pockets for those.

One Saturday in 2009 I attended Gen Con alone without Anne. I honestly don’t remember why, but if she reminds me there was a fascinating reason why, then I’ll update it here later. Mostly I remember being silent and lonely all day long, which is never my best state of mind. Conventions are among the many things we love doing as a couple. Without her, it was just…me going window shopping, then occasionally bugging cosplayers for photos. Whee, to a limited extent.

The card-house projects were usually a weekend-long thing for deserving local charities. It’s not often you see conventions give back to their communities.

I shared the photos with online friends at the time, and did a sort-of write-up for a short-lived “news site” that was later deleted without my consent, but I failed to add them to MCC till today. (One was previously given its own entry for undisclosed cynical reasons.) Reviewing my files in hindsight, over half the photos were varying degrees of terrible and remain locked away. Some were okay; some exceeded okay. For personal posterity, and for strangers who didn’t hang out with me online in 2009, are the better pics of the bunch, we present the following Gen Con cosplay photos to you roughly a few weeks before the tenth anniversary of that day I took them. Enjoy! Yay cosplay history!

The overall Best in Show winner of the 2009 costume contest, an ice elemental from Changeling: The Host.

Among the other winners and finalists was an original character dubbed Brass the Dwarf, who was all about the beer.

Sharing the stage with the previous two was a duo from from Warhammer 40K — a Commissar from the Imperial Guard and a Sister of Battle.

A cowboy cyborg soldier from Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends.

The mighty Thor, pre-Hemsworth.

Link was among the few who spoke to me that day. His satchel carried handcrafted Zelda items such as the magic flute and a key that could open any door.

Tiny pirate playtester trying out a Battletech demo.

Me braking for Final Fantasy, part 1: Rikku & Auron from FFX.

Me braking for Final Fantasy part 2: Tifa from FFVII and Sora in his Halloween Town costume from Kingdom Hearts 2.

Amaterasu, the vulpine Japanese sun god from the PS2 game Okami.

Hallway dance number starring Sora and Rikku from Kingdom Hearts, Sakura from Naruto, and one mystery guest because I’m old and don’t recognize every anime ever.

Ichigo from Bleach.

If you’re looking at half these pics like “Who ARE these people?” please enjoy this brief retreat to the old-school familiarity of Mario and Luigi.

I knew the work of Dork Tower creator John Kovalic long before his illustrations helped make the Munchkin card game a hit.

A Predator, Dr. Steel, and…this other dude?

Sailor Moon and her plus-one.

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na BAT-VILLAINS! And thus we conclude with one last blast of nostalgia for one and all.

The start of Atlanta’s annual Dragon Con parade. Zillions more photos to come once I figure out some way to narrow them down to the best 200 or so.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

For years we’ve been telling friends in other states that we’d one day do Atlanta’s Dragon Con, one of the largest conventions in America that isn’t in California or New York. We’ve been in Atlanta, but we hadn’t really done Atlanta. Hence this year’s vacation, in which we’re aiming for a double proficiency in Atlanta tourism and over-the-top Dragon Con goodness…

I’m typing this on Saturday night upon the conclusion of our virgin Dragon Con experience — two solid days of convention awesomeness plus a three-hour prologue on Thursday. We’re exhausted and disappointed we can’t stay longer, but we’re coming away with hundreds of photos to sort, a bit more reading matter to add to my collection, four new jazz-hands photo-ops to add to that collection, new memories to savor and share in the days and years ahead, and a wider basis for comparison against the Midwest cons we regularly attend. (Not counting the two we had to skip in order to work D*C into our schedule.)

Before I collapse into unconsciousness in preparation for the 8½-hour drive home Sunday, I need to jot down three key takeaways while they’re still fresh in mind and while I’m still riding high on my happy post-D*C buzz.

1.

Dragon Con is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.

Over 80,000 attendees have to create their itineraries among 5,000+ activities tightly spread across five days and seven facilities, nine if you count the two nearby food courts (unaffiliated yet accommodating). D*C may be smaller than San Diego Comic Con, but it’s nonetheless massive and daunting to newcomers. Longtime MCC readers know Anne and I have done more than our share of Midwest cons, but those are typically confined to a single convention center. With the exception of Gen Con (whose sprawl we’ve never had to traverse at length), multi-site cons are like an extreme environment by comparison.

But there’s an upside to that expanse. By midday Saturday I found myself reminded of video games.

My favorite game milieus — Final Fantasy, Borderlands, Ratchet & Clank, et al. — comprise numerous levels across many continents, worlds, or dimensions. The game’s plot requires the player to navigate each level all the way through at least once. The initial exploration can be long and awkward and require more than one try if the player keeps screwing up. Sometimes the player has to undergo an encore run later to pick up plot details that were missed or not ready the first time around. Often the game includes optional side quests and other errands that can be completed within those same levels to earn more points, better weapons, or other, bigger perks. After so many repeat runs (sometimes ad nauseum) the player eventually memorizes all the levels, knows where all the good stuff is hidden, can veer around more quickly on subsequent playthroughs, and, if they’re feeling generous, will share that knowledge with other players who haven’t yet gotten their bearings.

Dragon Con was a lot like that. The more we learned our way around its levels, the more rewarding our experience got.

As some players do, it helped that we took a tutorial before the big game. On Thursday D*C offered official tours, guided by a seasoned veteran who show rookies the general layouts of each hotel, leads them through the tunnels that connect the locales at disparate stories across downtown Atlanta’s steep landscape, and provides a few tips that would come in handy later when least expected. Apropos of gaming, the most useful tool at our disposal was literally a free walkthrough. We appreciated that and consequently never got lost once in any of the host hotels or the main food court on Friday or Saturday.

(Figuring out where fans were supposed to line up for the larger panels was not remotely that simple. Very much a different story for a future entry.)

While waiting for panels to start, attendees can enjoy preshow entertainment courtesy of the eminently enjoyable Dragon Con TV.

2.

About that aforementioned “5,000+ activities” figure: developed over the course of 32 years, D*C’s infrastructure and support systems across multiple fandoms is unparalleled and unlike anything we’ve ever seen. We had no hope of attending even 0.1% of all the possibilities listed in their squarebound official program, but I love that the D*C ecosystem is sufficiently gargantuan to facilitate and foster them.

It leaves me all the sadder and angrier that all our other cons pale so wanly in comparison when it comes to featuring events beyond the nominal comic-con basics of celebs, artists, and exhibit hall. We once saw fans press a particular Chicago con on this point — a con much older and formerly larger than D*C, mind you — when their three-day event list barely filled two double-spaced pages. As I recall, the official response was that the con would love to have more events, but that in their mind it was up to the fans to think up, design, oversee, and promote more events so that the con could list them accordingly. Basically, if a given con didn’t have enough to do, that was the fans at fault, not the con.

If I were to take that exchange at face value, I’m meant to accept that Atlanta geeks can beat up Midwest geeks. Or that Atlanta has cornered the market on geeks who excel at professional, big-city event planning.

I don’t have a satisfying conclusion for this bullet point. It’s just…I dunno, frustrating food for thought.

A new button for my con bag. A kind gesture from another fan.

3.

As I’ve shared in past entries, I’m an introvert who’s absolutely terrible at networking (and sometimes at basic human friendship) and who has very, very, very, very few connections to other fans online, at least compared to the vast clubs, cliques, and communities we’ve seen gathering at nearly every con we attend. Anne and I enjoy our con experiences together as a cheerfully married couple, but our connections to other fans rarely solidify or extend beyond the occasional invigorating chats while standing in lines. Sometimes that’s due to a combination of our individual weirdnesses and our enforcement of certain personal boundaries. But not always.

Earlier in the week I made the mistake of depressing myself by contemplating the possibility of spending three days in abject silence at an amazing colossal con among 80,000 other folks — at least, like, five or ten of whom must surely share at least two or three of our sensibilities? Maybe even, I dunno, four whole sensibilities? In that moment of self-inflicted insecurity I got pretty unexcited at the prospect of three days alone in a crowd. I mastered that form of discouragement at an early age and would totally love to shake it off before I turn 50, shortly after Black Panther 2‘s release date.

While that prophecy did come true for some hours of our D*C weekend, we can at least say that Thursday was much more upbeat and promising. We arrived at the Sheraton Atlanta shortly after 1 p.m. to pick up our badges from the registration ballroom. Per one of D*C’s several long-standing traditions, attendees who pre-register months in advance are mailed a distinctive blue postcard that must be brought to the show and traded in for weekend badges and lanyards. Fans who remember to bring their blue postcards and photo IDs will find their pickup takes a few quick, efficient moments, as I understand it. I’m proud to boast we did our part.

Unfortunately due to a confusing confluence of a corner barker who couldn’t enunciate while yelling and a severe shortage of blue duct tape for clearly marking the proper path (and possibly other issues prior? no idea), we found the badge pickup line was overlong and wrapped around three of the hotel’s four sides. We’d been told badge pickup after lunch would be a breeze. It went more like badge pickup at any other con. We weren’t offended, merely surprised at our 45-minute wait.

It may have been longer than that, but I lost track of time. We joined the line alongside another couple with far more D*C experience. The gracious young lady of the two gave us more con pointers and activity recommendations. We compared notes with our own conventioning backgrounds. We segued to more fannish matters including but not limited to Star Trek, cosplay, and the old-school joy of pen and paper. She also gave us each mementos: small buttons shaped exactly like the distinctive blue postcard.

It’s cool to see a con inspire that level of loyalty or con-specific creativity. It’s also cool that a fan casually reached out to us, made us feel more welcome, and put us at ease by means of our favorite form of convention networking: a line-chat.

So of course we forgot to exchange names. But we owe sincere thanks to the anonymous blue-card-button-maker for helping us walk away from our very first hour of Dragon Con with a great first impression and higher hopes for the fun times ahead.

And for the record: Dragon Con was astoundingly fun. Coming soon: a plethora of D&C photo galleries! But first, we have 500 miles to drive back before we share.

Us with Freema Agyeman, a.k.a. Martha Jones from Doctor Who, one of the Doctor’s few companions we hadn’t met. Thanks, Dragon Con!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

For years we’ve been telling friends in other states that we’d one day do Atlanta’s Dragon Con, one of the largest conventions in America that isn’t in California or New York. We’ve been in Atlanta, but we hadn’t really done Atlanta. Hence this year’s vacation, in which we’re aiming for a double proficiency in Atlanta tourism and over-the-top Dragon Con goodness…

Longtime MCC readers know our frequent ventures to entertainment and comic-book conventions around the Midwest have their staples: the cosplay photos, the sojourns through Artists Alley, the pile of newly acquired graphic novels at the end, and, of course, photos with actors and other celebrities in attendance, often featuring our favorite jazz-hands motif. We don’t perform for every con photo-op, but those that meet the standard are kept on a dedicated Pinterest board so future generations can look upon our assembled montage and think to themselves, “…oookay.”

But first, a selection of non-jazz-hands photos with a few fine folks:

Jane Badler and Marc Singer from the original V, one of Anne’s all-time favorite TV SF tales.

D*C also offered a photo-op with the two of them alongside costar Robert Englund, but we met him six years ago at a previous con, where we gave him a few seconds’ break from bloodthirsty Freddy Krueger poses.

Garrett Wang from Star Trek: Voyager.

Recapping previously shared MCC trivia: Wang was the very first actor I ever met at a con, way back in 1997 at a tiny show in Lafayette, IN. Twenty-two years later, here we were again for a better photo, feeling less rushed than that show’s lines had been.

DB Woodside from 24 and Lucifer.

I know Woodside best from season 7 of Buffy, in which his character Robin Wood was the son of a 1970s Slayer killed in combat by Spike, years before his reformation. Woodside made an interesting foil for Buffy and was an uncommon example of a positive portrayal of a school principal on TV. Usually they’re mean bosses and/or jerks, so that alone was refreshing…though Buffy might have disagreed.

Speaking of cool TV principals:

From the cast of The CW’s Black Lightning: Jordan Calloway, James Remar, star Cress Williams, and Christine Adams.

…and there’s me looking sheepish as the words “I’M NOT WORTHY! I’M NOT WORTHY! I’M NOT WORTHY!” took up all the real estate in my head for the space of this shoot, which is why I look weird and off-model and I’m severely annoyed with myself in hindsight.

Bonus points awarded here: Christine Adams was also in the wonderful Pushing Daisies, in which she was an extremely proficient, no-nonsense dog trainer. She’s the second actor I’ve met from that much-missed, short-lived series after last year’s Lee Pace encounter. Meeting more of those folks would be awesome.

And now: it’s time for jazz hands. In addition to Freema Agyeman shown above, the following participants indulged our whims:

Emma Dumont from Fox’s X-Men spin-off The Gifted. Dressed to the nines as Polaris, she’s one of the very few actors we’ve ever seen grace a con in costume.

While her bold performance was one of the best things about The Gifted, I remember her as one of the stars of Bunheads, a dramedy about a small-town ballet school that ran on ABC Family (now Freeform) for a single, frustratingly underappreciated season. Dumont was one of the four main teens who had to learn about dancing and life from Broadway star Sutton Foster, who’s since been on TV Land’s longer-lasting Younger.

I was among the few viewers writing Bunheads episode recaps while it was still on the air. If you’re a fan of creator Amy Sherman-Palladino’s other shows Gilmore Girls and/or The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, it stands to reason you’d also enjoy Bunheads and I blame you for ABC Family’s decision to cancel it after 18 episodes and instead invest heavily in an Alfonso Ribeiro game show that died after eight episodes. Thousands of fans may still be bitter about Fox canceling Firefly too soon. I’m the guy still bitter about Bunheads.

More MCC trivia: the only other Bunheads participant I’ve met to date is Sean Gunn, costar of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy films, who was at Motor City Comic Con 2017. He had small, scene-stealing roles in two episodes as the most anal-retentive barista in the world. Their indirect support of Bunheads means that Dragon Con and Motor City are presently tied in my mind as the Best Conventions in America.

Back on topic, though: Emma Dumont was awesome to meet in person and a lot less wary than Sean Gunn when I mentioned Bunheads.

Harvey Guillen, bringing the passion and raising the bar.

Harvey Guillen costars in the FX series What We Do in the Shadows, which is set in the same universe as the 2014 indie film of the same name. Co-writer/directors Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement also wrote and directed some of the first season, and reprised their characters in one episode alongside other famous vampire actors such as Tilda Swinton, Wesley Snipes, and Paul Reubens.

A few of the TV-MA gags are a bit beyond my level, but Guillen excels as Guillermo, a put-upon familiar who’s been waiting in vain for nine years to be “turned” by his master, only to stumble across a deep family secret near the end of the season that complicates matters. Fun times.

Jes Macallan, Nick Zano and Tala Ashe from The CW’s Legends of Tomorrow.

At C2E2 2018 I took advantage of the chance to pose with Legends costars Caity Lotz, Brandon Routh, and Dominic Purcell — Canary, the Atom, and Heat Wave. This new pic with Agent Sharpe, Steel, and Zari makes a fine companion piece — perfect bookends, really. The best part about this moment was Ashe dissing Zano’s initial jazz-hands attempt and showing him how it’s done. As I walked away, Zano sneered back at her and they kept on bickering. It was totally a Legends moment.

…

…and those are our happy results from D*C’s “Epic Photo Ops track” (using their parlance) as well as our wandering through their “Walk of Fame”, a phrase which here means “autograph hall” but sounds loftier and cooler when they put it that way.

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

Introduction: 20 Years of Road Trips, 2 Lifetimes of Geek Culture
Part 2: Cosplay on Parade
Parts 3-up: [coming soon]
Advance epilogue: Three Thoughts After Our First Dragon Con

Patchy the Pirate and SpongeBob SquarePants!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

For years we’ve been telling friends in other states that we’d one day do Atlanta’s Dragon Con, one of the largest conventions in America that isn’t in California or New York. We’ve been in Atlanta, but we hadn’t really done Atlanta. Hence this year’s vacation, in which we’re aiming for a double proficiency in Atlanta tourism and over-the-top Dragon Con goodness…

The proud annual tradition of the Saturday morning Dragon Con parade is definitely not a thing we can see back home at any of our usual cons. Multiple groups and organizations walk, ride, roll, and gallivant together in a united display of pop culture through downtown Atlanta. Hundreds of participants boast costumes and gear from across the wide spectrum of entertainment. The festivities draw thousands of onlookers every time — not just D*C attendees, but Atlanta citizens as well. Though the many overhead Skybridges running between buildings prohibit the use of giant floats (as we’re used to from our hometown’s own Indianapolis 500 Festival Parade), the spectacle is nonetheless a staggering feat of community and imagination.

Of the nearly 1800 photos Anne and I took over the course of our eight-day trip, roughly 400 of those were from the parade alone. Many of them are not bad. Rather than dump everything into one unwieldy mega-entry, we’ll be sharing them in manageable chunks as quickly as I can manage, given that I’m still exhausted, we have to return to our day jobs far too soon, and we have another con coming up next weekend. (Yes, already.) Not to mention I’ve some other hobbies I’ve been missing. But I’m hoping to get our parade cosplay photos posted ASAP.

A few caveats for any new readers dropping in for a visit:

1. We’re not professional photographers. We do this for fun and fandom, not for a living. We do what we can with the technology, skill sets, and opportunities we have so we can share with others. And not really in a conscious “social media influencer” kind of way. Imperfections are part of our process.

2. I take tremendous pride in accurate character naming wherever possible. A few characters in these entries may be unidentified or poorly identified because I’m old and not proficient with every universe ever. Kindly corrections to my errors and omissions are more than welcome in the comments below. I like learning new stuff. Photo captions will be amended as needed, with credit given were due.

3. With a few exceptions, these will largely be presented in random order. Anyone out there who’s looking for pics of specific parade participants, characters, or universes is free to leave requests in the comments. If we happen to have some, I’ll cheerfully add them into the next chapters. We couldn’t possibly have gotten every single person we saw that day, but we aimed for many.

4. Enjoy! Let the random Dragon Con cosplay photos begin:

From our position by the Marriott, near the end of the parade route, we saw our first cosplayer at 10:02 when Forrest Gump ran through the final barricades. No one caught up with him for the next several minutes.

A dragon who is a con. I SEE WHAT THEY DID THERE.

Not a costume, but the parade’s own Grand Marshal Mark Sheppard from TV’s Supernatural, Leverage, Firefly, and more.

She-Ra, Princess of Power.

Straight out of my childhood, kiddie host Captain Kangaroo and his puppet pal Mr. Moose.

The KISS Mime Army.

Animal from the Muppets, one of many musicians on hand from Seed and Feed Marching Abominable, a local band that thrives on this sort of event.

Mad-Eye Moody, much happier here than he ever was at Hogwarts.

Professor McGonagall says hi to the kids sitting on the curb in front of us.

Zack Snyder nightmare prophecy Batman also says hi to kids.

Kid Loki from Marvel’s top-notch Journey Into Mystery and Jane Foster a.k.a. Thor.

Peggy Carter and the boys from the war front.

Nick Fury reveals the Tesseract. Usually he’s terrible at sharing intel, but he trusts these parade watchers to keep a secret.

Nicolas Cage IS Nick Fury!

Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Gamora bearing the banner for D*C’s Diversity in Speculative Fiction & Literature track.

Dune sandworm, giving me flashbacks to my own Dune theatrical viewing experience. D*C’s version is better.

Fans supporting League of Legends, a MOBA game I first learned about after our first encounter with LoL cosplayers at Gen Con 2012.

Frederick Douglass, one of several historical cosplayers. MCC readers may recall we visited his gravesite in Rochester, NY, on last year’s road trip.

Lucy and Ethel and the vexatious chocolate conveyor from the classic I Love Lucy episode “Job Switching”.

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

Introduction: 20 Years of Road Trips, 2 Lifetimes of Geek Culture
Part 1: The Stars Our Destination – our usual roundup of actors and jazz-hands
Part 3-up: [coming soon]
Advance epilogue: Three Thoughts After Our First Dragon Con

The Penguin from Batman Returns but 100% less slimy.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

For years we’ve been telling friends in other states that we’d one day do Atlanta’s Dragon Con, one of the largest conventions in America that isn’t in California or New York. We’ve been in Atlanta, but we hadn’t really done Atlanta. Hence this year’s vacation, in which we’re aiming for a double proficiency in Atlanta tourism and over-the-top Dragon Con goodness…

..such as that Saturday morning parade through downtown Atlanta. Same cautions apply as last time: we’re pros, not fans; corrections are very welcome if we misname anyone; we do take requests, but can’t guarantee we photographed every parade participant; enjoy!

One of the Penguin’s 1966 goons.

Batgirl, plus Monkey D. Luffy from One Piece entertaining the other side of the street.

The Crimson Chin from The Fairly OddParents.

Not a costume, but one of the parade’s live guests: Lou Ferrigno from TV’s Incredible Hulk.

Peter Griffin and cuddly li’l Brian.

Buddy the Elf, making room for more than one holiday in his heart.

Emmett from The Lego Movie. (Dragon Con is awesome! Dragon Con is cool when you’re in the parade! Dragon Con is awesome! When you’re watching in the shade!)

Mr. Six, the Six Flags mascot.

Jurassic Park SUV riding herd on a dancing baby Triceratops.

Jennifer in the DeLorean, with Griff Tannen lagging behind.

That time the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles did the “Coming Out of Their Shells” Tour and rocked your hometown live. Their premier show at Radio City Music Hall was on pay-per-view. Yes, really.

Shredder and Bebop, who could’ve been the opening act if they’d bothered to learn their own instruments.

Predators and Special Forces, a bipartisan marching squad.

Shipwreck leading G.I. Joe into action. YO, JOE and whatnot.

Selections from The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, which I’ve been procrastinating for decades.

Spy vs. Spy. R.I.P. MAD Magazine.

Jamie Hyneman from Mythbusters and Dr. Evil.

Zoidberg and Leela, ready to deliver.

Also from Futurama: Robot Santa, suppressing his murderous urges for once.

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

Introduction: 20 Years of Road Trips, 2 Lifetimes of Geek Culture
Part 1: The Stars Our Destination – our usual roundup of actors and jazz-hands
Part 2: Cosplay on Parade
Part 4: Still More Cosplay on Parade
Part 5-up: [coming soon]
Advance epilogue: Three Thoughts After Our First Dragon Con

Maleficent with her foes Flora and Merryweather.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

For years we’ve been telling friends in other states that we’d one day do Atlanta’s Dragon Con, one of the largest conventions in America that isn’t in California or New York. We’ve been in Atlanta, but we hadn’t really done Atlanta. Hence this year’s vacation, in which we’re aiming for a double proficiency in Atlanta tourism and over-the-top Dragon Con goodness…

..such as that Saturday morning parade through downtown Atlanta. In this installment we focus on characters of the Grand Disney Empire, including Marvel and Star Wars because why not.

Same cautions apply as last time: we’re pros, not fans; corrections are very welcome if we misname anyone; we do take requests, but can’t guarantee we photographed every parade participant; enjoy!

A majestic Maleficent with wings that extend and retract.

Hei-Hei from Moana and Snow White.

Prince Ali! Fabulous he! Ali Ababwa!

The man, the myth, the mogul: Walt Disney.

A fan group saluting the late Stan Lee, featuring Magneto, Emma Frost, Queen Mother Ramonda, and Dr. Strange.

Miles Morales, star of my favorite film of 2018.

Thanos, costar of the highest grossing film of 2019.

Captains America and Dum-Dum Dugan.

Black Panther and Storm with a light Game of Thrones twist.

Dr. Strange cutting through the Dark Dimension with his trusty Day-Glo spells.

Magneto and Wolverine in their X-Force variant costumes.

Gambit joined the X-Men after my time, but he has his fans.

The Mole Man, secretly hoping someone ever makes a decent Fantastic Four film so he might have a turn at the big screen.

Old Luke Skywalker and his blue milk, the one substance in the universe that Ozzy Osbourne has never chugged by the barrel.

C-3PO riding with the local chapter of the 501st Legion. Much more dignified than being carried by Ewoks.

The only time we’ve had cosplay parades here in Indianapolis was at Star Wars Celebration 2002 and/or 2005 (I forget which), when it was mostly Stormtroopers.

We learned the distinctive carpet in the Atlanta Marriott Marquis is a beloved Dragon Con running gag, represented in the parade by several cosplayers such as this Shagtrooper.

The Twi’lek Society was one of many very specific fan groups joining the festivities.

I feel like I’ve seen this Sith Lord before (maybe in comics?), but memory fails me.

Dancing Artoo!

Ice cream Sandcrawler! Jawas from a planet made of burning hot sand decide to sell frozen treats for a living.

Darth Fuchsia asking how YOU doin’.

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

Introduction: 20 Years of Road Trips, 2 Lifetimes of Geek Culture
Part 1: The Stars Our Destination – our usual roundup of actors and jazz-hands
Part 2: Cosplay on Parade
Part 3: More Cosplay on Parade
Parts 4-up: [coming soon]
Advance epilogue: Three Thoughts After Our First Dragon Con

Big Brother and Little Sister from the Bioshock trilogy.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

For years we’ve been telling friends in other states that we’d one day do Atlanta’s Dragon Con, one of the largest conventions in America that isn’t in California or New York. We’ve been in Atlanta, but we hadn’t really done Atlanta. Hence this year’s vacation, in which we’re aiming for a double proficiency in Atlanta tourism and over-the-top Dragon Con goodness…

…such as that Saturday morning parade through downtown Atlanta. In this installment we focus on characters from the world of gaming — those that I could identify or half-identify — plus a mini-gallery of folks from a certain old HBO series.

Same cautions apply as last time: we’re pros, not fans; corrections are very welcome if we misname anyone; we do take requests, but can’t guarantee we photographed every parade participant; enjoy!

Fair warning: I’m kind of a Bioshock fan.

A Boy of Silence from Bioshock Infinite, backed by a Big Sister from Bioshock 2 and a Splicer.

Another splicer and Infinite‘s villainous Zachary Hale Comstock

Infinite heroes Booker DeWitt and Elizabeth riding in the Bioshockmobile.

One last Splicer before we move on.

The Borderlands fans make their entrance. This parade really speaks to me. Longtime MCC readers may recall that time I spent over a year on Borderlands 2. Also, spending days posting all these D&C photos is a great excuse to continue procrastinating my remaining challenges on Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel.

Unfortunately I don’t have a current-gen console (still rocking a PS3 for now), so I’m about to be left out of the Borderlands 3 party. These fans won’t be, I’m sure.

Dr. Zed in the middle, whose health and shields can come in handy, though I’ve never cared for Zed’s “Turtle Shields”.

Bartender supreme Mad Moxxi in the middle.

Claptrap, your wee, nattering robot tour guide to loot and adventure.

Shifting gears again, this time for a selection from Game of Thrones. I didn’t watch it, but I’ve run across plenty of chats about it. Here’s Daenerys and the biggest shoulder-perched cosplay dragon I’ve ever seen. A bit to the right of her is Sansa Stark, played by Jean Grey.

A White Walker, another Daenerys, and Jon Snow the Know-Nothing.

Arya Stark and her updated list.

The complete Ned Stark, I believe. Some reassembly required.

All I know about this very happy GoT dude is he expended tremendous energy to excite the crowd and get a loud response out of us. I appreciate that in a parade.

Back to video games with a platoon of HALO soldiers.

If I’ve kept my notes straight, these should be Dragon Age warriors.

Overwatch is beyond my bailiwick, but I’m fairly certain this is some of them.

I thought these were also Overwatch but I’m seeing a Yuna from Final Fantasy X at far right, so I’m apparently off base.

Representation from Resident Evil beyond just the Umbrella Corporation, whose henchmen pop up at some of our Midwest cons.

Claire from the Resident Evil universe, on guard because no place is totally immune to zombie outbreaks.

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

Introduction: 20 Years of Road Trips, 2 Lifetimes of Geek Culture
Part 1: The Stars Our Destination – our usual roundup of actors and jazz-hands
Part 2: Cosplay on Parade
Part 3: More Cosplay on Parade
Part 4: Still More Cosplay on Parade
Parts 6-up: [coming soon]
Advance epilogue: Three Thoughts After Our First Dragon Con

Doctors and Daleks and Davros, oh, my!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

For years we’ve been telling friends in other states that we’d one day do Atlanta’s Dragon Con, one of the largest conventions in America that isn’t in California or New York. We’ve been in Atlanta, but we hadn’t really done Atlanta. Hence this year’s vacation, in which we’re aiming for a double proficiency in Atlanta tourism and over-the-top Dragon Con goodness…

…such as that Saturday morning parade through downtown Atlanta. In this installment we throw in a smattering of Doctor Who and then another roundup of random characters from science fiction and here and there and everywhere. Same cautions apply as last time: we’re pros, not fans; corrections are very welcome if we misname anyone; we do take requests, but can’t guarantee we photographed every parade participant; enjoy!

Whovians taking it to the streets from the Prydon Academy, a Who cosplay clan.

More Doctors! And Osgood!

The 2nd Doctor with special guest Tom Servo as the 6th Doctor.

A Stargate for space travelers of a different sort.

Intergalactic adventure continues with the Battlestar Galactica Colonial Fleet.

Here comes the Man in Black, galaxy defender.

Meanwhile on Earth: Amazons!

And then Amazons also!

Hermes and a few of the 300 Spartans.

A few more Spartans, slowing adding up to the correct number.

Cosplay of Gilead on behalf of The Handmaid’s Tale.

Brass and woodwinds from the Seed and Feed Marching Abominable, featuring Poison Ivy, Harley Quinns, Dr. Horrible, et al.

Shazam! *boom*

The D*C Puppetry track, bringing good characters to life.

Sample dragon, because Dragon Con. Back and to the left is D*C co-founder Pat Henry, riding with his family.

Monsters repping for Netherworld Haunted House, a local Halloween staple out in nearby Stone Mountain.

Also good for Halloween: Ghostbusters with their own flying ghost.

I imagine Rick & Morty fans will super-love this very special Ghostbuster. I don’t watch the show, but I just looked up his name and now I regret everything.

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

Introduction: 20 Years of Road Trips, 2 Lifetimes of Geek Culture
Part 1: The Stars Our Destination – our usual roundup of actors and jazz-hands
Part 2: Cosplay on Parade
Part 3: More Cosplay on Parade
Part 4: Still More Cosplay on Parade
Part 5: Still More Cosplay on Parade Continued
Part 7: Deadpool Presents the Deadpool Cosplay Parade Starring Deadpool
Part 8: Ultimate Final Cosplay-Parade Climax Endgame Finale
Parts 9-up: [coming soon]
Advance epilogue: Three Thoughts After Our First Dragon Con

Ladiess Deadpool and Sheriffpool!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

For years we’ve been telling friends in other states that we’d one day do Atlanta’s Dragon Con, one of the largest conventions in America that isn’t in California or New York. We’ve been in Atlanta, but we hadn’t really done Atlanta. Hence this year’s vacation, in which we’re aiming for a double proficiency in Atlanta tourism and over-the-top Dragon Con goodness…

…such as that Saturday morning parade through downtown Atlanta. Longtime MCC readers are used to Deadpool variants showing up in every convention cosplay lineup. I promise we don’t show up at every convention center asking, “Pardon us, but can you direct us to all the Deadpools? There’re Deadpool cosplayers here, right? It would be so nice if there was Deadpool cosplay!” All we know is wherever we go, there he is.

Same cautions apply as last time: we’re pros, not fans; corrections are very welcome if we misname anyone; we do take requests, but can’t guarantee we photographed every parade participant; enjoy!

The recipe for every Deadpool cosplayer: take your standard baseline Deadpool; mash up with one (1) character or profession; loosen up and serve. It’s fun!

Punkpool and Firepool!

Trekpool, Fettpool, and the same Punkpool, because I can.

Bluepool and the Captain America dancers.

Blockpool with special guests Blockcrawler and Ms. Blockvel.

Either Balletpool or Fairypool.

Either Fairypool or Balletpool.

Cousin Eddiepool starring in National Lampoon’s Dragon Con Vacation

A sort of Animepool with giant-sized Koffing mug.

Pikachu ‘n’ ‘Pool, two Ryan Reynoldses for the price of one.

Rubbier Duckiepool, you’re the one! You make X-films lots of fun!

Marriott Carpetpool. I was not making that up.

Karatepool!

300pool and Ashpool. Groovy.

Orange T-Rexpools, Popool, and more Pokepool!

Chefpool! Finishing with a *chef’s kiss*

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

Introduction: 20 Years of Road Trips, 2 Lifetimes of Geek Culture
Part 1: The Stars Our Destination – our usual roundup of actors and jazz-hands
Part 2: Cosplay on Parade
Part 3: More Cosplay on Parade
Part 4: Still More Cosplay on Parade
Part 5: Still More Cosplay on Parade Continued
Part 6: Still More Cosplay on Parade Continued Yet Again
Part 8: Ultimate Final Cosplay-Parade Climax Endgame Finale
Parts 9-up: [coming soon]
Advance epilogue: Three Thoughts After Our First Dragon Con

An Adult Swim coterie on the horizon at left. If you know the characters at right, let me know? That isn’t Princess Bubblegum, right?

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

For years we’ve been telling friends in other states that we’d one day do Atlanta’s Dragon Con, one of the largest conventions in America that isn’t in California or New York. We’ve been in Atlanta, but we hadn’t really done Atlanta. Hence this year’s vacation, in which we’re aiming for a double proficiency in Atlanta tourism and over-the-top Dragon Con goodness…

…such as that Saturday morning parade through downtown Atlanta. And it all comes down to this: one last catchall entry of parade pics that I thought had their own charms, uses, and/or recognizable characters. We have dozens remaining, but they’re largely shots of (a) tiny people waaaaaay in the distance, (b) characters we don’t know and didn’t think we did justice to, and/or (c) parade marchers who turned the wrong way at the last second and faced too far toward the other side of the street, or were obscured by the people next to them. If anyone’s interested in some of those, let me know and I’ll be more than happy to add them here for posterity and curiosity.

Same cautions apply as when we started:

1. We’re not professional photographers. We do this for fun and fandom, not for a living. We do what we can with the technology, skill sets, and opportunities we have so we can share with others. And not really in a conscious “social media influencer” kind of way. Imperfections are part of our process.

2. I take tremendous pride in accurate character naming wherever possible. More than a few characters in this entry are unidentified or poorly identified because I’m old and not proficient with every universe ever. Kindly corrections to my errors and omissions are more than welcome in the comments below. I like learning new stuff. Photo captions will be amended as needed, with credit given were due.

3. With a few exceptions, these will largely be presented in random order. Anyone out there who’s looking for pics of specific parade participants, characters, or universes is free to leave requests in the comments. If we happen to have some, I’ll cheerfully add them into the next chapters. We couldn’t possibly have gotten every single person we saw that day, but we aimed for many.

4. Enjoy! Let more random Dragon Con cosplay photos continue to begin.

Wonder Woman and a jester of sorts.

Fallout Tacticians, from the video game I haven’t played, not the HBO miniseries I saw on the subject.

The Arms of Middle Earth, traipsing for Tolkien.

Aragorn and Arwen, happily ever after.

Vikings!

Jesse McCree and more from the cast of Overwatch.

Others from the world of video games, apparently none of which I’ve played.

Torgo and the Master from Manos: The Hands of Fate.

Highlights from MST3K in the background, but I’m at a loss to identify the nice purple dress.

Hagrid, a groundskeeper in search of grounds.

A popcorn lady and Harry Potter in his Quidditch uniform.

A Cyberman separated from the other Doctor Who cosplayer pics due to my own oversight.

Marchers for a Sarcoma Awareness moth.

Charmander, the Pokemon most likely to fit in at Dragon Con.

My first thought upon seeing this was, what if Mojo Jojo were real?

We didn’t catch their names, but we saw these gents around the con space offering free, reassuring, consenting hugs.

One of many cosplayers who could probably get into finer downtown restaurants that barred us for our T-shirts and shorts.

Had we known “Dragon Con Over 40” was a thing, I would’ve gladly paid admission dues while we were in town.

More folks from Dragon Con Over 40, which I bet is ten times more fun than the AARP.

Among the non-costumed celebs in the parade was famed wrestler Jake “The Snake” Roberts.

A Blues Brothers car, from a rare example of an R-rated film that Anne has seen and I haven’t.

Downtown Atlanta’s skybridge collection makes parade floats height-prohibitive, but Netherworld Haunted House made it work.

Uniforms, not costumes: the very real Lakeside High School marching band. Anne did the same in high school and took a few more pics like this in case anyone asks.

Hogwarts wizards give way to the Cult of Marriott Carpet, who have a shocking number of products available online.

The cult of Marriott Carpet have a truck. Someone paid Earth-bucks to do this on purpose. Such is the power of its hypnotic allure.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Cult of Marriott Carpet cheerleaders!

Converts to the Cult include Marriott Carpet Endgame Thor and, trying to elude our roving eyes, Captain Malcolm Reynolds in a Marriott Carpet bonnet. WE SEE YOU, MAL.

…and that’s essentially it for the Dragon Con parade at long last, well after the cosplayers involved have probably already recuperated, forgotten about photos, and moved on to planning for their next major events.

We’re not totally done with D*C cosplay yet, though. To be continued! Other chapters in this very special miniseries:

Introduction: 20 Years of Road Trips, 2 Lifetimes of Geek Culture
Part 1: The Stars Our Destination – our usual roundup of actors and jazz-hands
Part 2: Cosplay on Parade
Part 3: More Cosplay on Parade
Part 4: Still More Cosplay on Parade
Part 5: Still More Cosplay on Parade Continued
Part 6: Still More Cosplay on Parade Continued Yet Again
Part 7: Deadpool Presents the Deadpool Cosplay Parade Starring Deadpool
Parts 9-up: [coming soon]
Advance epilogue: Three Thoughts After Our First Dragon Con

TV insurance mascots role call: Lady Liberty Mutual! Mayhem! Flo from Progressive! The General! (“For a great low rate you can get online / Go to The General and save some time!”)

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

For years we’ve been telling friends in other states that we’d one day do Atlanta’s Dragon Con, one of the largest conventions in America that isn’t in California or New York. We’ve been in Atlanta, but we hadn’t really done Atlanta. Hence this year’s vacation, in which we’re aiming for a double proficiency in Atlanta tourism and over-the-top Dragon Con goodness…

…where, as you can imagine in a show with 80,000+ in attendance, with or without the parade in progress, boring sights were in short supply. Every con of every size has its share of cosplayers bringing fun, creativity, imagination, and heightened quality of life to any and every square foot around them. We spent much of our time in lines, panels, and massive crowds where poses and shoots became next to impossible without making gridlock even worse, but we did what we could whenever time, space, and energy allowed to salute those who did their thing.

The deadly foes of Spider-Man! Rhino, Vulture, Electro, and the Green Goblin.

Donna Nobla and Captain Jack Harkness proving they can function just fine without the Doctor.

Killmonger from Black Panther and Angel from X-Men: First Class.

If you ever visit Marietta, city ordinance requires you to stop and see their Big Chicken, as we did back in 2007.

Ralphie’s mom, the Old Man and the Major Award.

Mayor McCheese, inducing flashbacks to our old jobs.

Super Dave Osborne, the greatest comedy stuntman of the 1980s who wasn’t a puppet.

Strawberry Shortcake, who taught kids you can be a hero and love desserts.

Princess Buttercup and Fezzik from The Princess Bride.

Barney Rubble, who parties a little heartier when Fred isn’t around to hog all the kegs.

As far as Marvel Comics characters I still need to see in their Cinematic Universe, the incredible Hercules is in my top 5.

J. Jonah Jameson furious because once again his paper needs MORE PICTURES OF SPIDER-MAN.

Maria Rambeau, costar of Marvel’s Captain Marvel.

Shazam! *boooom*

Suzy and Sam from Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom. (She’s a raven.)

Lex Luthor in his “Rebirth” Superman armor. DC Comics continuity comes at you fast.

Ladies and gentlemen, Indiana hometown legend Larry Bird from the Boston Celtics!

We’ve seen the real Svengoolie wandering C2E2 in Chicago a couple times, so it’s disorienting to see someone who’s not him.

Elton John, star of stage and screen!

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

Introduction: 20 Years of Road Trips, 2 Lifetimes of Geek Culture
Part 1: The Stars Our Destination – our usual roundup of actors and jazz-hands
Part 2: Cosplay on Parade
Part 3: More Cosplay on Parade
Part 4: Still More Cosplay on Parade
Part 5: Still More Cosplay on Parade Continued
Part 6: Still More Cosplay on Parade Continued Yet Again
Part 7: Deadpool Presents the Deadpool Cosplay Parade Starring Deadpool
Part 8: Ultimate Final Cosplay-Parade Climax Endgame Finale
Part 10: Last Call for Cosplay
Part 11: [coming soon]
Part 12: [coming soon]
Advance epilogue: Three Thoughts After Our First Dragon Con

A Russian nuclear technician from HBO’s Chernobyl.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

For years we’ve been telling friends in other states that we’d one day do Atlanta’s Dragon Con, one of the largest conventions in America that isn’t in California or New York. We’ve been in Atlanta, but we hadn’t really done Atlanta. Hence this year’s vacation, in which we’re aiming for a double proficiency in Atlanta tourism and over-the-top Dragon Con goodness…

…and thus we arrive at our final D*C costume gallery. From the badge pickup on Thursday afternoon to the last cosplayer we caught at the Peachtree Center food court on our way out Saturday, ’twas a merry assortment of wardrobes and wearers. Our own modest collection here on MCC is but a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the total cosplay on display among the tens of thousands of attendees and passersby. The fun thing about so many folks sharing their own cosplay pics is you’re guaranteed never to see the same lineup twice.

Rough Rider Teddy Roosevelt before he became the 26th President of the United States of America.

Sir Hammerlock, pesky space zoologist from the Borderlands series.

Groucho Marx, certified film legend.

Fellow cigar aficionado Mr. Freeze. His favorite kind? ICE CUBANS.

Eddie Valiant, P.I. Mo’ bunny, mo’ problems.

Cliff Clavin and Norm Peterson hanging out in Artists Alley because Cheers is too long a walk from here.

…between the smoking and the drinking, that’s a lot of substance abusers up there. Huh.

Anyway, now a short intermission for a few costumes we photographed that looked cool, but we failed to identify. As always, input and elaborate backstories are most welcome. Thanks in advance!

I thought this looked great, but she’s neither Moon Knight nor Sailor Moon.

Neither the Iron Giant nor Driller from Descender…

Possibly Amaterasu or a friend thereof.

Mod Podge Gloss is an acrylic paint sealer, but we saw no booths selling it. Not sure if this is a D*C in-joke or if someone just really loves art supplies.

Brothers in bottles: these two pitchpeople for legal energy boosters were the very first cosplayers we encountered on D*C turf, around the corner from the badge pickup ballroom.

Deadpool in a onesie watching the other Deadpools on parade.

Thundra, an otherdimensional Marvel ’70s hero, choking a dude out while co-creator Roy Thomas stands by and laughs.

Tabitha the evil Fairy Godmother from The CW’s Legends of Tomorrow.

Splinter, on sabbatical from teaching Turtles tricks.

A cadre of Visitor guards standing by at the Jane Badler/Marc Singer V panel on Friday.

The nefarious Dr. Eggman from the world of Sonic the Hedgehog, suspiciously lurking.

Stray participants from Michael Scott’s Dunder Mifflin Scranton Meredith Palmer Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun Run Race for the Cure. They’re probably in the lead.

Peter Parker, the amazing Bag-Man in a one-shot moment from Amazing Spider-Man #258. Long story if you don’t know it, but the short version is this was all Venom’s fault. And partly the Human Torch’s.

Doctor Who meets peaceful landscapes in the mashup world of Bob Davross. Revenge is a dish best served with happy little trees painted on it.

Bob Davross was also the centerpiece of this magnificent PBS group cosplay. Featured players include Carmen Sandiego, There’s Waldo, two organic Bob Rosses, four Mister Rogers (two of whom are Avengers), and the wonderful whimsy of Reading Rainbow.

Pennywise, star of IT Chapter 2, now in theaters!

To be continued! But with no more cosplay. Alas. Other chapters in this very special miniseries:

Introduction: 20 Years of Road Trips, 2 Lifetimes of Geek Culture
Part 1: The Stars Our Destination – our usual roundup of actors and jazz-hands
Part 2: Cosplay on Parade
Part 3: More Cosplay on Parade
Part 4: Still More Cosplay on Parade
Part 5: Still More Cosplay on Parade Continued
Part 6: Still More Cosplay on Parade Continued Yet Again
Part 7: Deadpool Presents the Deadpool Cosplay Parade Starring Deadpool
Part 8: Ultimate Final Cosplay-Parade Climax Endgame Finale
Part 9: No Parades, Just Cosplay
Part 11: [coming soon]
Part 12: [coming soon]
Advance epilogue: Three Thoughts After Our First Dragon Con

Patrick Wilson and me, posing for a TV Guide ad for our new CBS procedural dramedy.

Saturday marked our fifth trip to HorrorHound Indy, an annual Indianapolis convention in honor of the scary, bloody, icky, haunting, stabbing, disturbing, black-garbed aspects of pop culture. The folks at HorrorHound Magazine orchestrate the festivities so loyal fans of the murderous and the macabre can enjoy a themed geek space of their own apart from Star Wars and Star Trek and whatnot. (Well, mostly.) As we’ve gotten older and more puritanical, our touchpoints with horror, terror, and gross-outs have dwindled in number compared to the average attendee, but the intersections between their guest list and our favorite worlds continue to delight and surprise and draw us back into their waiting wings.

This year HHI moved its proceedings into larger digs at the Indiana Convention Center, where guests, exhibitors, and attendees benefited from lots of extra square footage. Gone are the days of inching through the ballrooms of the Marriott at 21st and Shadeland, which the show outgrew long ago. This year we could move freely through the aisles without elbowing everyone around us, and didn’t have to worry about coming to constant standstills whenever autograph lines clogged up the area. (To be fair, this still happened a little with one busy aisle.) It was a smart and welcome move. For the most part, the growing pains didn’t show.

As usual, we met a few famous folks along the way. You might recognize the gent in our lead photo, Hollywood’s Patrick Wilson, from such films as The Conjuring, Insidious, Watchmen, and DC’s Aquaman, in which he chewed all the underwater scenery he could reach as the Ocean Master. Personally I would recommend Young Adult, while my son is a fan of Hard Candy.

Also on hand from the world of Watchmen: Carla Gugino! The star of such promising but short-lived TV shows as Threshold and Karen Sisco, Gugino is also known as the mom from the Spy Kids series, The Rock’s better half in San Andreas, a survivor of Sucker Punch, and the original Silk Spectre in Watchmen, in which her daughter dated Patrick Wilson even though Gugino is 48 and Wilson is 46. She’s been in many other cool things, but you get the idea.

Carla Gugino is nine months older than me and clearly aging better.

One more name for fun: John Carroll Lynch! One of those great character actors I’ve seen all around, hither and yon, in works including but not limited to:

• The Founder, in which he played one of the McDonald brothers who get swindled by Ray Kroc out of their dream business
• one of my favorite episodes of The Walking Dead as a mentor who teaches Morgan that humanity still needs morality after the apocalypse
• Zodiac, in which he gave Jake Gyllenhaal the creeps as a real-life leading suspect
• Fargo, as Sheriff Frances McDormand’s duck-painting husband
• an old episode of Frasier in which special guest Shelley Long writes an entire play inspired by her time at Cheers; in her version, Lynch is a haughty therapist named “Franklin”.

Many folks know him from American Horror Story. Hence his horror cred.

The show’s celebrity aspects went relatively okay, apart from when there was an unexplained half-hour delay in photo ops in the late afternoon. Also, at one point earlier, the autograph lines near us stopped as Gugino, Wilson, and a handler gather to huddle around their phones for a few minutes. My first thought was, “Please tell me they didn’t just learn their checks bounced and they’re all walking out right now.” That didn’t happen, though at one point Gugino ran two tables down to confer with fellow guest and Watchmen costar Jackie Earle Haley. Eventually they stopped huddling and whispering, and they resumed chatting and signing stuff. Kinda weird for a bit there, though.

My best guess: maybe they were ordering lunch? Or were they stunned by the breaking news about Antonio Brown?

I would’ve loved to meet more talents, but our budget was stretched too thin. It was some consolation that we already saw Mr. Haley in person at a previous surprise appearance a few years ago, but a clearer photo would’ve been nice. (Did I mention we’re not even recovered from Dragon Con yet? Or finished posting about it?)

But with greater square footage comes bigger sights. The spacious Convention Center gave HorrorHound the means to venture into a new frontier with their Indy show: horror-themed cars! I had no choice but to stop and check out the star of John Carpenter’s 1983 underrated classic Christine, which I caught one late night on cable TV some thirty-odd years ago. It left such a deep impression that it led me to reading my first Stephen King novel, which our junior high school library happened to have. To me this creepy ’58 Plymouth Fury is kind of a big deal.

The new 1958 Plymouth Fury! Special features include ominous horn, murderous rage, and Wolverine’s healing powers.

(I do wish we could’ve seen her sides as well as her front, but her handlers had her corralled off in her own private booth, same as Cary Elwes does at his con appearances. You should’ve seen his Dragon Con line…)

Christine’s accompanying exhibits included a vitrine filled with Christine editions from throughout the decades and around the world.

Of course there was the usual assortment of spooky objects around the show…

Do you dare peekin inside…the HorrorHound Weekend coffin? (I did Someone tossed an extra program inside. Otherwise empty.)

Scarlet Brewing Company wins an award for Tallest Non-Inflatable Demon of the Show.

Tallest Demon, Inflatable Division.

A row of uncredited life-size statues included the star of the original Teen Wolf.

Noted horror icon R2-D2. We also saw a Green Power Ranger on the premises.

And yes, of course there was cosplay! Not as many costumes as we expected, but quite a few bringing the blood and scares to life.

Sally and grimdark Jack Skellington.

When asked if he was the Great Pumpkin, he snarled, “I’m the REAL Pumpkin!” Fair enough.

Frankenstein’s monster. To him “fire” is a four-letter word, but “love” isn’t.

Mandatory Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. No slashers, no con.

Billy the Puppet from the Saw series, and friends. I began to type “Beetlejuice and Lydia”, but if someone could teach an old captioner their actual character names, I’d totally appreciate it.

Rorschach, apropos of the guest list.

Ronald McDonald and Hamburglar, hosting the children’s costume contest.

Georgie Denbrough’s paper boat, floating down here. Triple bonus points for the raincoat-colored shoes.

…and that’s the HorrorHound Indy that was from our modest perspective. I love what they did with the new location. I hope we’ll see them again in the future. I’m sorry we couldn’t delve more into the guest list. (Did I mention we have another con coming up in two weeks? Convention-wise, we knew September would be a painful embarrassment of riches…)

RX-24 from Star Wars Rebels and a Mouse Droid from the same universe, signs we were definitely in the right area.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

For years we’ve been telling friends in other states that we’d one day do Atlanta’s Dragon Con, one of the largest conventions in America that isn’t in California or New York. We’ve been in Atlanta, but we hadn’t really done Atlanta. Hence this year’s vacation, in which we’re aiming for a double proficiency in Atlanta tourism and over-the-top Dragon Con goodness…

…though we weren’t sure how easy it would be to transition from one mode to the other. Thankfully we found D*C has the best head-start program for newcomers that we’ve ever seen at a convention.

We arrived in Atlanta Sunday night and spent Monday through Wednesday on our tourist-attraction to-do list. Through much planning, effort, and grace of God we checked off every major sight Anne had wanted to see most. Typical of our annual road trips, all we had to do to accomplish our goals was stay on the move and get very little rest. We anticipated doing that to ourselves and planned ahead for Thursday to be a pivot point in our week. Plan A was to spend the first half of the day resting, then jump aboard the D*C Newbies track in the afternoon.

Things didn’t quite work out that way. We awoke Thursday with one want as yet unrequited. We fetched breakfast, did the thing, got drenched in sweat for like our fifth or sixth time that week, then returned to our hotel for a while to cool down and force ourselves to rest at least a little. Self-care can be a drag, but we didn’t want to risk travel burnout in the middle of the convention.

The cleaning crew arrived during our therapeutic veg-out session. It wasn’t the first time this week that we had to awkwardly invite them in.

Our hotel was a couple blocks away from D*C’s core. We left ’round noon and headed toward the festivities. Good omens began to appear around the cityscape. Folks dressed like us soon outnumbered businesspeople and panhandlers. Atlanta proprietors decorated for the occasion, much like our businesses back in Indianapolis roll out their red carpets for Gen Con. It’s always cool to see cities taking pride in their signature conventions.

“PLEASE DEPOSIT TOURIST DOLLARS HERE!” proclaimed those boarding the bandwagon.

We fetched lunch from Peachtree Center, the primary food court connected to the main hotels hosting D*C. We got to know its layout pretty well over the next three days. Roaming the halls for a free table was not my favorite part. I had flashbacks to our old high school cafeteria, where as a introverted teen misfit I used to skip lunch rather than have to plead with standoffish strangers for a seat. But at least I can say we never had a bad meal at Peachtree.

The registration desk and badge pickup kiosks were stationed at the Sheraton Atlanta Hotel, one block south and one block east of Peachtree Center. Crowds thickened as we approached. Costumes walked side-by-side with intellectual-property T-shirts, whether as groups, duos, or loners. The first few minutes didn’t go well. A dude assigned to the role of town crier stood at the northwest corner of the block and bellowed poorly enunciated instructions no one could discern. At first we went inside, where our meager question of “Where do we pick up badges?” stumped two different people at desks.

Several of us stymied, would-be attendees exited the Sheraton as an accidental group and somehow found our way to the end of the correct line. During the 1pm-2pm hour it ran three of the block’s four sides. We passed the time with a delightful line chat and realized the line was long but briskly paced, rarely stopping for more than a minute. As we got 100 feet or so from the designated side door, we noticed a strip of blue tape on the ground that only reached from the doorway to the nearest sidewalk. This finally made sense, because “blue” was one of the few words we could make out from the town crier’s well-intentioned ravings. But it was far too short and easily obscured by the masses of excitable bodies everywhere.

The line continued inside into a ballroom labyrinth, speeding up as we neared the goal. Line-chatting is hard when you can’t stand still. We tried to find a happy medium between the two.

The final gauntlet whence victory meant admission into yon faire.

Soon the prepaid admission MacGuffins were ours.

(I wish I’d remembered to bring our longer lanyards from home. But these did the job.)

Food trucks lined up outside the Sheraton, ready to serve. We’d heard they would be around all weekend, but didn’t know they’d be on duty this soon.

Scooters. Everywhere, all over town, scooters were lined up on sidewalks or tripped over in discard piles. Atlanta and Indy now have that in common, too.

While the Sheraton hosts registration and a few select events, the bulk of D*C programming takes place in a trio of hotels sitting in a row to the north — the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, the Atlanta Marriott Marquis, and the Hilton Atlanta. All three are connected by habitrails, skybridges, hamster tunnels, covered walkways, or whatever you call them back home. Because downtown Atlanta was built on a steep hill, none of the hotels sit at the same levels. The second floor of the Hilton has two floors beneath it, but is connected to the second floor of the Marriott, which only has one floor beneath it, which is at street level. The fourth floor of the Marriott connects to the lobby of the Hyatt, which has three floors beneath it but is at street level. The fourth floor of the Marriott also connects to Peachtree Center, which has one floor and a garage beneath it at street level on its east end, but its west end is one floor below street level, but it also connects to the Hyatt lobby, which, as I just said, is at street level.

If you’re thinking the preceding paragraph makes no sense unless wormholes are involved, now you know why Dragon Con graciously offers walking tours to first-timers.

After one wrong turn out of the Sheraton (see?), we made our way over to the Marriott and rode up to the fourth floor, where the meet-up room was mercifully right next to the escalator. We were welcomed by one of the overseers of the D*C Newbies program, podcaster and professional fan Kevin Bachelder, whom we’d previously met when he was a guest at Indy Pop Con 2015. There was no reason to bring it up, as there was no reason he would’ve remembered us, even though we were part of a very tiny panel audience and I actually spoke up at one point to a smidgen of personal embarrassment. But I remembered him. Very nice guy.

In the room, an ongoing Q&A kept folks entertained and informed while waiting for guides to come in and gather new groups every few minutes. Soon it was our turn and we made the rounds over the course of the next hour-plus. Might’ve been two hours. I lost track of time while trying to absorb critical new information.

At left is the part of the Hyatt that’s sleekest but hardest to spot from a distance because of all the other skyscrapers. At right is the Marriott, which was large and distinct enough that I’d been using it as our “true north” lighthouse all week long whenever I lost my bearings.

The Marriott’s Atrium Level, a phrase which here means “fourth floor”. Their floors had names instead of numbers, which of course I had to memorize for our survival.

The Hyatt’s lobby centerpiece is a 1975 sculpture by Richard Lippold, a 120-foot-tall titan called Flora Raris.

I haven’t been inside downtown Indy’s Hyatt Regency in years, but they had glass elevators like this that fascinated me as a kid.

One of the Skybridges we learned to traverse. Multiple times, as it worked out.

Our group tour had one unfortunate drawback: I couldn’t hear a single thing our guide was saying. Whatsoever. We would walk and walk to the next location; he would speak to the first few attendees around him; the rest of us would catch up; our surroundings would be really loud; and then we’d walk and walk some more. He may have been unveiling the most awesome Atlanta hotel trivia in the universe and giving directions to the secret Dragon Con treasure room, but I’ll never know because he wasn’t waiting for the entire group before he spoke, wasn’t projecting his voice, and never once offered the basic courtesy of asking, “Can everyone hear me?”

Regardless, I got exactly what I needed from the tour: a much better sense of the physical layout of this entire colossal shindig. Dragon Con is possibly the largest convention we’ll ever attend in our lives unless some eccentric philanthropist reading this site wants to move heaven and Earth to make San Diego happen for us before I die. D*C gave me the best possible thing to help ease our minds and allay our fears of getting lost in its myriad halls: they let me experience it in advance and mentally chart it all in my head like an adventurer mapping a dungeon for a quest.

After the tour we even got a chance to put our newly acquired knowledge to the test, just as many video games do after you finish the initial tutorial. Without help from anyone else we managed to navigate our way from the Hilton all the way to Peachtree Center without going outside. Our reward was snacks. Anne got a Dairy Queen ice cream cone because in times of fatigue, simple pleasures are her jam. I gave my business to Caribou Coffee as my own personal award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Dragon Con Tie-In Marketing.

Convicted magic felon Sirius Black welcomes you to Caribou!

Geek-themed coffee-bar flavors. Bonus points for the tongue.

My order was a Black Order — i.e., a dark chocolate smoothie. The perfect endgame for our Dragon Con day zero.

Other than registration and the Newbies track, D*C had very little official programming scheduled Thursday. That didn’t deter thousands of fans from gathering around the various premises and hanging out, catching up with old friends, meeting new strangers, sporting early cosplay, and generally hyped to start having fun now now NOW. I wanted fun to start ASAP too, but mingling for the sake of mingling has never been my thing and partying is not really our scene, especially if we’re invited as part of a general population rather than as specific individuals. 500 miles from home among tens of thousands, where we were even bigger nobodies than we tend to be back in our usual Midwest cons, we knew that wasn’t happening.

It’s just as well because the tour, though immensely useful, left us dead on our feet yet again. Thus the olds retreated to their lair once more and recharged their health points for the next two days’ quests.

BB-8 enjoying some room to roll around. It was the last time we ever saw the Marriott this sparse.

Over these past eleven chapters we’ve already shown you much of what we saw…but not all of it yet.

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

Introduction: 20 Years of Road Trips, 2 Lifetimes of Geek Culture
Part 1: The Stars Our Destination – our usual roundup of actors and jazz-hands
Part 2: Cosplay on Parade
Part 3: More Cosplay on Parade
Part 4: Still More Cosplay on Parade
Part 5: Still More Cosplay on Parade Continued
Part 6: Still More Cosplay on Parade Continued Yet Again
Part 7: Deadpool Presents the Deadpool Cosplay Parade Starring Deadpool
Part 8: Ultimate Final Cosplay-Parade Climax Endgame Finale
Part 9: No Parades, Just Cosplay
Part 10: Last Call for Cosplay
Part 12: [coming soon]
Advance epilogue: Three Thoughts After Our First Dragon Con

One of many banners festooning downtown Atlanta days before the big event.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

For years we’ve been telling friends in other states that we’d one day do Atlanta’s Dragon Con, one of the largest conventions in America that isn’t in California or New York. We’ve been in Atlanta, but we hadn’t really done Atlanta. Hence this year’s vacation, in which we’re aiming for a double proficiency in Atlanta tourism and over-the-top Dragon Con goodness…

…and the convention half of our week-long getaway all comes down to this: the final chapter. The panels. The Artists Alley. The comics. The leftover random stuff.

Oddly, what’s left largely boils down to “How We Spent Friday”. As is often the case for cons, the day began with tedium and maddening bureaucracy.

We arrived around 8:30 at the Hyatt, where our very first Dragon Con panel would begin at 10 a.m. in one of their two International Ballrooms, in the southwest corner of the building and one level below the lobby. It wasn’t hard to find the hallway leading that-a-way. A sign on the floor stopped us short, instructing attendees that lines for all International Ballroom events were to form outside on John Portman Boulevard, which runs along the south side of the building. We found this odd, but we followed the instruction, exited through the west doors where we’d entered, and headed to the south end.

We walked the full length of the south end and saw no lines, no signage, and no signs of life. At the end of the block we turned into the deep maw of a garage entrance. We turned back, walked the south length once more, and continued seeing nothing but several unlabeled, interchangeable fire doors.

Not just one fire door. Several fire doors. Quite a few to choose from. But no unlocked entrances, no useful words, and no happy helpers.

We went back around to the west and reentered the Hyatt. We found the official Dragon Con information booth with someone sitting next to it, but she was just an uninformed loiterer taking advantage of an empty chair. The booth itself was unstaffed. We returned to that hallway, ignored the sign, and escalator’d down to the International Ballroom doors. A lone volunteer pointed to a set of fire doors that led outside and told us we couldn’t go in or stand right there. We had to go wait outside along Portman Boulevard, on the other side of those fire doors through which we’d all be let back in when the time was nigh. But we also weren’t allowed to merely walk through those doors right now or else an alarm would go out. We and several other fans who’d just shown up and turned our duo into a questing party had to go back up the escalator, back through the hallway, back outside, and back around to the south fire doors. We unanimously rolled our eyes and did so. We as a group then realized we had no idea which among the multiple sets of featureless fire doors was the correct set. We chose a random set and waited.

Free clouds of delivery truck exhaust fumes for all us diligent early birds.

At 9:25 a volunteer arrived carrying a “Lines for International Ballrooms Begin Here” sign and hung it on the next set of doors down from us. Naturally. We moved; we waited; moments later we were let back inside through the now-deactivated fire doors at last, and on time.

I hadn’t expected typical convention line shenanigans from Dragon Con, but here we were. We’ve put up with plenty worse.

Half the line went into one ballroom for a medieval sword-fighting demonstration; the rest of us flocked into a special occasion for comic book fans: a panel reuniting legendary creators and collaborators Marv Wolfman and George Perez. When I was 8 years old they launched New Teen Titans, which became a smash hit for DC Comics and introduced new characters such as Cyborg, Starfire, Raven, Slade Wilson a.k.a. Deathstroke the Terminator, and countless more heroes and villains. When I was 13 they changed the DC Universe forever with Crisis on Infinite Earths and helped invent the concept of the company-wide crossover event, which was an awesome idea to me at the time but is now a horrible marketing device that I totally can’t stand. When Wolfman and Perez did it, it was beyond cool.

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George Perez and Marv Wolfman, architects of #comics like "Crisis on Infinite Earths", "New Teen Titans", and more more more. Reunited for a #dragoncon Q&A before Perez's upcoming retirement. #comicbooks #DragonCon

A post shared by Randy Golden (@golden.randy) on Aug 30, 2019 at 8:08am PDT

We’d met them each at previous shows. Wolfman was at a Superman Celebration long ago, though our photos of that are buried in our archives and ought to be dug up sometime. I’ve had the pleasure of basking in Perez’s presence at Wizard World Chicago 1999, the 2012 Superman Celebration, and briefly at Indiana Comic Con 2016. I could go on about the impact their works had on my impressionable self, but this entry will be too long as it is. I mean, a thing they did is referenced right up there in the website name.

Fans asked questions about Crisis, about working in the comic biz in general, and, curiously, quite a few questions about The Judas Contract, one of their most famous New Teen Titans storylines in which young new teammate Terra was revealed to be a spy working for and hooking up with the much older Deathstroke. Guys really had a lot of questions about that one. About three minutes before the Q&A ended I thought of a question, but by then it was too late. Perez will be retiring from the biz soon, but maybe if Wolfman does another show in the future…

Old friends rehashing good times.

My favorite bit: Perez reveals how inkers once hated to work on his pencils because his penchant for drawing 200-500 characters into a single issue was more than they could bear without going mad. After Marvel and DC instituted their own systems for paying royalties (a huge development in the comics world), and once folks realized how much royalties were to be had on a Perez prestige project, then inkers began lining up to work with him. Sometimes teamwork is all about finding the right incentive.

After their panel ended at 11, our next one was in the ballroom next door. Once again we were told we couldn’t just walk in even though the sword-fighting had dispersed. Once again we had to re-escalator up, head out the west doors to the south end, and wait to be let back in again. At least this time the right fire doors were marked.

Meanwhile in the other direction, a line to see a Q&A about The Expansebegan at those west doors and led waaay down the south side.

The headliner of our 11:30 presentation was Gil Gerard, best known as TV’s Buck Rogers, sci-fi hero of his own two-season show back in the late ’70s. I also remember Sidekicks, but no one asked about that.

Buck Rogers himself! If nothing else, teaching his name to new generations helps them get the joke behind “Duck Dodgers”.

Memories and thoughts dredged up included but weren’t limited to:

• Some entity presently holds the Buck Rogers rights, and lawsuits may have been initiated by those peeved at their failure to actually do anything with said rights in a long, long time
• He was afraid to take on more SF-themed jobs because he didn’t want to be banished to the same typecasting purgatory that dogged Adam West for years
• He was disappointed that celebrated TV writer Glen Larson (Battlestar Galactica, Knight Rider, Magnum P.I.) was never actively involved with the show beyond the original Buck Rogers TV-movie
• The show soon turned into “Starsky and Hutch in Space”, then got worse when the season-2 showrunner stole the entire Galactica premise, which went well with the borrowed props and effects
• Episodes cost upward of $1.5 million in 1970s money when it was canceled due to low ratings
• He had to fight for gender parity in casting extras so a crowd scene wouldn’t be composed entirely of white guys
• On Battle of the Network Stars he once raced Scott Baio and was among the many who were vanquished by Lou Ferrigno at tug-of-war
• He was fine with Buck Rogers never getting a steady girlfriend because when other TV heroes had love lives, they tended to die a lot (“Marcus Welby killed more women than Jack the Ripper”)
• Parts he was offered but turned down included lead roles in Moonlighting, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, and Magnum P.I., whose original pilot script had him as a pot-smoking parasailing dude
• He’s done Broadway and dinner theater
• He used to fly planes, but hasn’t in ages because it got “boring”
• He’s met actual astronauts, possibly the coolest thing Buck Rogers made happen

(Gerard’s Buck Rogers costar Erin Gray was also a D*C guest this year. We never saw them within fifty feet of each other. Even their autograph tables in the Walk of Fame were on opposite ends of the room, in noticeable contrast to other guests whose tables were grouped according to their shared shows.)

We adjourned for lunch at Peachtree Center, then wandered over to the second floor of the Marriott for a 2:30 engagement in their Imperial Ballroom. Once again, we’d done it wrong. A sign on the ballroom doors directed would-be audience members to go down a floor, go outside, and join the line forming there in 90-degree heat without shade. We grumbled and did so, though only a few minutes passed before the line moved inward, up again, and into the packed house.

Visible signage: kind of a must, whether the circumstances are ideal or not.

Our next guests were Dragon Con’s feature presentation in Anne’s eyes. As a kid she’d loved, loved, loved ABC’s original 1983 V miniseries and its 1984 follow-up V: The Final Battle. (The one-season series that followed was sadly nowhere near the same level.) She was overjoyed to see a live reunion between costars Jane Badler and Marc Singer. As the original devious managerial lizard-woman and the Big Action Hero, they sparred quite a bit back in the day. On stage 35 years later, they were cheery and at ease.

You might also know them respectively from Falcon Crest and The Beastmaster. Or maybe not. There was one Beastmaster question but no soap opera fans. Except one guy who sat next to us and admitted as much. Which is okay! Not here to judge fans.

Topics of note:

• Yep, Singer’s jeans sure were tight
• Everyone always asks about the scene where her V character Diana eats a live rat because, frankly, that’s something no one has ever been able to unsee
• Singer once had to film a fight scene with broken ribs, but did the job
• One fan remembers seeing them in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade on TV
• They agreed the one-season series that followed the two miniseries was sadly nowhere near the same level

Outside and inside the ballroom, cosplayers in “Visitor” uniforms stood guard, just like on the show. At appropriate moments, one ran back and forth at the front of the room with an “APPLAUSE” sign, a hilarious reference for hardcore fans.

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The #DragonCon "V" panel starring Jane Badler and Marc Singer, comfier standing than perched behind the table. (At left, moderator Daniel Griffith is a familiar name to anyone who's been collecting Shout! Factory's MST3K DVD sets.) #tv #television #scifi #actors #80s

A post shared by Randy Golden (@golden.randy) on Aug 30, 2019 at 12:01pm PDT

Singer preferred to stand in front of the table to answer questions.

…and that’s the story of how we spent most of our Friday on the Elderly Geek Track. That’s not an official label, and certainly wasn’t planned that way, but in hindsight it’s interesting that in our first trip to Dragon Con, the activities that caught our attention first were interactions with the heroes of our youth.

We didn’t stop there. Naturally I had to see Artists Alley. One major complication: artists’ tables and, for that matter, exhibitors and dealers aren’t right there amid all the action. Whereas other cons put the exhibit hall squarely in the center and design the layout and all other pieces around it, all that commerce and art and other bazaar-esque components are blocks away in AmericasMart Atlanta, a three-building marketplace complex. Gaming events were across the street from the Hyatt in AmericasMart 1; the exhibit halls and Artists Alley were in the four-story AmericasMart 2, over on the other side of AmericasMart 1; and the even farther AmericasMart 3 was the Not Used in This Con Building.

Riding the escalator up AmericasMart 2. Bellatrix welcomes you!

Artists Alley was blocks away, but I had to see because it’s my thing. Thus we made the walk, made a beeline for the top floor, and gave money to some folks who hadn’t appeared at our usual Midwest cons within recent history.

Georges Jeanty! Artist of quite a bit of the post-T comics seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in addition to some X-Men, Firefly, and a creator-owned pair of miniseries with screenwriter John Ridley called The American Way.

Bob Burden! His signature creation the Flaming Carrot was one of the first offbeat works I found the very first comic shop I walked into a comic shop back in 1985. You might recall the 1999 film based on his hero-team called Mystery Men.

Andy Brase! A meticulous cover artist whose work has graced the Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and more. (Note the cool Sandman shirt.)

J.M. DeMatteis! A writer in the biz since at least the ’80s. His name appears throughout my longboxes and shelves.

For me, DeMatteis was Friday’s big “I’m not worthy” moment. Even as a kid I could sense he was no writer of ordinary superheroes. Titles as deceptively mundane as Captain America, Marvel Team-Up, New Defenders, Dr. Fate, and countless others used the superhero framework to tell stories with deeper themes to them beyond “good must punch evil”. Fans also fondly recall his post-Crisis Justice league reboot with Keith Giffen and Kevin Maguire, which at times carried an undercurrent of complex drama beneath the team’s side-splitting antics of the time. Marvel’s mature-readers Epic imprint gave him the chance to explore darker content and deeper philosophy in Moonshadow and Blood: A Tale. And there was the time he wrote one of the most disturbing Spider-Man arcs ever, that time Kraven the Hunter murdered Spidey and took his place inside the black costume. And so many more. So yeah, meeting him was a big deal.

I appreciated these opportunities, but…overall, to be honest, it wasn’t the largest Artists Alley I’ve ever seen. I bought a few things, but wasn’t moved to reach for my wallet nearly as many times as I’d expected or hoped. (C2E2 and CXC remain the reigning champs in that regard.) It meant less weight to carry for blocks back to our hotel room later, but I wasn’t really trying to cut back for that reason.

The final loot pile at the end.

That left us with three more floors of AmericasMart 2 to see if we wanted to walk past all the dealers and exhibitors and marketers and whatnot. We managed to traipse around all of a single floor. We didn’t pause for merchandise once. We were exhausted, but we’re also finding ourselves not really looking for dealers’ wares anymore at any cons. At that point we declared Friday done and retreated from D*C for the evening.

Right around here is, in a logically chronological narrative, where “How We Spent Saturday” would begin. Funny thing is, I’ve already deconstructed and posted nearly the entirety of that day, D*C-wise.

Our Saturday exploits worked out roughly like so, not entirely in this order:

• Arriving at the end of the parade route shortly before 8 a.m.
• Waiting and waiting and waiting for the thing to start
• Our hearts growing a few extra sizes when old friends tracked us down to say hi for a few minutes, because they’re awesome
• The parade itself from 10:00 to 11:30
• Four photo ops scheduled from 12:30 to 4:30, which got increasingly more stressful as the day went on, especially when ops kept running late and pushing other ops back
• Lunch at Peachtree Center yet again
• Cosplay photos, which on Saturday were 95% Anne because at some point I didn’t realize I’d burned out on talking to kind, well-dressed strangers, and/or another round of basic exhaustion had hit me
• Sitting for a while along a wall next to cosplayers, then accidentally knocking a drink on the edge of someone’s cape, for which I really wanted to spend the rest of the day apologizing
• Brief chat with the clerks at the Marriott convenience store on…whichever level that was, either second or third
• Waiting for security to let folks take turns using escalators due to crowd-size issues
• Awkward walk through the Marriott’s first floor, where a special ADA line for David Tennant autographs had kept folks waiting for hours, and not in the best moods
• Even awkwarder walk when we made the mistake of turning into the Marriott Atrium bar area and couldn’t reach an exit for several minutes while we were trapped between mingling drinkers

…and a few more random pics here and there.

Me and Stan Lee, arguably as lifelike as the time I had my photo taken with him.

Businesses and entrepreneurs with tables in the Marriott walkways included a promotion for IT CHAPTER 2, NOW IN THEATERS.

The last geek-themed signage we saw on the way back to our hotel, at a high-end Mexican restaurant whose business-casual dress code meant we couldn’t eat there.

Our last official D*C act was the Legends of Tomorrow photo op (shared in Part 1), which wrapped up somewhere close to 5-ish. With that, we bade the show farewell for 2019. We grabbed one last Peachtree Center meal, this time at a place recommended by a friend. As it happened, Aviva by Kameel gave us one of the best meals of our entire week. It was Atlanta and Dragon Con wrapped up in one exemplary coda.

Finances and timing were major obstacles to negotiate in attending our first Dragon Con. Anne and I agree they also make it impossible to add D*C to our annual “must” list. But I do hope we can make it happen again someday. We barely scratched the surface of the 5000+ interaction possibilities they offered. It’d be nice to check off at least a few more of those. At this point a D*C encore is likelier to happen than us ever doing San Diego.

The End. Thanks for reading! Till we grace their kingdom again…

Other chapters in this very special miniseries:

Introduction: 20 Years of Road Trips, 2 Lifetimes of Geek Culture
Part 1: The Stars Our Destination – our usual roundup of actors and jazz-hands
Part 2: Cosplay on Parade
Part 3: More Cosplay on Parade
Part 4: Still More Cosplay on Parade
Part 5: Still More Cosplay on Parade Continued
Part 6: Still More Cosplay on Parade Continued Yet Again
Part 7: Deadpool Presents the Deadpool Cosplay Parade Starring Deadpool
Part 8: Ultimate Final Cosplay-Parade Climax Endgame Finale
Part 9: No Parades, Just Cosplay
Part 10: Last Call for Cosplay
Part 11: The Dragon’s Lairs
Advance epilogue: Three Thoughts After Our First Dragon Con

You might remember Morena Baccarin from such works as Firefly, Gotham, and Deadpool. You might remember him from other goofy photos on this site.

It’s convention time yet again! Yes, AGAIN. Yes, ALREADY. I KNOW, OKAY.

Saturday morning my wife Anne and I drove two hours southeast of Indianapolis to attend the tenth annual Cincinnati Comic Expo in the heart of their downtown that’s not so different from ours. After our great big Dragon Con experience and our happy return to HorrorHound Indianapolis, CCE was our third con in thirty days. We were in danger of burnout, but we each had personal quests to complete.

For me, it was the opportunity to meet the only two costars of Joss Whedon’s Firefly that I’d never met — Morena Baccarin, who played Inara the Companion, a dignitary of sorts in their far-flung future; and Sean Maher as Dr. Simon Tam, fugitive from evil space cops who acted as ship’s medic and as his sister River’s keeper in select moments when she’d let him. I’ve been a fan since its TV premiere (MCC’s first real entry was named after the first episode that aired) and have slowly been encountering the cast at various cons over the past six years like so:

• Alan Tudyk at Wizard World Chicago 2013
• the late Ron Glass at the inaugural Indy Pop Con 2014
• Jewel Staite at the first and last Awesome Con Indianapolis 2014 (then complemented the autograph with a later photo op at Indiana Comic Con 2017)
• Nathan Fillion, Summer Glau, and Adam Baldwin at Wizard World Chicago 2015
• Gina Torres at C2E2 2018
• …and now, Baccarin and Maher at Cincinnati Comic Expo 2019.

In that sense this show was kind of a big deal for me, con fatigue or not.

We left home at 6:30 a.m. Despite road construction we were in line at 8:45 inside the Duke Energy Convention Center, where a bevy of extremely friendly volunteers greeted us every 20-25 feet and made sure we felt welcomed and informed. Even the security detail manning the metal detectors were above-norm gregarious. As two middle-aged customer service specialists, we appreciated those kindly assurances.

We general-admission fans were permitted to stampede into the exhibit hall at 10:00. I headed straight for Baccarin’s booth, which had a sizable line awaiting her arrival. To pass the time, Anne had her own quest to fulfill.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover, we attended Star Wars Celebration Chicago back in March, where we met a handful of talented actors who’ve contributed voices to Star Wars spin-off shows and who’ve entertained us in other works. We also met John Morton, a stuntman who appeared as a couple of characters in The Empire Strikes Back, including Dak the doomed snowspeeder pilot. That was it for Star Wars movie actors. That list was distressingly shorter than we’d hoped.

All other Star Wars movie actors who set foot within McCormick Place that weekend were: (a) Star Wars stars we’d already met; (b) actors whose characters never spoke words, which is a deal-breaker for Anne; (c) charging fees beyond our budget (Forest Whitaker was fairly priced for his stature but would’ve required multiple sacrifices); or (d) several extremely awesome actors from current Star Wars films who were there only for special stage presentations far above the heads of us great unwashed masses, no autographs or photo ops offered because they might’ve caught fan cooties or whatever.

Six months later, while I waited in Morena Baccarin’s considerable line, Anne went and had herself a grand old time with some Star Wars actors who actually appeared in Star Wars films, who largely had lines, and who were willing to mingle with the hoi polloi.

Michael Pennington! As Moff Jerjerrod he was in charge of the Death Star II construction project in Return of the Jedi, which those rascally Rebels blew to Kingdom Come. A longtime thespian on UK stages and TVs, Anne had wanted to meet him at SWC Chicago, but missed out because I screwed up.

Angus MacInnus! As Gold Leader he was among the X-Wing pilots who perished in the Rebel assault on the original Death Star. He’s also appeared in such films as Witness, Superman II, and Captain Phillips.

Garrick Hagon! As Luke Skywalker’s childhood friend Biggs Darklighter, he too perished in the Death Star assault. You can also catch him in small parts in Tim Burton’s Batman, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the first Mission Impossible, and Netflix’s The Crown.

SWC Chicago wouldn’t let John Morton offer photos at the table. Cincinnati Comic Expo totally did. Advantage: Cincinnati. (He also told Anne the same anecdote that he had in Chicago, about an Indiana con he once attended that was held in February and ran afoul of a nasty snow emergency. She didn’t mention it.)

Final math check: Anne met more Star Wars guests here at Cincinnati than she did at Star Wars Celebration Chicago. Famous guests held at a distant, impersonal remove are standard protocol for rock concerts, but one of the most awesome aspects of the comic-con experience is actor accessibility. Seeing them live can be cool. Meeting them is cooler.

The Star Wars lines were short enough that Anne finished exchanging pleasantries with all four elegant British gentleman by 10:35. She returned to Baccarin’s line and found me moved more than halfway up. Shortly thereafter, Baccarin signed briskly and kindly; I switched over to Sean Maher’s booth and went through the same procedure with shorter but equally kind results. My autograph must-list was finished at exactly 11 a.m.

I’d had an optional name on the to-do list, too. Also in the house was Kathy Najimy, costar of King of the Hill, the Sister Act duology, the cult classic Hocus Pocus, and 100+ other works. Prior to Saturday, CCE’s website had her listed as charging $40 for autograph/selfie combos at her table, an absolute steal. We weren’t the only fans to notice. By 11 a.m. she had a line twice the size of Baccarin’s. Around 2 p.m. we learned her autograph/selfie combos were now $60. Last we checked, her line hadn’t gotten any shorter. By 3 p.m. we were done with long lines for the month and regretfully moved on.

As is normal for CIncinnati, Star Wars had a firm presence throughout the show floor, which we noted as we strolled ’round the place while waiting for Baccarin’s 2:25 photo op.

Tatooine diorama! We photographed this last time we were in town but from a different angle. Someone also slightly rearranged the Stormtrooper mannequin.

Ponda Baba mannequin, of the kind seen at your typical Aqualish fashion malls.

New to our eyes and cameras was a big booth for and by Lost in Space fans. Anne has seen episodes; I haven’t.

Anne in command on the Jupiter 2 flight deck, presumably doing her best impression of what Dr. Smith would do whenever anyone asked him to do something useful.

A collection of Lost in Space props and merchandise included this space helmet actually used on the show.

Full disclosure: I bought zero comics and zero graphic novels. We walked the entirety of Artists Alley and the exhibit hall. A fair number of top DC Comics creators were on hand signing and sketching, none of them working on DC titles I currently collect, which has been a short list for years. Even setting them aside…I just wasn’t feeling it. I usually look forward to overspending on new reading matter at cons, but I had a sort of mental clampdown. There’re a few reasons for that, but I’m not in the mood to double this entry’s word count for the sake of it.

I did buy a few items from one of the craft booths — a Hawkeye-themed painted canvas that may come in handy at work, as well as a few buttons for my backpack, which lost a few in Atlanta. I’m still kicking myself that I didn’t get the very benevolent seller’s name so I could plug her site and/or store here. She took a photo of the two of us with the mini-canvas, so if you happen to see a surprise photo of us either on Instagram or Etsy, let us know?

To kill more time, I grabbed a snack from the Tom & Chee booth, and we had a friendly chat with another Morena Baccarin fan from Tennessee, one who’s been trying to meet her at cons for years. We talked comics, lines, and how outsiders sometimes don’t get how much work these comic-con experiences can be. The photos, souvenirs, and artifacts we bring home look cool and signify pure fun, but the lines and the walking and the standing and the traveling can get wearying and trying, especially as we age and our bodies stop tolerating these hours-long slow-motion marathons that we put ourselves through. Hence our occasional need for more sugar.

Behold the “Red Leader”, a grilled donut sliced in half and topped with chocolate, mascarpone, marshmallow, and cherries. In 2017 they used dark chocolate and strawberries, and they called it the “Dark Vader”. I see what you did there, Tom and/or Chee.

Did I mention there were costumes? Of course there were costumes. Nearly all of the following photos of creativity cheerfully amok were Anne’s doing partly because I spent too much time in lines, and partly because the exhibit hall aisles were so narrow and thickly crowded with thousands of happy people that it was next to impossible for me to comfortably brake traffic in both directions without feeling like a big awkward road construction barrier getting in the way and ruining everyone’s travel times. We don’t have a lot of cosplay photos this time, but we’re happy with who we got. Once again, Star Wars ruled the category.

Ice Cream Maker Guy! Because someone on Bespin had to be in charge of dessert.

Princess Leia’s Bespin dress, a variant rarely seen in cosplay.

A dancing Stormtrooper who believes in the old adage, “Boogie like the Emperor isn’t watching.”

Star Wars group cosplay.

The cast of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. They brought and used their own coconuts.

Alice in Wonderland group cosplay. When Anne took a few seconds too long to finish up, the Queen of Hearts shouted, “OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!”

The 7th Doctor was one of two Doctor Who fans who kept us company in line while we all waited for the hall to open for the day.

The MCC Mandatory Department of Deadpool Cosplay Variants presents…Hufflepuffpool?

Possibly our Best of Show: Bette Midler’s Winifred from Hocus Pocus.

…and that was essentially our day. We took our leave of the convention center around 3:00. I was sorry we were too beat down to stick around for the panel starring the Star Wars chaps and the even later Q&A for all the Firefly guests. By then, though, I really was burned out and done. But happy with the acquistions, such as art…

Three buttons and comics-inspired art.

…and autographs. Anne enjoyed new additions to her Star Wars collection, and I met a personal milestone. My Firefly DVD set has now been officially signed by all nine original cast members — an objet d’art six years in the making, signed across three states. For extra credit it’s also cosigned by Mark Sheppard (Supernatural, Leverage), who appeared in two episodes and who was also at Awesome Con Indy 2014 alongside Jewel Staite. Sheppard was the first person to suggest I stood a chance of ever meeting the entire cast and insisted on keeping his signature small to accommodate this potential future. To me this fanciful notion sounded awfully far-fetched. Years later, here we are.

Slightly devalued in one respect: in a bit of clumsy excitement I accidentally put my thumbprint right in the middle of Jewel Staite’s not-yet-dried autograph. I was utterly horrified at the time, but in hindsight such a flaw makes it even more personalized, and on some levels is apropos of the show itself.

The End. Thanks for reading! Lord willing, we’ll see you again next year. Unless 2020 is the year we turn into cranky homebodies. We hope not.

[Entry edited 9/22/2019 per Anne due to a Hoth-related oversight on my part. The management regrets the error.]