Indiana Comic Convention 2026 Photos, Part 2 of 3: Nicolas Cage and Friends!

June 7, 2026 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Us doing jazz hands with Nicolas Cage, who seems a bit too stricken by something to smile.

Our next guest needs no introduction! About that expression, though…

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the twelfth edition of the Indiana Comic Convention at the Indiana Convention Center in downtown Indianapolis — a fun opportunity for fans to look at walls covered with old comics, build lightsabers, buy 3D-printed knickknacks, overstock on Funko Pops, respect the anime fandom whose population dwarfs us older generations, avoid AI “art”, and scratch their heads at the inexplicable comeback of the 19th-century rubber-duck fad.

Rather than dump all our pics into a single omnibus entry, we’re mercifully splitting them into a trilogy of galleries…

Rare are the opportunities when a Midwest comic-con signs a guest who’s such a significant household name that local news outlets treat it as a major headline event. Usually our cons are relegated to a Thursday morning sidebar to the effect of, “Looking for something to do this weekend? Lee Greenwood will be performing at the Fieldhouse, here’s a list of fifteen different farmers’ markets, our state parks are still pretty, and Hoosier Comic Expo is bringing in three Yellow Rangers, a canceled stand-up comic, and…uh, sorry, those are the only names we recognize and our Google’s broken.” Not so this time: ICC waited till a mere week before showtime to announce they’d scored Academy Award Winner Nicolas Cage’s Very First Appearance at an American Convention. This became a BIG DEAL. For once our journalists had something to write about besides sports.

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Indiana Comic Convention 2026 Photos, Part 1 of 3: Very Tiny Cosplay Sampler!

June 7, 2026 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment
three cosplayers, refer to caption

The Nightmare Before Christmas role call: Sally! Jack Skellington! Oogie Boogie!

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the twelfth edition of the Indiana Comic Convention at the Indiana Convention Center in scenic downtown Indianapolis, and by “scenic” I mean “overcrowded with more construction equipment than a Tonka Truck factory”. ICC 2026 was a fun opportunity for fans to look at walls covered with old comics, build lightsabers, buy 3D-printed knickknacks, overstock on Funko Pops, respect the anime fandom whose population dwarfs us older generations, avoid AI “art”, and scratch their heads at the inexplicable comeback of the 19th-century rubber-duck fad. The showrunners added still more square footage to their dominion, on track to match Gen Con’s imperial sprawl if they can keep up the pace for another 20-30 years or so. Apart from a few bottlenecked aisles, geek life had ample elbow room to thrive and sometimes enjoy breathing space in these hallowed halls of pop-culture commerce.

Rather than dump all our pics into a single omnibus entry, we’re mercifully splitting them into a trilogy of galleries. Up first: mandatory cosplay pics! We regret ours is such a measly collection, but: (a) we spent a lot of time in lines; (b) we tend to gravitate toward characters we recognize, and our recognition rate drops as the youngsters insist on liking different shows and comics than we do; and (c) everyone walks so fast and we’re old and tired and it’s all hot and it hurts an’ stuff. Even if we don’t capture them all on our own devices, we really do appreciate the cosplayers who brighten everyone’s experience.

The jazz-hands photo ops and other sights will be shared in the other chapters. We regret we can only represent a fraction of a sliver of an iota of a fraction of the total costumed wonderment that was on display this weekend. We’re just an aging couple doing what we can for happy sharing fun. Enjoy! Corrections are humbly welcomed for any we didn’t recognize or might’ve misidentified!

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Our 2023 Road Trip #25: Intro to Pigeon Forge and/or Gatlinburg

May 30, 2026 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Dragon-themed water park with no customers.

Here there be dragons!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Every year since 1999 Anne and I have taken one road trip to a different part of the United States and seen attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. From 1999 to 2003 we did so as best friends; from 2004 to the present, as husband and wife. After years of contenting ourselves with everyday life in Indianapolis and any nearby places that also had comics and toy shops, we overcame some of our self-imposed limitations and resolved as a team to leave the comforts of home for annual chances to see creative, exciting, breathtaking, outlandish, historical, and/or bewildering new sights in states beyond our own. We’re the Goldens. This is who we are and what we do…

Wisconsin Dells! Virginia Beach! Niagara Falls! And so on! We’ve visited our share of kitschy, tacky, larger-than-life tourist traps over the years. If they happen to be in our path, that’s cool, but we don’t necessarily make them the star of any given trip. Maybe someday we’ll plan a big expedition to Branson, that gold standard east of the Rockies, which was a popular annual vacation choice among the grandmothers and near-retirees I used to work with at the office. We’re not quite that old yet.

Other coworkers used to love taking their families down to Gatlinburg and/or Pigeon Forge, often for camping in or around the Great Smoky Mountains, enjoying affordable nature-based activities, and/or romping around country-fried faux-Western attractions. While we were in the vicinity anyway, we figured why not spend a night in the area and glance at a few of their outlandish constructs. Admittedly we weren’t clear where Gatlinburg ended and Pigeon Forge began. They’re not advertised as twin cities, but any boundary between their realities was paper-thin and imperceptible.

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Our 2023 Road Trip #24: The Apex Formerly Known as Clingmans Dome

May 29, 2026 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Anne and me atop Clingmans Dome!

I posted an alternate take of this moment on the occasion of our 19th anniversary.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Every year since 1999 Anne and I have taken one road trip to a different part of the United States and seen attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. From 1999 to 2003 we did so as best friends; from 2004 to the present, as husband and wife. After years of contenting ourselves with everyday life in Indianapolis and any nearby places that also had comics and toy shops, we overcame some of our self-imposed limitations and resolved as a team to leave the comforts of home for annual chances to see creative, exciting, breathtaking, outlandish, historical, and/or bewildering new sights in states beyond our own. We’re the Goldens. This is who we are and what we do…

One of the drawbacks of posting less often than I used to, while remaining stubbornly committed to long-form miniseries such as this one, is that sometimes it takes me so long to share our experiences that a status quo can change dramatically between then and now, and I have to insert updates from our past’s future.

Case in point: upon our visit to Great Smoky Mountain National Park on June 29, 2023, the highest point in the park and in all of Tennessee — and, while we’re at it, the third-highest point on the Appalachian Trail — was a mountain called Clingmans Dome, standing an impressive 6,643 feet. (Not the tallest mountain we’ve ever stood atop, but still!) It was named after Thomas L. Clingman, a North Carolina politician who explored the area quite a bit according to the geographer friend who picked the name. Clingman served as a state senator, a U.S. Congressman, and a Confederate general. Yep, you can guess where this is going.

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“Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” Presents Baby Yoda: The Motion Picture

May 24, 2026 By in Movies/Films/Flicks, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Baby Yoda stands on sand and salutes you. Standing next to him are Din Djarin's shiny boots.

IT’S GROGIN’ TIME!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: We watch Star Wars movies and shows! My wife Anne and I have kept up with most of the Disney+ series, for better or worse. We aren’t unconditional superfans preaching, “If it says Star Wars on it, it’s A+++!” in a glassy-eyed haze, nor do we hate-watch it and share high-strung “cave-geek shakes impotent angry fist at toy line” harangues for hollow YouTube bucks while our souls decompose into gnarled, oily nubs.

The far-faraway galaxy is large; it contains multitudes. Granted, that’s more of a four-quadrant marketing design than a magnanimous diversity credo. Billion-dollar corporations don’t stay megalithic by catering exclusively to any singular faction. The universe that began with the classic Jedi lightsaber battles of your sacrosanct childhood memories — or your children’s, if you’ve passed down your pop-culture heritage to them! — also includes the protracted Clone Wars continuity, the politically charged Andor, the kiddie-cartoon-to-steely-drama evolution of Star Wars Rebels, the cosmopolitan artistic experiments of Star Wars Visions, the books and comics that can matter but usually don’t, in-story toyetic adverts, nostalgia-pandering, Morals of the Story, super awesome EXPLOSIONS, the aesthetic sins and redemptive apologia of Jar-Jar Binks, spaceships, Halloween masks, clothing lines, infrequent moments of This Is Cinema, and, yes, the character we knew for years as Baby Yoda till The Powers That Be eventually bothered to name him.

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Our 2023 Road Trip #23: Great Smoky Mountain Bear Watch

May 22, 2026 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Me and Anne posing behind a wooden sign on a mountain road: "North Carolina - Tennessee state line, elevation 5046 feet, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The Newfound Gap Overlook at Great Smoky Mountain National Park: no bears.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Every year since 1999 Anne and I have taken one road trip to a different part of the United States and seen attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. From 1999 to 2003 we did so as best friends; from 2004 to the present, as husband and wife. After years of contenting ourselves with everyday life in Indianapolis and any nearby places that also had comics and toy shops, we overcame some of our self-imposed limitations and resolved as a team to leave the comforts of home for annual chances to see creative, exciting, breathtaking, outlandish, historical, and/or bewildering new sights in states beyond our own. We’re the Goldens. This is who we are and what we do…

In all our southern travels throughout the years, the only time we’d ever laid eyes upon the Great Smoky Mountains was at a faraway remove from Knoxville, Tennessee. We’d seen them blocking the horizon, but had never made time to add Great Smoky Mountain National Park to the list of national parks we’ve sauntered into, despite recommendations from some of my coworkers who made the Smokies and the nearby cities of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge their families’ annual getaways. Maybe that’s why we resisted for so long: going the same place every year for vacation has never been our thing as a couple (unless you count comic-cons) and it felt weird to follow their footsteps too closely, if that makes any sense.

This year we agreed it was time. We knew they’d be beautiful, maybe we’d catch a few unusual sights, and — kind of an in-joke between the two of us — maybe we’d spot our very first bear in the wild. Longtime MCC readers may recall our 2021 visit to Yellowstone National Park, which we’d heard had bears but contained exactly zero of them throughout our day there. Plenty of other four-legged creatures frolicked and gamboled and/or stood motionlessly in the shade, but the place was bear-free. We began to wonder if bears didn’t actually exist in America or were a myth invented by zoos to sell more tickets and toys.

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“Mortal Kombat II”: Another Chosen One Inserts Fifty Cents

May 21, 2026 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Karl Urban as Johnny Cage manning a comic-con table covered in his own merchandise, mostly awful DVDs.

Alas, Johnny Cage might have an autograph line if only he’d ever done some anime voice-work.

Previously on Mortal Kombat: I’m not a deeply invested fan — even “fan” might be an overstatement — but I’ve dabbled in the franchise. Back in my fast-food management days, after closing time a friend and I would hang out at a local 24-hour grocery that had a Mortal Kombat II cabinet by the front doors. Their overnight crew ignored us while we virtually whaled on each other for a while. I learned the moves for Liu Kang and Jax, just barely enough to get by, but I was never a serious threat. Years later I saw the first live-action MK film on VHS -– Paul W.S. Anderson’s primitive directorial debut that should’ve been irredeemably terrible. It bunny-hopped over the low bar of “better than most direct-to-video martial-arts schlock” for its time. I may have even laughed once or twice at intentionally funny parts. Obviously one game plus one B-movie doesn’t quite add up to MK geek-cred.

I didn’t bother with TV-commercial director Simon McQuoid’s 2021 Mortal Kombat reboot in its COVID-era release. Reviews weren’t encouraging, but audiences — not at the American box office, but somewhere out there — apparently plunked down just enough quarters to continue the game anyway. I would’ve ignored Mortal Kombat II just as hard if the trailers hadn’t thrown in a new, confusing element that begged the question: what is Karl Urban doing in there? Curiosity got the best of me. I even prepped for the occasion by watching the last film (streaming on Max), mostly regretted it, and committed to letting the sequel pummel me on the big screen, for better or worse.

Really, though: Karl Urban? Eomer? Billy Butcher? Skurge? Dr. McCoy? Judge Dredd? THAT Karl Urban?

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54-14 or Write: Another Back-to-Back Blog Anniversary and Birthday

May 17, 2026 By in Indiana, Meta Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
me doing jazz hands in front of a giant replica of Derpy the magic blue cat from "KPop Demon Hunters".

Derpy and Derpy, coming this fall to The CW! Taken the previous weekend at PopCon Indy 2026.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: we have annual traditions ’round these parts! Two such occasions fall three weeks apart each year, often but not always receiving separate entries of incredulous self-congratulation. In this attention-deficit we once again offer two for the bandwidth of one, a pretty sweet deal in any economy, not just this one.

I launched this wee blog on April 28, 2012, three weeks before my 40th birthday as a means of charting the effects of the aging process on my opinions of, enthusiasm for, offense at, and/or detailed nitpicking of various works of art, expression, humanity, inhumanity, glory, love, idolatry, inspiration, hollowness, geek lifestyles, food, and Deep Thoughts. MCC has also served as a digital scrapbook for our annual road trips, comic cons, birthday expeditions, and other modest travels. It’s a general repository for any other content that comes to mind and feels worth the time and effort to type up, proofread, and release unto a world-at-large that rarely visits websites anymore because social-media angst is the sole reading matter of choice among today’s average digital participant. The best part about entertaining myself here in my own little hermit shack is that I own the place and I don’t have to worry about moderators editing or deleting my posts, which is nice.

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Indianapolis Welcomes “Airplane! Live” With Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty

May 17, 2026 By in Conventions & Events, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Airplane logo backdrop behind Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, and just me doing jazz hands.

Robert Hays! Julie Hagerty! And in the middle, Leon is getting laaaarger!

Dateline: Friday, May 15, 2026 — Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife Anne and I do stuff for each other’s birthdays! Usually it’s a road trip somewhere outside our hometown of Indianapolis. This year for my birthday, we attended something completely different: the very same weekend, Indy would be the first stop on a repertory roadshow tour for Airplane!, that 1980 parody classic from the young directing team of Jerry and David Zucker and Jim Abrahams. I trust it needs no introduction regarding the incessant goofiness and wall-to-wall gags that cemented its legacy as a critical comedic ancestor to The Simpsons and all the works it influenced in turn, to say nothing of its mythic status as a touchstone to today’s retro Dad-Joke culture.

I rarely see old films in theaters — as I recall, the only other time I’ve done so in this blog’s 14-year existence was the 4K re-release of Die Hard — but this event sweetened the pot: following the screening would be a Q&A with stars Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty, who so wondrously brought to life the roles of disgraced war pilot Ted Striker and sweet-natured stewardess Elaine Dickinson. We said to each other, “Surely they can’t be serious.”

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“Fuze”: 4 Guys Walk Under a Bank

May 15, 2026 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Military man Aaron Taylor-Johnson lies on ground, stares at two snaking black wires.

“Wait, which do I snip first, the black wire or the blacker wire?”

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Sometimes I go to the movies and write about it! After the dense Oscars season ran me ragged through early March, I was okay with taking a break. It wasn’t completely by choice, mind you. The April release calendar seemed sparse except for a trio of populist colossi that toppled all competitors at the box office and had nothing to do with me: two sequels to films I hadn’t seen yet, and a sugarcoated pop-music hagiography that was all its subject’s undiscerning superfans really wanted, the better to revivify the estate’s merchandise sales and back-catalog earnings. Theater owners shoveled plenty of money into their coffers without me thanks to…well, to the average crowds who almost never step inside theaters anymore, really. Cinema is back, baby! I guess!

Remember last century when folks would pick a night and time to go to the movies, show up, then see what’s showing and decide what they wanted to see? No, really, this was a common activity for friends, family, and dates. I tried it a few times — sometimes to happy surprise (My Best Friend’s Wedding!) and sometimes to deep hurting (Problem Child 2). I haven’t done that in ages, but I toyed with the modern equivalent: I kept checking the AMC app every week and waiting for something — anything — to jump out at me and whisper, “Don’t let your entire AMC Stubs monthly fee go to waste!” Exactly once in April, I spotted a listing with just enough pedigree to earn a “sure, why not” outing: a short, twisty British heist thriller called Fuze that hardly garnered any public notice. It didn’t crack the U.S. Top 10 in its first week and was yanked from all local screens the next weekend. It’ll be streaming at the end of May, and probably discounted before autumn, but its thoughtful approach to well-trodden ground deserves a mention.

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PopCon Indy 2026 Photos, Part 2 of 2: The Brave and the Bold Starring Batman and the Tick!

May 10, 2026 By in Conventions & Events, Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
us doing jazz hands with Diedrich Bader, who's wearing glasses and awesome.

Hi, it’s Diedrich Bader! You might remember him from The Drew Carey Show, Office Space, and plenty more!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the latest edition of PopCon Indy, an entertainment convention locally owned and run here in our own hometown of Indianapolis. And we do love the convenience of events practically in our backyard so we can save on hotel costs and park for free at my workplace if the weather’s nice. We attended their first three shows (2014-2016), but began feeling out-of-place as the guest lists began targeting much younger geek demographics. Ten years later, here we are again! We only attended Saturday, but we accomplished our modest goals, such as “have a blast”…

…not to mention “meet new faces” and “buy stuff”. For extra credit, we also attended a panel! Hopefully that makes up for us losing an entire letter grade by eating lunch at the convention center even though we know better.

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PopCon Indy 2026 Photos, Part 1 of 2: Tiny Cosplay Gallery!

May 9, 2026 By in Conventions & Events, Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
John Jones cosplayer with accurate detective clothing and very specific sunglasses, carrying cardboard replica of psychedelic Absolute Martian Manhunter

Detective John Jones and the psychedelic alien in his head from DC Comics’ deeply trippy Absolute Martian Manhunter.

This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the latest edition of PopCon Indy, an entertainment convention locally owned and run here in our own hometown of Indianapolis. Their inaugural 2014 shindig (under the original moniker “Indy PopCon”) was a massive undertaking and a phenomenal experience, where we met actors from some of our favorite works and were pretty impressed at a first-time comic-con being so well-run. And we do love the convenience of events practically in our backyard so we can save on hotel costs and park for free at my workplace if the weather’s nice.

We also attended the next two years’ shows, but began feeling out-of-place as the guest lists began targeting much younger geek demographics — fewer actors under 50, far more anime voice actors, YouTubers, and other influencers and fields outside our Gen-X spheres. We can’t blame them for giving the people what they want, especially after 2015’s special guest Markiplier brought in, by my conservative estimate, 630 million fans dying to meet him and willing to wait the rest of their lives in line if necessary. Some of them may still be there to this day, perhaps a bit miffed that he took such a long break to go film Iron Lung for a while before he resumed signing. His lines were quite the rodeo to witness from the outside, but it wasn’t our rodeo.

IPC 2016 held a few highlights for us, such as the only YouTuber I’ve ever wanted to meet, one of the most awkward comics panels I’ve ever asked a question in, and the height of Deadpool variant cosplay mania. But we bowed out for a while after that. It’s not them, it’s us. (Well, mostly us. It also didn’t help that sometimes their biggest guests were actors we’d already met at other cons.) But hey! Ten years later, here we are again! We only attended Saturday, but we accomplished our modest goals, such as “have a blast”.

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Happy Free Comic Book Day 2026 and/or Comics Giveaway Day 2026!

May 3, 2026 By in Comics/Lit, Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Twelve free comics, details below.

Once again putting the “fun” back in “Reading is fundamental!”

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: the first Saturday of every May is Free Comic Book Day, an 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, blood-soaked horror, all-ages cartoon characters, licensed merchandise, or what-have-you. 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 made on a budget of about $35 each.

Each year comic shops lure fans and curious onlookers inside their brick-and-mortar hideaways with a big batch of free new comics from all the major publishers and a bevy of smaller competitors deserving shelf space and consideration. I observe the holiday by getting up early, venturing to one or more comic shops as soon as they open for their occasion, picking up samples, and spending money on a few extra items as my way of thanking the proprietors for their service in the field of literacy.

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My 2025 Reading Stacks #5 of 5: Graphic Storytelling Finale

May 2, 2026 By in Comics/Lit Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Five graphic novels, refer to capsules.

Category 1: creator-owned books!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Welcome once again to our recurring MCC feature in which I scribble capsule reviews of everything I’ve read lately that was published in a physical format over a certain page count with a squarebound spine on it — novels, original graphic novels, trade paperbacks, infrequent nonfiction dalliances, and so on. Due to the way I structure my media-consumption time blocks, the list will always feature more graphic novels than works of prose and pure text, though I do try to diversify my literary diet as time and acquisitions permit.

Occasionally I’ll sneak in a contemporary review if I’ve gone out of my way to buy and read something brand new. Every so often I’ll borrow from my wife or from our local library. But the majority of our spotlighted works are presented years after the rest of the world already finished and moved on from them because I’m drawing from my vast unread pile that presently occupies four oversize shelves comprising thirty-three years of uncontrolled book shopping. I’ve occasionally pruned the pile, but as you can imagine, cut out one unread book and three more take its place…

…but at least the following OGNs and trades have been rescued from the unread pile and can move on to their next home, by which I mean the endless stacks in our library/Anne’s office, where they and the past several years’ other finished works wait for us to figure out which major appliance to get rid of so we can make room for a new bookshelf. I mean, do we really need a refrigerator?

Anyway, onward!

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My 2025 Reading Stacks #4: All the Prose That’s Left to Print

April 25, 2026 By in Comics/Lit Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
The first four books reviewed below.

First up: books with movie connections!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Welcome once again to our recurring MCC feature in which I scribble capsule reviews of everything I’ve read lately that was published in a physical format over a certain page count with a squarebound spine on it — novels, original graphic novels, trade paperbacks, infrequent nonfiction dalliances, and so on. Due to the way I structure my media-consumption time blocks, the list will always feature more graphic novels than works of prose and pure text, though I do try to diversify my literary diet as time and acquisitions permit.

Occasionally I’ll sneak in a contemporary review if I’ve gone out of my way to buy and read something brand new. Every so often I’ll borrow from my wife or from our local library. But the majority of our spotlighted works are presented years after the rest of the world already finished and moved on from them because I’m drawing from my vast unread pile that presently occupies four oversize shelves comprising thirty-three years of uncontrolled book shopping. I’ve occasionally pruned the pile, but as you can imagine, cut out one unread book and three more take its place…

…unless we do as Heracles and Iolaus did with the Hydra: set everything on fire so it can’t regrow. We’re not doing that; consequently, the never-ending literary consumption continues. So far we’ve covered two critical tomes by a premier TV critic, the two comics creators who showed up in my 2025 stacks the most, and a selection of graphic novels and trades that were great and/or tall. Next up: nothing but prose! Novels, memoirs, short-story collections — all words and virtually no pictures, apart from some spot illustrations.

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My 2025 Reading Stacks #3: Graphic Novel Highlights

April 19, 2026 By in Comics/Lit Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
6 Graphic Novels on brown kitchen table, refer to next six capsules.

Some of my favorite reads from last year…

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Welcome once again to our recurring MCC feature in which I scribble capsule reviews of everything I’ve read lately that was published in a physical format over a certain page count with a squarebound spine on it — novels, original graphic novels, trade paperbacks, infrequent nonfiction dalliances, and so on. Due to the way I structure my media-consumption time blocks, the list will always feature more graphic novels than works of prose and pure text, though I do try to diversify my literary diet as time and acquisitions permit.

Occasionally I’ll sneak in a contemporary review if I’ve gone out of my way to buy and read something brand new. Every so often I’ll borrow from my wife or from our local library. But the majority of our spotlighted works are presented years after the rest of the world already finished and moved on from them because I’m drawing from my vast unread pile that presently occupies four oversize shelves comprising thirty-three years of uncontrolled book shopping. I’ve occasionally pruned the pile, but as you can imagine, cut out one unread book and three more take its place…

…all of which I convince myself I’ll totally get to someday. Same holds true for writing about ’em. And now, more of the latter! It was nice to finish the second installment earlier, but we’ve dozens more to go before we sleep.

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My 2025 Reading Stacks #2: Two Graphic Novel MVPs

April 19, 2026 By in Comics/Lit Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
7 graphic novels written by Mark Russell, titles written about below.

2025: The Year I Began Tracking Down All the Mark Russell Works.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Welcome once again to our recurring MCC feature in which I scribble capsule reviews of everything I’ve read lately that was published in a physical format over a certain page count with a squarebound spine on it — novels, original graphic novels, trade paperbacks, infrequent nonfiction dalliances, and so on. Due to the way I structure my media-consumption time blocks, the list will always feature more graphic novels than works of prose and pure text, though I do try to diversify my literary diet as time and acquisitions permit.

Occasionally I’ll sneak in a contemporary review if I’ve gone out of my way to buy and read something brand new. Every so often I’ll borrow from my wife or from our local library. But the majority of our spotlighted works are presented years after the rest of the world already finished and moved on from them because I’m drawing from my vast unread pile that presently occupies four oversize shelves comprising thirty-three years of uncontrolled book shopping. I’ve occasionally pruned the pile, but as you can imagine, cut out one unread book and three more take its place…

…and the same holds true for my li’l ramshackle hobby-blog: cross one subject off my to-do list, five more get added to it. We’re long overdue to catch up and I’m tired of staring at all these stacks in our living room next to our PC desk. Let’s do some of this for the sake of spring cleaning! We’ll start with the two creators with more works in those stacks than any other.

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Our 2023 Road Trip #22: Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit

April 12, 2026 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment
Us in summer wear doing jazz hands in front of a giant prop can of Bush's Baked Beans, lying on its side in a visitor center.

Baked beans and jazz hands! Probably great together and totally not a volatile mix! What’s the worst that could happen?

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Every year since 1999 Anne and I have taken one road trip to a different part of the United States and seen attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. From 1999 to 2003 we did so as best friends; from 2004 to the present, as husband and wife. After years of contenting ourselves with everyday life in Indianapolis and any nearby places that also had comics and toy shops, we overcame some of our self-imposed limitations and resolved as a team to leave the comforts of home for annual chances to see creative, exciting, breathtaking, outlandish, historical, and/or bewildering new sights in states beyond our own. We’re the Goldens. This is who we are and what we do…

…though nearly every trip ends with return drives through states we’ve visited plenty of times. And yet, our neighboring states rarely run out of new misadventures, often involving foods and their manufacturing processes.

We’ve braked for beans before, including the Jelly Belly factory tour on our 2006 drive through Wisconsin and that time we saw real cacao beans in the South Bend Chocolate Company‘s delightfully fragrant backrooms in 2016. Sometimes beans are serious business and sometimes they’re comedy gold, depending on the context. Down in Tennessee we found a bit of both in the affable visitor center of another bean empire.

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Our 2023 Road Trip #21: The Andrew Johnson Fan Club

April 9, 2026 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Anne in sun hat posing neutrally next to a tall Andrew Johnson statue. Behind them are a beige brick building and a couple of thin trees.

Fun trivia: Andrew Johnson statues are nowhere near as common as Lincoln statues.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Every year since 1999 Anne and I have taken one road trip to a different part of the United States and seen attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. From 1999 to 2003 we did so as best friends; from 2004 to the present, as husband and wife. After years of contenting ourselves with everyday life in Indianapolis and any nearby places that also had comics and toy shops, we overcame some of our self-imposed limitations and resolved as a team to leave the comforts of home for annual chances to see creative, exciting, breathtaking, outlandish, historical, and/or bewildering new sights in states beyond our own. We’re the Goldens. This is who we are and what we do.

For 2023 it was time at last to venture to the Carolinas, the only southern states we hadn’t yet visited…

…which we exited after breakfast on Day Six. We spent the rest of our last full day in Tennessee, where we checked off an item on another to-do list of ours. On past trips we’d visited the graves, tombs, mausoleums and virtual posthumous palaces of the Presidents of the United States of America with varying accommodations and budgets. As our sole long-distance driver and a part-time retro-gamer who’s a fan of side quests, I’ve enjoyed those little jaunts so much that we’ve been planning our recent vacations around them. We don’t know if we’ll get to every dead President, but it’s fun trying.

And that means every American President, not just your fan-favorites. We’ve seen James Buchanan’s in southern Pennsylvania, Chester A. Arthur’s in Albany, and even Warren Harding’s giant Greek temple in Ohio. They can’t all be Best Presidents Ever, and they’re all interred somewhere. Some are fancier than others, but nary a President has ended up in a potter’s field. So far, so good.

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Easter Sunday in the Park With a Kid Astronaut

April 5, 2026 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
25-foot statue of a Black boy wearing an astronaut helmet, sitting in a city park and gazing toward the sky.

Plainfield’s latest art installation The Dream Gazer, dedicated March 7th.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: in between our conventions and road trips, sometimes my wife Anne and I find new sights in our own Indianapolis backyard. On this very Easter morning we discovered a new park in nearby Plainfield that we’d heard nothing about until I looked it up just now. In light of the ongoing saga of the ambitious Artemis II Moon-orbiting mission that’s been a promising endeavor and a welcome distraction from everyday headline hysteria, it was fun to spend a few minutes with a super-sized astronaut of sorts.

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