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!

The Mandalorian and Grogu, now in theaters! For now!

Padme brought two other, less temperamental Jedi to hang out with.

Hogwarts’ own Professor Trelawney!

Also in her world: Arthur and Ginny Weasley!

Moon Knight in his bespoke “Mr. Knight” persona.

Wolverinepool! Or Deadverine! Whichever!

Catwoman!

Young Penguin from Gotham, who could also be a dead ringer for Dr. Whitaker from The Pitt.

My best guess is Astrid, the Dark Brotherhood’s lead recruiter from Skyrim.

Not a Minion, and definitely not an Adventure Time Banana Guard. What do You, the Viewers at Home, think?

To be continued!