Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

My wife Anne and I enjoy attending entertainment and comic conventions together, whether in our hometown of Indianapolis or in our neighboring states (and sometimes even farther). We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do. This weekend we once again drove two hours southeast of Indianapolis to attend the sixteenth annual Cincinnati Comic Expo, their own version of our usual Midwest cons. After a two-year relocation to the Sharonville Convention Center, this year CCE returned at last to downtown Cincy’s newly renovated, erstwhile Duke Energy Convention Center — now rechristened the First Financial Center. This was our sixth time at CCE, which we’ve been visiting on and off since 2016. We bought weekend passes for this occasion a while back, but by showtime they only had two guests list we considered absolute musts whom we hadn’t met before. So we deleted a Friday hotel stay from the itinerary and drove in Saturday morning for just the one day. We made the most of our limited time…

…which included the special guest in our lead photo: Vicki Lawrence! Boomers know her as one of the stars of The Carol Burnett Show, while some Gen-X-ers fondly recall her as Thelma Harper from its ’80s sitcom spinoff Mama’s Family, which ran on NBC first before jumping to syndication with a rearranged supporting cast. Anne has seen way more episodes than I have, but there were more than a few keepers among its six seasons — the one where Burnett’s recurring character Eunice sings at a wedding in a drunken rage, the one where Thelma goes on Jeopardy!, the one where they all go on Family Feud, the Rashomon homage, et al. Once CCE announced Lawrence would be attending and doing photo-ops in costume, we pretty much locked them into our schedule.

Her fans of course may have enjoyed her recurring appearances on other shows — Laverne & Shirley, Hannah Montana, Apple’s Palm Royale, various game shows, and more, more, more. Or maybe they caught her ’90s talk show, or recall her one pop-chart hit “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia”, or what have you. We chatted with several fans sporting Mama’s Family T-shirts — including her own booth handler! — from such sources as Temu, Teepublic, Redbubble and so forth. Anyone who wanted a pic with Vicki as herself had their chance in the day.

Yes, we did both — the “normal” photo around noon, then the Mama op shortly before 5. From the line we all had the pleasure of her walking toward the photo-op area in costume and ambling at Mama speed, carrying her purse. Her morning autograph line had been short enough that she remembered us again when we walked in for the first op. When we showed up once more at the end of our day, Anne asked if we could do jazz hands. She responded in that trademark Mama edgy-crone voice of hers, “AGAIN?” Thankfully she didn’t clobber us with her purse.

She was our biggest reason for coming into town, but other forms of fun abounded. We arrived shortly around 8 a.m. to find drivers stymied by I-75 construction on downtown Cincy’s west side, which had been closed altogether at 9 pm Friday night and diverted southbound traffic off Exit 1F all weekend long. To their credit, the CCE showrunners had alerted attendees to this considerable obstacle as soon as they knew about it, so I was aware in enough time to re-Google the directions at 9:30 pm Friday and prepare our alternate route. Once past that detour, e parked at the same garage we’d last used in 2023 and laid eyes on their exterior renovations.

The new sidewalks and greenery encouraged lots of locals to walk their dogs that morning. To our middle-aged dismay, upon arrival we found their all-new restrooms were still locked as of 8 am.

We enjoyed chatting with other attendees in the various lines leading up to showtime: another couple our age who love pets and have spent much more time at Yellowstone than we have; a family of three who’re MSTies like me, and got to see the recent new episode at the theater; a father and his rather accomplished daughter who showed us pics of the enviable bookshelves they’d recently built themselves. The doors were supposed to open at 8:30; by our watches, they finally did so at 8:48. Same as last time, the convention center owners — despite any protests from CCE’s showrunners — had a firm rule forbidding outside food or drinks, including even something as simple and healthy as bottled waters. Literally no other convention center we’ve ever been in, throughout all our many cons, has ever ordered security to throw out bottled waters. This year they inspected bags a little less hard, so I’m aware that one fan, who shall remain nameless, managed to smuggle in two entire bottled waters this time. I’m so proud of her for sticking it to The MAN.

Their food-and-drink monopoly appeared to extend beyond outside sources: unlike all our other cons, there were almost no such vendors in the exhibit-hall aisles — no fudge companies, no Asian snacks, no geek-themed cookies, nothing…except of course for Wild Bill’s, fan-favorite Midwest comic-con purveyors of root beer in multiple varieties, served in mugs with free refills and no lids so they’re easy to spill all over the vendors’ tables or on other passersby if you aren’t careful.

Likewise, all the local Cincinnati restaurants who used to give this center the all-time greatest comic-con dining experience apparently didn’t renew their contracts — no Skyline Chili, no LaRosa’s Pizza, no Tom & Chee, nada. In their place were four generic booths called Crave-A-Nati, each with a limited menu — one with burgers, one with barbecue, one with empanadas, and one with chicken tenders. For anyone with a sweet tooth, those same four booths also sold movie-theater candy. That’s it, that’s all the sugar they had on hand. Otherwise it was a three-block walk to the nearest Graeter’s Ice Cream…but if we’d left the convention center to go enjoy that, then we’d have to pass through security again upon our return and potentially have our waters confiscated.

Full disclosure and grudging admission: we had the barbecue for lunch. Convention center pricing sucks the same as it ever has at any center everywhere, but the meat was tender, the sauce options had effort put into them (I had the chipotle), the baked beans had a spicy kick to them, and the mac-and-cheese was pretty close to homemade anti-Kraft quality. But oh, how some afternoon snacks would’ve been such a welcome pick-me-up after all those hours of walking.

Hospitality letdowns aside, we persisted nevertheless. In addition to Mama, one other guest was on our must-list: Paul Dini! The celebrated writer is among the biggest names for us fans of Batman: The Animated Series, not to mention all the other cartoons he worked on throughout his long career, most of them for Warner Brothers. The co-creator of Harley Quinn, Batman Beyond, and others also dabbled in my beloved comics field with such books as Zatanna, Gotham City Sirens, the award-winning Batman: Mad Love, and more. I had him sign my copy of his haunting 2016 graphic-novel memoir Dark Night: A True Batman Story, which I wrote about at the time.

At the end of the moment, he asked about the Buc-ee’s shirt I was wearing under my Batman: TAS shirt, and we wound up digressing for another minute. The shirt was an ice-breaker for quite a few folks we encountered throughout the day, from the garage exit to the “Mama” photo-op line. Everybody recognizes Buc-ee now, apparently!

After lunch we had the pleasure of attending a Sketch Duel. These have become my favorite kind of panel in recent years, whenever a con arranges some and I recognize at least one of the artists. The participants are asked to draw something in a particular theme; they try to concentrate on sketching while a moderator asks them career-related questions or solicits same from the audience. It’s all in fun with no real winner except audience members: when the panel ends, the results are given away as prizes.

All three of our contestants have had long careers in the comics-adjacent world of illustrating ancillary products and merchandise for the biggest corporate IPs around — not on the animating side, they were all careful to point out, so any visitors to their Artists Alley tables would stop asking. The three gents:

Beaderstadt mostly concentrated on his sketching while the other two answered most of the audience questions. Aikins and Baltazar were surprised to learn they’ve both worked on Dr. Seuss projects, whereupon Aikins had to inform us “Dr. Seuss Babies” is now a thing. Baltazar recalled his early poor-artist years — as a pro, I mean — spending his comic-con-guesting weekends camping in state parks rather than staying in hotels, just to save money. (His peppy, rambling answers rated somewhere on the non sequitur soliloquy scale between William Shatner and Grandpa Simpson.) Aikins reiterated a personal stance he’d mentioned in 2023, that he doesn’t hide “Easter eggs” in his illustrations because he likes the paychecks too much to risk his employers’ wrath. Baltazar, by contrast, fondly told us about the time he and Chris Eliopoulos staged their own unapproved Tiny Titans/Franklin Richards Marvel/DC micro-crossover via Easter eggs. One of the gents made a slightly passionate defense for preferring Joe over Steve on Blue’s Clues. Song recommendations from the panel included Save Ferris’ “The World Is New” and UFO’s “Rock Bottom”.

Unlike most Sketch Duel panel rooms, this one wasn’t equipped with an overhead projector or table-side cameras, so we could only view the finished works by Chris walking them around. We didn’t want to hassle her by asking her to brake for us each time, so Anne snapped whatever glimpses she could. Not pictured due to blurring: Beaderstadt’s ornate, colorful rendition of Death from Trollords as a Star Trek redshirt. (I think.)

(Maybe not worth noting: this might’ve been the worst comic-con audience we’ve ever sat in when it came to phones ringing while panelists were talking. Nobody on stage said anything about it, but still. I don’t even run into this at movie theaters anymore, and I attend way more movies than cons.)

Later we made time for one more panel: a Firefly Q&A with Gina Torres and Summer Glau! I’d already enjoyed one Firefly panel back in 2015, which Glau was also on, but I’d never heard Torres hold court before. Also, now the cast had a new, relevant development: an ongoing effort to drum up backing for an animated continuation of the ‘verse. It doesn’t exist yet and nothing’s been signed, but at least it was a new, relevant subject to talk about for a couple minutes.

I took very few notes because (a) I mostly wanted to relax and listen, and (b) nobody ever cares if I summarize Q&As about TV shows that haven’t been around for decades. Firefly fans may note next year will mark the 25th anniversaries of both the show’s debut and its cancellation. The audience wasn’t quite so single-minded, though — they had questions about other shows they’ve done, such as Alias, Arrow, Hannibal, Angel, Suits, Big Bang Theory, Vox Machina, and possibly more.

In between scheduled activities, we walked the show floor a few times. Over in the autograph area, voice actor Yuri Lowenthal by far had the most persistent, never-ending line. Over in the main area, an extremely long line gathered first thing in the morning to meet comics superstar Scott Snyder. He was planned as a Saturday-only guest, but was also scheduled to spend his Friday and Sunday at Baltimore Comic Con. A couple hours after they’d queued up, his CCE fans were informed he wouldn’t make it into town till Sunday due to flight delayed by weather. For fans who’d only bought Saturday-only tickets, CCE offered to comp them Sunday admission. For fans who couldn’t attend Sunday regardless…who knows.

After their line dispersed, one fan vented at length at a dealer’s booth about how ticked he was that he and his daughter wasted all that time and wish they’d been told sooner. He and the dealer pondered the seemingly unfounded theory that maybe the weather thing was a lie and maybe Baltimore persuaded him to stick around at their show Saturday instead using greed-based perks. On a possibly unrelated note, Snyder was on hand to pick up his Ringo Award for Absolute Batman winning Best Series at Baltimore’s Saturday night ceremony, so that worked out for him, at least.

Meanwhile back in Cincinnati, the fan groups once again brought their prop replica collections. As always, we flocked first to the 501st Legion’s section right inside the hall entrance…

…and the Ghostbusters performed their usual charity fundraising efforts.

I didn’t spend as much in Artists Alley as I would’ve liked, due to finickiness, but we braked a few times.

Other stops not pictured:

• Ohio’s own Gem City Comics, my favorite comic-con purveyor of discounted trades and hardcovers.
• Hydra Publications, an indie publisher whose current roster includes an author I’ve known offline for years.
• A comics dealer whose name I didn’t catch, who brought copies of the recent Batman of Two Worlds special that was released for Batman Day last weekend, a holiday I rarely observe because I don’t believe in Batman.

One other li’l cool tidbit: this year’s CCE badges were all Batman: TAS-themed. Sadly, no one was playing the Dragon Con badge-ribbon game. I’m still carrying my Severance leftovers from last year.

Anyway, that was pretty much it for us. We left around 5:00, the minute we had the hard copy of our Mama moment in hand. We grabbed dinner at a Wendy’s drive-thru, where Anne indulged in a Frosty to offset the inexcusable dearth of viable yummy sugar at the First Financial Center.

The End. Thanks for reading! Lord willing, we’ll see you next con, which is TBD as of tonight. Updates as they occur!