GalaxyCon Columbus 2025 Photos, Part 3 of 4: Comics!

Six graphic novels, an omnibus, a Godzilla T-shirt, a button and a flimsy cardstock con badge.

My reading haul this year, plus a little extra merch.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Anne and I enjoy attending entertainment and comic conventions together, whether in our hometown of Indianapolis or in adjacent states (or sometimes beyond). She’s been doing them since the early ’90s, and invited me to tag along as our relationship evolved from classmates to coworkers to neighbors to BFFs to married geeks twenty years and counting. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

This weekend we attended the fourth annual Galaxycon Columbus in Ohio’s very own Greater Columbus Convention Center. The show returned with another lengthy guest list for fans of all media across the pop culture spectrum…

…which included comics at the comic con! As the easternmost show that we attend every year, GCC recruits quite a formidable lineup of creators for their Artist Alley, a boon for us longtime readers that includes some folks who haven’t traveled very west yet.

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Indiana State Fair 2025 Photos, Part 6 of 7: The Year in Antiques

Oversized comic book with the Star Wars on it.

A gratuitous choice of oldie to lead off: the oversized Marvel Special Edition Presents Star Wars #1, which reprinted the first three issues of their original 1977 series. Cover art by Howard Chaykin.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides, cooking demos, concerts by musicians either nearly or formerly popular, and farm animals competing for cash prizes without their knowledge. My wife Anne and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context…

One of the fair’s regular features is the antiques competition, chiefly displayed on the second floor of the Indiana Arts Building. No one’s ever posted the rules, criteria, rankings, or anything expository beyond signage implying, “Here are some antiques not for sale.” Contestants bring in ancient items they unearthed somewhere, a secret council convenes far from inquisitive eyes, prize ribbons are placed next to some of them, yadda yadda yadda, they’re at your Indiana State Fair.

Amid the quilts and ’50s baby dolls and blue-and-white dishware, a few items with historical value and/or pop culture cachet will catch our attention. We congratulate the winners of this year’s Antiques We Noticed Most Contest!

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Dragon Con 2025 Photos, Part 13 of 13: A Conclusion of Convivial Concatenation

Three "Inside Out" cosplayers and me smiling and holding a glowing yellow ball of Joy.

Okay, maybe one more cosplay pic: alternate shot of Envy, Joy and Anger from Inside Out who invited me into Riley’s head.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

In 2019 my wife Anne and I attended our very first Dragon Con in Atlanta, Georgia, one of the longest-running science fiction conventions in America. We once again made the eight-hour drive from Indianapolis and returned for our fourth nonconsecutive Labor Day weekend at that amazing colossal southern spectacle. We can’t conscientiously afford to do D*C every year, but we’ll see how long we can keep up an every-other year schedule before we’re too old or overwhelmed to handle it…

…and it all comes down to this: everything else we did at the show across our 2½ days that didn’t involve cosplay or actors. Comics! Shopping! Panels! Shrines! Et cetera!

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Fan Expo Chicago 2025 Photos, Part 3 of 3: Comics and More!

one Spike Funko Pop and eight books that'll be alluded to throughout the entry.

The latest additions to my reading stacks and one new toy for my work desk.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the fourth edition of Fan Expo Chicago at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in the suburb of Rosemont, Illinois. In 2022 they arose from the ashes of the late Wizard World Chicago, which we attended eleven times, and have expended tremendous efforts to maintain the previous showrunners’ geek-marketed traditions to keep luring in longtime fans and newcomers alike…

…and it all comes down to this: everything else about our convention weekend that I didn’t already share: chiefly, the comics! The shopping! The miscellaneous!

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My 2024 Reading Stacks #2 of 2: The Omnibus Edition

The first fur books covered in this entry, all of them large hardcovers.

Special thanks to Gem City Books out of Dayton, OH, for showing up at comic-cons and selling such oversized collections at enticing discounts.

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…

…and so on goes the usual intro. Last year’s stacks are cluttering the living-room space next to our PC but can’t be put away till this delayed annual tradition is finished. Onward, then, for feng shui‘s sake! Starting with the heaviest! Keep in mind, all these numbers aren’t rankings, just random tallying, not even listed in actual reading order. Continue reading

The Best of My Free Comic Book Day 2025

15 Free Comic Book Day comics laid side-by-side on our kitchen table.

One-third of this year’s total complimentary offerings, in no particular order.

That time of year has come and gone again! Saturday, May 3rd was the 24nd 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 in rare instances real-world protagonists. 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 shoddier than actual B-movies.

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 each shop for their service in the field of literacy.

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C2E2 2025 Photos, Part 4 of 4: Comics and More!

Six comics on a table: Ain't No Grave, Living Hell, The Schlub, Let's Make Bread!, Mister Miracle, and Peppermint Desert.

Hey, kids! Comics!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the latest edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), a three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, plush dolls, variant covers, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. We missed a couple of past installments since their inaugural 2010 gala, but more often than not, whenever they send out the call to convene, we’re happy to answer…

…and one of my favorite aspects of C2E2 is Artists Alley, one of the largest and most diverse of its kind in all the Midwest. Maybe it’s hard to tell by looking at my last several months’ posts, but comics have been my primary hobby since age 6. Sure, jazz hands with famous folks are cool, but graphic storytelling is my bag. This year was no exception, though nigh-impassable aisles posed a serious challenge to getting in, through, and out.

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Indiana Comic Convention 2025 Photos, Part 2 of 3: The Stars in Our Galaxy!

Us doing jazz hands with Rainn Wilson, who wears a flannel shirt, glasses, beard, and glum Dwight-like expression.

Meet the new assistants to the assistant to the regional manager!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the eleventh edition of the Indiana Comic Convention at the Indiana Convention Center in scenic downtown Indianapolis. ICC 2025 was another 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, and navigate those vast crowds. This year the showrunners occupied more square footage than ever, and last year’s edition was by no means dinky. Geek life had more space to thrive and sometimes enjoy some breathing space in between some of the narrower alleys of thriving pop-culture commerce…

…which for us worked out to a fair mix of comics and celebrities, with light shopping in between. We’d met a number of the guest list’s highest-profile names at past cons, but a few newcomers to Indy caught our attention and lured us in, such as the distinguished content provider in our lead photo — a frequent podcaster, co-founder of an erstwhile interfaith networking site, author of three books, and three-time Emmy Award Nominee who lost to guys like Jeremy Piven and Jon Cryer, thus proving the Emmys are a corrupt institution no more reliable a barometer of aesthetic transcendence than the Fangoria Chainsaw Awards, who likewise nominated and denied him.

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My 2024 Reading Stacks #1

My Favorite Thing is Monsters v.2 and Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons.

Two of my favorite reads of the year: oversized-pages division.

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.

I’ve previously written why I don’t do eBooks. Perhaps someday I’ll also explain why these capsules are exclusive to MCC and not shared on Amazon, Goodreads, or other sites where their authors might prefer I’d share them. In the meantime, here’s me and my recent reading results.

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The Billy Ireland Museum Presents Original Art from the Golden Age of Comics

Alex Raymond Rip Kirby 6-27-1953!

Alex Raymond, the Rip Kirby strip for June 27, 1953.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I drove three hours from Indianapolis to attend the third annual GalaxyCon Columbus in the heart of Ohio’s very capital, met one of my all-time favorite performers, bought comics, chatted with fellow fans, and fled the place around 12:30 Saturday because it wasn’t the only comics-related event I wanted to check out in town. Fortunately we just missed the Great Convention Center Wi-Fi Crash of 2024 and the ensuing descent into temporary cash-only savagery.

We got our first taste of the Columbus comics scene in 2015 when we attended the inaugural Cartoon Crossroads Columbus and, while we were in town anyway, visited the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at Ohio State University, a graphic-storytelling tribute space with rotating exhibits and free admission. ‘Twas a fun Saturday for us, but for some reason we took and posted very few photos from the occasion.

This year GalaxyCon partnered with the Ireland for a bit of cross-promotion that included a Friday night VIP event attended by some of the con’s guests. We couldn’t work out the logistics to attend that soiree, but I wanted to see the museum’s latest showcase — a fascinating gallery of original art from the Golden Age of comic books and strips. We snapped quite a few more pics this time.

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GalaxyCon Columbus 2024 Photos, Part 2 of 2: “Weird Al” Yankovic and Everything Else!

Us doing jazz hands with Weird Al, all of us wearing festive tropical-style shirts. Anne is also wearing a Santa hat.

The man! The myth! The master of musical mirth!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the third annual GalaxyCon Columbus in Ohio’s very own Greater Columbus Convention Center. The show returned with another lengthy guest list for fans of all media across the pop culture spectrum…though the two of us didn’t actually do a lot this time for a variety of reasons, and this year’s edition had a few logistical issues. Nevertheless, the show went on…

And what a show it was! We accomplished all our primary objectives, which was a shorter list than usual due to self-imposed budgetary restrictions. Frankly, we’ve had a long year of fiercely competitive, increasingly more expensive comic-cons and some non-geek expenditures we need to handle at fun’s expense. Also, unlike the last two GalaxyCons, there just weren’t a lot of actors on the list we wanted to meet that badly. We’d met several of them before, including the arguably biggest name, former teen star Hayden Christensen, who was at Indiana Comic Con last March. We had a couple of maybes on the list, but ultimately we had to be choosy.

I may also have been more nervous than usual because of an old comic-con war wound.

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If Two Million People Do a Foolish Thing, It Is Still a Foolish Thing

"If two million people do a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

Old friends Milo, Opus, and Portnoy from back in the day.

New generations aren’t learning about Berke Breathed’s Bloom County from their schools, peers, or influencers. Comic strips in general seem a forgotten artform among The Kids These Days. Recently a young coworker looked at the Linus Van Pelt standing in the li’l Funko Pop collection on my desk and called him “Lionel”. I wept more than a little inside. But some of us olds will never forget the wisdom we picked up from the newspaper funnies.

Nearly 40 years since its original publication a couple weekends before I turned 13, I’ve never forgotten that simple quote from P. Opus, the world’s largest-nosed penguin. I’ve thought about it a lot ever since — offline and here. The voices in my head have found no reason to retire it yet, not when society keeps proving him true.

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Yes, There Are Scenes During and After the “Venom: The Last Dance” End Credits

Tom Hardy walking in a desert with a CGI balloon tethered to his back. The balloon had scary teeth and Spider-Man eyes.

The Mirror Universe version of The Red Balloon.

Midlife Crisis Crossover calls Venom: The Last Dance the least worst Venom film in cinema history! Unless we count movies about snakes containing literal venom!

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“Joker: Folie à Deux”: The Last Laugh Is the Best and Only Laugh

Poster for "Joker Folie a Deux" hanging in a theater lobby with gray walls above a red couch.

Oh, great, THIS frickin’ guy again.

So I saw this during the week of the Heartland International Film Festival, when it served as a sort of contrasting intermission between eight other smaller, better films. I was much more motivated to type about all of those first (along with two other delayed non-festival entries), but the MCC rule is every film I see in theaters gets its own entry.

[resigned sigh]

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Indiana State Fair 2024 Photos, Part 7: The Year in Antiques

Mr. Spock's Music from Outer Space: the album.

Featuring such timeless classics as “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Earth”, “Beyond Antares”, and “Music to Watch Space Girls By”. Yes, really.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides, cooking demos, concerts by musicians either nearly or formerly popular, and farm animals competing for cash prizes without their knowledge. My wife Anne and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context…

One of the fair’s regular features is the antiques competition, chiefly displayed on the second floor of the Indiana Arts Building. No one’s ever posted the rules, criteria, rankings, or anything expository beyond signage implying, “Here are some antiques not for sale.” Contestants bring in ancient items they unearthed somewhere, a secret council convenes far from inquisitive eyes, prize ribbons are placed next to some of them, yadda yadda yadda, they’re at your Indiana State Fair.

Amid the quilts and ’50s baby dolls and blue-and-white dishware, a few items with historical value and/or pop culture cachet will catch our attention. We congratulate the winners of this year’s Antiques We Looked At for More Than Three Seconds Contest, sponsored by ConHugeCo, Inc.

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My 2023 Reading Stacks #4: The Ludicrously Delayed Triple-Sized Wrap-Up

Bunch of books piled on our dining table, mostly graphic novels.

I usually prefer showing off all the covers, but we are waaaaay past the deadline that nobody gave me.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Welcome to our recurring MCC feature in which I scribble capsule reviews of everything I’ve read 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 Anne 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-five 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…

Yeah, this is beyond late and into the realm of “why bother now?” It isn’t even the only “year in review” post still on my to-do list. The stacks have cluttered the area around our computer desk this entire time and really need to be moved so I don’t start mixing them up with the books I’ve read so far in 2024, but in my mind they can’t be moved till their capsules are finished. I hate to post an abbreviated entry simply to get something “over with”, but the time has come, gone, lapped around and come again. In the spirit of spring cleaning before summer begins this very week, here’s everything else I read last year but with (mostly) shorter capsules than usual. Longer capsules could be provided upon request, I guess?

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My Free Comic Book Day 2024 Results, Ranked

Two black-and white panels: angry hunter points his shotgun in the face of a small-town sheriff. Sound effects are in Japanese.

What we have here is a failure to communicate. Art by Masaaki Ninomiya.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Saturday was Free Comic Book Day! Per annual tradition, publishers and retailers nationwide collaborated to offer some four dozen comics gratis to any and all comers. Some comics generously featured brand new stories. Some contained excerpts from upcoming or previous works. A few were, at best, ad pamphlets. I visited four central Indiana shops, came away with 23 freebies in all, and bought additional cool things from each place.

Per my own annual tradition, my reading results came out as follows, ranked subjectively and upwardly from “Not My Thing” to “Buy More on Sight”:

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Happy Free Comic Book Day and May the Fourth 2024!

11 different free comic books, including two Star Wars titles.

The second half of my haul, alphabetized — i.e., the half with the Star Wars comics in it. Happy May the Fourth for those who observe!

It’s that time of year again! Today marked the 23rd 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 superhero movies were a rarity and an embarrassment to the genre.

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C2E2 2024 Photos, Part 4 of 5: Artists Alley!

A dozen new comics and graphic novels, one bagged Star Trek back issue, and a tin sign with Fallout's Vault Boy handing you some Nuka-Cola.

My Artists Alley loot pile, plus a few freebies, a Fallout tin sign, and a back issue Anne really, really, really wanted.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

My wife Anne and I just got home from the latest edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), a three-day extravaganza of comic books, actors, creators, toys, props, publishers, freebies, Funko Pops, anime we don’t recognize, and walking and walking and walking and walking. We were undecided for months because this year it was scheduled the same weekend as one of our hometown shows, Indy Pop Con. Ultimately Chicago lured us back…

…not just with actors, but with their promise of comics! Lots and lots of funnybooks and graphic storytelling narratives for all ages, temperaments, and cliques. C2E2 consistently has the best Artists Alley of all the cons we attend regularly. Though the pandemic reduced their ranks a tad even for a while after the vaccines came around, this year’s lineup felt like its strongest in years. The Windy City once again welcomed hundreds of creators to the festivities — a mix of returnees and new faces, pros and wannabes, purveyors of handicrafts and sellers of reading matter. Longtime MCC readers know the latter is always my primary objective. It’d been a while since my last major book-spree. I’d missed the splurging.

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My 2023 Reading Stacks #3

Covers of the first two books reviewed below.

Two books about movies, some of which are based on books. One book technically works as a sequel to the other.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Welcome to our recurring MCC feature in which I scribble capsule reviews of everything I’ve read 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 Anne 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-five 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…

Continue reading