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.
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…
Elite Praetorian Guards from Kotobukiya. Pricier than you think.
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…
TOYS! Studies show 106% of all viewers who ever enjoyed a Star Wars film have owned at least one Star Wars toy in their lives. Anne and I don’t actively collect them anymore, but we haven’t yet parted with our respective collections. Frankly, it would take a while. Hers is ten times the size of mine, even after gifting a few extras to kiddie relatives. We nonetheless continue to admire Star Wars toys and toy-like products from afar, amazed at how far toy design technology has come since the ancient times when action figures with more than five movable joints were illegal in forty-two states because too much articulation might encourage naughty posing.
Naturally Lucasfilm invited some of their fanciest licensees to Celebration to display their wares, from the rulers of the commonest big-box toy aisles to the higher-end collectible craftspeople. Each of those vendors also had exclusive Celebration pins for sale, a value-added incentive for window shoppers to take a closer look. When the pin-bug bit Anne, we did a little of exactly that.
Maybe you’ve seen muscle cars with awesome fire decals, but have you seen a truck engulfed in the very flames of Mustafar?
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…
Vehicles are one of the key components of the Star Wars Universe. Mechanically inclined fans naturally paid tribute to those motorin’ machines, whether with faithful recreations of starships from the films themselves or with Terran vehicles transformed into eye-popping, street-legal homages.
Lucasfilm’s answer to “Hi, we’re in…Delaware.”
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…
The exhibit hall was littered with dozens of vendors plying wares old and new, but if you treated the Celebration website and program as your concierges, their strongest recommendations to you were two particular stops most directly tied to Lucasfilm itself, each demanding either that weekend’s disposable income or a promise of your future vacationing dollars. Both had everyone’s attention. Both had long lines. Neither was guaranteed to satisfy everyone.
TIE Fighter #1 hit comic shops this past Wednesday. Above are variant covers by Tommy Lee Edwards for the next three issues.
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…
Thursday had very nearly zero panels scheduled. The panels scheduled Friday and Saturday largely broke down into the following groups:
Larger panels filled up quickly. Numerous panels, especially those devoted to Star Wars novelists, were often capped because too many people were interested. But as a comics fan, one who’s spending a fair amount per month to keep up with much of Marvel’s Star Wars output (not all of it), I felt compelled to make a greater effort to get a foot in the door. Getting in line 45 minutes before showtime did the trick.
Purple light-up astromech guts.
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…
It was a Star Wars Celebration. Of course there was a veritable droid army on the premises. Far more than we’d expected, once we stumbled upon their barely advertised hiding place. Granted, there were a couple patrolling the exhibit hall…
She played a recurring Mandalorian on Clone Wars and Rebels, but you might also know Katee Sackhoff from such series as Battlestar Galactica, The Flash, and that not-bad Bionic Woman update that lasted about three minutes.
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…
It’s not a Celebration without a bevy of actors who’ve appeared on various planets throughout the Star Wars universe. We had our choice among a mixture of old pros from the original trilogy, a few big names from the prequels and from Rogue One, exactly one (1) actor from Episodes VII and VIII, and a wide array of all-star voice actors from various animated projects and video games. Though we’d met quite a few already, we zeroed in on a few key names and once again added to our jazz-hands photo-op collection.
Our host Stephen Colbert., director J.J. Abrams, and producer Kathleen Kennedy, streaming to us live from a galaxy far, far away.
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…
The centerpiece of the entire weekend, its biggest event, its most anticipated breaking news story, was the long-awaited first trailer for Star Wars Episode IX, as yet un-subtitled when the convention began. The trailer’s release was scheduled as part of an hour-long presentation which would star director J.J. Abrams and producer Kathleen Kennedy, at the very least. Additional unnamed guests were promised. It was fair to assume these surprise pop-ins would be the big, big-name costars from The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, almost none of whom were on the show’s main guest list.
Everyone wanted in on that event. Everyone wanted to be part of that live magic. Everyone wanted to count their first viewing of the trailer among their greatest SWCC 2019 memories. Not everyone got their wish.
Darth Mauls. Presumably they’ve killed their master so their total Sith count is back down to two again.
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. Based on past posting experience, the most popular part of every convention experience is cosplay, so those photos get to go first…
In our last call for cosplay photos, we bring on the bad guys and the gray-area dwellers — the Sith, the bounty hunters, the Mandalorians, and more, more more. Boo hiss!
Anyone can wear the X-Wing flight suit. You could wear the X-Wing flight suit.
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. Based on past posting experience, the most popular part of every convention experience is cosplay, so those photos get to go first…
Next up: the good guys! Yahoooooo!
“Welcome to Star Wars Celebration Chicago! Yes, we DO need to see your identification.”
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. We only stayed for three days partly to save money and partly because we’ve learned from past experience that three days is our limit at any given convention before we slam into a mental wall and need respite from geek immersion before we get sick of it all.
Based on past posting experience, the most popular part of every convention experience is cosplay, so those photos get to go first. We’re fans of costumes and try to keep an eye out for heroes, villains, antiheroes, supporting casts, and various oddities that look impressive and/or we haven’t seen at other cons. That was a bit challenging with a con about Star Wars for Star Wars by Star Wars starring Star Wars. It’s not as though the other cons we attend lack for Star Wars costumes. But we had fun capturing whoever we could.
First up: Stormtroopers! And other soldiers for the Empire, including a few folks from the Imperial successors that are the First Order, several of whom are surely card-carrying members of the 501st Legion. Caveats for first-time visitors to Midlife Crisis Crossover:
1. My wife and I are not professional photographers, nor do we believe ourselves worthy of press passes. These were taken as best as possible with the intent to share with fellow fans out of a sincere appreciation for the works inspired by the heroes, hobbies, artistic expressions, and/or intellectual properties that brought us geeks together under one vaulted roof for the weekend. We did what we could with the tools and circumstances at hand. We don’t use selfie sticks, tripods, or cameras that cost more than a month’s worth of groceries.
2. It’s impossible for any human or organization to capture every costume on hand. What’s presented in this series will be a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the sum total costume experience. Other corners of the internet will represent those other fractions that we missed, which is the cool part of having so many people doing this sort of thing.
3. We didn’t attend Sunday or Monday. As previously explained at excessive length in a previous entry, we also nearly never watch costume contests anymore. Sincere apologies to anyone we missed as a result.
4. Corrections and comments are always welcome, especially when we get to Part 3, which will include at least three characters we young geezers didn’t recognize. We kept up on Star Wars for decades and still remember many of the old-school characters, but we have knowledge gaps vis a vis recent video games, animated series, and lesser extras from the recent films. But I do like learning new names and worlds even if you’re more immersed in them than I am.
5. Enjoy!
Yep, this thing again.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: this weekend Anne and I are attending this year’s Star Wars Celebration in scenic, freezing Chicago. Once again we returned to McCormick Place, a mere three weeks after C2E2, so the layout and the stress levels of Chicago traffic were still fresh in our minds.
The debonair Mr. Billy Dee Williams at Cincinnati Comic Expo 2016, raising the bar for convention fashion.
This weekend my wife Anne and I will be attending the latest edition of Star Wars Celebration, Lucasfilm’s 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 will be in Chicago, gracing the Midwest with its products for the first time since 2005. Previously on MCC, we shared our personal experiences with Celebrations 2002 and 2005, which were each held at our very own Indiana Convention Center. We’re happy they’ve turned our direction once more, but a bit flummoxed by a few aspects of the show, which we hope goes well despite our nervousness about a few early warning signs.
Bugging us more than anything else is the lack of big, big-name participants from either The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi. We had accepted that there would be a Wampa’s chance on Mustafar of The Mark Hamill coming within a thousand miles of Chicago that weekend after his not-so-great 2017 experience in Orlando. (Ditto Harrison Ford, which we absolutely understand.) But being snubbed by the main casts of the last two non-digressive SW films stings a tad. We also despaired when special guest Temuera Morrison (Aquaman, Attack of the Clones) canceled last week. He was at the top of our must-meet list and has now freed up some of our funds for other activities, such as slightly better Chicago food.
We hope to have fun nonetheless, but of those folks scheduled to attend, we’ve already met many of them. While we’re counting down to opening day this coming Thursday, please enjoy this look back at this year’s Celebration guests that we’ve already met at previous conventions. Please feel free to pretend this is an exclusive sneak preview of the weekend to come. For other folks besides us, I mean.
This way to REGISTRATE! REGISTRATE! REGISTRATE!
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
It’s that time again! My wife Anne and I just got home from the tenth annual Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), another 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. Each year C2E2 keeps inching ever closer to its goal of becoming the Midwest’s answer to the legendary San Diego Comic Con and other famous conventions in larger, more popular states. We missed the first year, but have attended every year since 2011 as a team…
…and taken photos as a team, of whatever sights catch our eyes around the vast exhibit hall, which could contain several football games at once, though it does not because football is out of scope for geek mega-parties like C2E2.
In the spirit of the Moral of the Story from our seventh exciting chapter, in which we ultimately learned that photos are cool and words are dumb if you put too many together in a row, please enjoy one last photo gallery of stuff and things that demand your money or at least your attention. Looky!
Once again my wife brakes for Superman.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
It’s that time again! My wife Anne and I just got home from the tenth annual Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), another 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. Each year C2E2 keeps inching ever closer to its goal of becoming the Midwest’s answer to the legendary San Diego Comic Con and other famous conventions in larger, more popular states. We missed the first year, but have attended every year since 2011 as a team…
…and found activities together as a team. Given that C2E2 is the most comics-centered of all the giant cons we attend each year, its activities often appeal more to me than to her. But we do try to take turns being each other’s plus-one throughout our various cons and travels, so eventually it balances out.
Elegantly dressed as Ramonda, Queen Mother of Wakanda, artist Afua Richardson (World of Wakanda, Genius) made the rest of us on the premises look like slobs.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
It’s that time again! My wife Anne and I just got home from the tenth annual Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), another 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. Each year C2E2 keeps inching ever closer to its goal of becoming the Midwest’s answer to the legendary San Diego Comic Con and other famous conventions in larger, more popular states. We missed the first year, but have attended every year since 2011 as a team…
…and traipse together through their Artists Alley, consistently the best assemblage of comic book creators available in any large-scale Midwest entertainment convention. Scores of writers, artists, colorists, editors, and otherwise collaborative bookmakers gather in lengthy rows, some narrower than others, and tempt me to spend and spend and spend on new reading material, or at least brake for autographs on items I previously bought and brought along for the ride. This year was naturally no exception, which is why — more than jazz hands, more than the cosplay, definitely more than publishers’ freebies — Artists Alley is my favorite part of every C2E2.
Calvin and Hobbes, complete with Watterson-accurate expression.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
It’s that time again! My wife Anne and I just got home from the tenth annual Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), another 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. Each year C2E2 keeps inching ever closer to its goal of becoming the Midwest’s answer to the legendary San Diego Comic Con and other famous conventions in larger, more popular states. We missed the first year, but have attended every year since 2011 as a team…
…and sooner or later we run out of cosplay photos as a team. It’s time to share all the cosplay that’s fit to print and left to post. Same disclaimers apply as in Part Two. Enjoy! Some more!
The Mayor of Halloween Town from Henry Selick’s Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, looking on the verge of abusing his power.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
It’s that time again! My wife Anne and I just got home from the tenth annual Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), another 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. Each year C2E2 keeps inching ever closer to its goal of becoming the Midwest’s answer to the legendary San Diego Comic Con and other famous conventions in larger, more popular states. We missed the first year, but have attended every year since 2011 as a team…
…and enjoyed the company of cosplayers as a team. With the same provisos and intro as our previous chapter, please enjoy a smaller but equally creative sampling of the cosplayers on hand who celebrated the various other universes that share Marvel’s megalithic corporate umbrella.
Friday in Asgard: Thor, Odin (with Huginn and Muninn!), Malekith and Hela.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
It’s that time again! My wife Anne and I just got home from the tenth annual Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″), another 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. Each year C2E2 keeps inching ever closer to its goal of becoming the Midwest’s answer to the legendary San Diego Comic Con and other famous conventions in larger, more popular states. We missed the first year, but have attended every year since 2011 as a team…
…and do our best to take cosplay photos as a team. we’re fans of costumes and try to keep an eye out for heroes, villains, antiheroes, supporting casts, and various oddities that look impressive and/or we haven’t seen at other cons. First up: a great big batch of characters from assorted iterations of the worlds of Marvel and DC Comics, from their movies and shows as well as their comics. Caveats for first-time visitors to Midlife Crisis Crossover:
1. My wife and I are not professional photographers, nor do we believe ourselves worthy of press passes. These were taken as best as possible with the intent to share with fellow fans out of a sincere appreciation for the works inspired by the heroes, hobbies, artistic expressions, and/or intellectual properties that brought us geeks together under one vaulted roof for the weekend. We did what we could with the tools and circumstances at hand. We don’t use selfie sticks, tripods, or cameras that cost more than a month’s worth of groceries.
2. It’s impossible for any human or organization to capture every costume on hand. What’s presented in this series will be a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the sum total costume experience. Other corners of the internet will represent those other fractions that we missed, which is the cool part of having so many people doing this sort of thing.
3. We didn’t attend Sunday. As previously explained at excessive length, we also nearly never do costume contests anymore. Sincere apologies to anyone we missed as a result.
4. Corrections and comments are always welcome, especially when we get to Part 5, which will include at least two characters we young geezers didn’t recognize. I do like learning new names and universes even if you’re more immersed in them than I am.
5. Enjoy!
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 