The Heroes of Our Free Comic Book Day 2015

Bat-Villains!

Even those dastardly Bat-Villains love Free Comic Book Day because it’s the one day of the year they can have nice new things without resorting to theft or deathtraps.

Happy Free Comic Book Day! The fourteenth annual celebration of graphic storytelling narratives and/or floppy funnybooks was a rousing success, far as we could tell from our single stop at Indianapolis’ own Downtown Comics North. In years past I’ve made road trips to visit multiple stores for the occasion, but our schedule was too packed with other obligations and joys. Regardless, ’twas a morning well spent, money well spent for a few items, and an experience fully enjoyed.

Right this way for FCBD photos! Including cosplay!

C2E2 2015 Photos, Part 9 of 9: Random Acts of C2E2ing

C2E2 Sign!

That’s the signpost up ahead. Your next stop…

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I went to C2E2 and took photos! Other chapters in the series:

Part 1: Costume Contest Winners
Part 2: The Rest of the Costume Contest
Part 3: Edge of Deadpoolverse
Part 4: Might Marvel Costumes
Part 5: More Comics Costumes
Part 6: Mystery Science Costume Theater 3000
Part 7: Last Call for Costumes
Part 8: Stars of Comics and Screens

Today’s feature: moments from the show floor, the lines we lived through, the personalities we haven’t already mentioned, and fleeting glimpses of our two-day descent into a legion of fans thriving in a playground of heroes, villains, idols, art, commerce, and an eye-popping panoply of pop-culture Easter eggs as far as the eye could see. That’s mostly because I felt like taking more pics of our surroundings than usual, just to see what came of it.

Right this way for the C2E2 2015 season finale!

C2E2 2015 Photos, Part 8 of 9: Stars of Comics and Screens

Hayley Atwell!

My wife and I enjoying ten seconds of proximity with Hayley Atwell, winning star of Marvel’s Agent Carter, Marvel’s Agent Carter: the Winter Soldier, and Marvel’s Agents of C.A.R.T.E.R.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I went to C2E2 and took photos! Other chapters in the series:

Part 1: Costume Contest Winners
Part 2: The Rest of the Costume Contest
Part 3: Edge of Deadpoolverse
Part 4: Mighty Marvel Costumes
Part 5: More Comics Costumes
Part 6: Mystery Science Costume Theater 3000
Part 7: Last Call for Costumes
Part 9: Random Acts of C2E2ing

Today’s feature: the writers, artists, and renowned actors we encountered on Friday and Saturday. The photo op with Hayley Atwell, a.k.a. Peggy Carter, agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., was the weekend’s finale to a long line of nifty creative types in the house.

Right this way for comics creators, Marvel Cinematic Universe stars, a Hollywood director, and more!

C2E2 2015 Photos, Part 7 of 9: Last Call for Costumes

Shining Twins!

The Grady twins from The Shining, roaming the McCormick Place halls forever and ever AND EVER.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I went to C2E2 and took photos! Other chapters in the series:

Part 1: Costume Contest Winners
Part 2: The Rest of the Costume Contest
Part 3: Edge of Deadpoolverse
Part 4: Mighty Marvel Costumes
Part 5: More Comics Costumes
Part 6: Mystery Science Costume Theater 3000
Part 8: Stars of Comics and Screens
Part 9: Random Acts of C2E2ing

Today’s feature: our last usable cosplay pics — characters from gaming, animation, and pop-culture potpourri.

Right this way for just a few more costumes, and then I promise I’ll move on!

C2E2 2015 Photos, Part 6 of 9: Mystery Science Costumes 3000

MST3K!

We fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 had great reasons to show up this weekend. More about that in later entries. For now, you should really just relax.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I went to C2E2 and took photos! Other chapters in the series:

Part 1: Costume Contest Winners
Part 2: The Rest of the Costume Contest
Part 3: Edge of Deadpoolverse
Part 4: Mighty Marvel Costumes
Part 5: More Comics Costumes
Part 7: Last Call for Costumes
Part 8: Stars of Comics and Screens
Part 9: Random Acts of C2E2ing

Today’s feature: costumes from sci-fi movies and TV! And a smidgen of fantasy for texture.

Right this way for Star Wars, Spaceballs, and more!

C2E2 2015 Photos, Part 5 of 9: More Comics Costumes

Guardian of the Universe!

A lot of folks think guarding a single galaxy is an impressive feat. Try being a Guardian of the Universe for a day.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I went to C2E2 and took photos! Other chapters in the series:

Part 1: Costume Contest Winners
Part 2: The Rest of the Costume Contest
Part 3: Edge of Deadpoolverse
Part 4: Mighty Marvel Costumes
Part 6: Mystery Science Costume Theater 3000
Part 7: Last Call for Costumes
Part 8: Stars of Comics and Screens
Part 9: Random Acts of C2E2ing

Today’s feature: costumes from comics besides Marvel — their Distinguished Competition as well as a few other popular print sources.

Right this way for comics folks!

C2E2 2015 Photos, Part 4 of 9: Mighty Marvel Costumes

Netflix Daredevil!

Netflix Daredevil makes his Midwest convention cosplay debut.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I went to C2E2 and took photos! Other chapters in the series:

Part 1: Costume Contest Winners
Part 2: The Rest of the Costume Contest
Part 3: Edge of Deadpoolverse
Part 5: More Comics Costumes
Part 6: Mystery Science Costume Theater 3000
Part 7: Last Call for Costumes
Part 8: Stars of Comics and Screens
Part 9: Random Acts of C2E2ing

Today’s feature: the publisher, the studio, the universe…it’s Marvel!

Right this way to Make Mine Marvel! Or Make Yours Marvel! Whatever.

C2E2 2015 Photos, Part 3: Edge of Deadpoolverse

Sheriff Deadpool!

If anyone can clean up your small town, it’s that valiant Sheriff Deadpool.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I went to C2E2 and took photos! Other chapters in the series:

Part 1: Costume Contest Winners
Part 2: The Rest of the Costume Contest
Part 4: Mighty Marvel Costumes
Part 5: More Comics Costumes
Part 6: Mystery Science Costume Theater 3000
Part 7: Last Call for Costumes
Part 8: Stars of Comics and Screens
Part 9: Random Acts of C2E2ing

Today’s feature: Deadpool! Lots of Deadpool! Some popular characters were cosplayed in droves, but no one had as many off-kilter variants as Deadpool. His fans don’t just want to be him: they want to be him being anyone else but himself. We found ten different Deadpools roaming the convention Friday and Saturday, and who knows how many dozens more we missed.

Right this way for Deadpool, Deadpool, Deadpool!

Five Days, Five Big Trailers, Four Sequels and a Reboot

Star Wars: the Force Awakens!

When blockbuster trailers come, they come not as single spies, but in battalions!

It’s been busy, busy times these past five days in the world of watching previews for mega-budget movies that won’t be here for a while, speculating on same, prejudging them all and assigning our Tomatometer ratings in advance so our opinions won’t be skewed later by the movies themselves. If you haven’t see all five of the latest hopeful super-sized moneymakers, now’s your chance to catch up and revisit worlds we haven’t seen in a long time. There’s a world where dinosaurs are reborn and man is the least dangerous game; a world where “hero” is a word they keep using, but I do not think it means what they think it means; and that one rediscovered world with the lightsabers and the Force and whatnot.

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Star Wars Celebration 2002 Memories: What We Did and Who We Met

Weekend with Mori!

Anne and I look very different now than we did in 2002. I was thicker, and her glasses were larger. The gent in the middle was someone we knew online who’s probably forgotten us by now. But I bet he remembers the Celebration.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

This coming weekend is Star Wars Celebration Anaheim, where thousands upon thousands of lucky Star Wars fans will rendezvous to share their love and respect for the galaxy George Lucas built, meet other people who made it possible, and hopefully learn lots of news and spoilers about The Force Awakens. California is beyond our reach, but a few of our friends will be there and should provide us with lots of updates and photos or else.

I’ve been digging through our photos and writings from our experiences at the second and third Celebrations, which were each held here in Indianapolis in 2002 and 2005…

Our original write-up of our Celebration II experience clocked in at over 10,000 words, not including the Anthony Daniels prologue. You’ll pardon me if I don’t reprint it here, because the details are exhausting and minute and excessive and chronicled far too many minutes that weren’t worth chronicling. I think I can whittle that down to a good-parts version and add another batch of photos at the end.

Right this way for memories, actor photos, and links to the new trailer for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”!

Star Wars Celebration 2002 Memories: Cosplay ‘n’ Stuff

Diptrooper!

After their humiliating loss against the teddy bears from the space moon, many Stormtroopers were drummed out of Imperial service and forced to rely on the job skills they had before they signed on.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

This coming weekend is Star Wars Celebration Anaheim, where thousands upon thousands of lucky Star Wars fans will rendezvous to share their love and respect for the galaxy George Lucas built, meet other people who made it possible, and hopefully learn lots of news and spoilers about The Force Awakens. California is beyond our reach, but a few of our friends will be there and should provide us with lots of updates and photos or else.

I’ve been digging through our photos and writings from our experiences at the second and third Celebrations, which were each held here in Indianapolis in 2002 and 2005…

Some of our Celebration II pics have never been shared online before because (a) I hated my terrible old scanner; (b) posting large photo collections wasn’t fun in the days of 56K modems, when uploading took years and any webpage with more than a few pics could take forever to load if the files were large; and (c) back then I prided myself on entertaining friends with more text than pictures. That line of thought probably lost me a lot of readers — and maybe even friends, for all I know.

Tonight’s presentation: the first of two Celebration II photo galleries, this one featuring costumes and other fun objects from the experience. Enjoy!

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Star Wars Celebration 2002 Memories: A Night with C-3PO

Anthony Daniels!

This coming weekend is Star Wars Celebration Anaheim, where thousands upon thousands of lucky Star Wars fans will rendezvous to share their love and respect for the galaxy George Lucas built, meet other people who made it possible, and hopefully learn lots of news and spoilers about The Force Awakens. California is beyond our reach, but a few of our friends will be there and should provide us with lots of updates and photos or else.

I’ve been digging through our photos and writings from our experiences at the second and third Celebrations, which were each held here in Indianapolis in 2002 and 2005. As my own tiny way of marking the occasion and unearthing unshared items from our personal archives, presented above is a previously unreleased photo of me with my best friend Anne, onstage at a special tie-in event held two days before Celebration II. You may be familiar with the thespian in the middle.

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Moving Away from Evergreen Terrace

Simpsons DVDs!

Guess which season saw the introduction of a new box design. And guess which set I hate most for ruining everything.

Obsessive completists who collect physical media and refuse to give up on The Simpsons received heartbreaking news this week when longtime producer Al Jean revealed Season 17 would be the final DVD/Blu-ray set produced. In numerous back-and-forth discussions with fans on Twitter, Jean cited poor sales in a world where streaming media has become the preferred viewing option for a lot of former disc buyers. It’s not hard to argue the diminishing aesthetic returns on later seasons may also have contributed to America’s growing consensus as to exactly how much of the show deserves to be archived in their own homes.

For anyone with the true collector mentality, this cancellation poses a special form of anguish: a no-frills Season 20 set was rush-released in 2010 as an anniversary merchandising tie-in. Anyone who’s bought them religiously since Season 1 will now have a eternal gap between 17 and 20 that can never be filled through legal means, to say nothing of the unreleased 21 through 60. Granted, you could pay to watch those online via Amazon, or indulge in the Simpsons World app if you care to watch the show on certain devices. You could store said device on the DVD shelf between 17 and 20, and argue till your face is Homer-pants-blue that it’s close enough. You’d be wrong.

For my wife and myself, it’s another stumbling block to our once-fervent Simpsons fandom.

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Top 10 Surprises in the Upcoming “Teletubbies” Reboot

Teletubbies Time Warp!

Pictured left to right: William Shatner, Harry Shearer, June Foray, and Seth MacFarlane. Or not.

Sooner or later, every old intellectual property must be revitalized for a new generation that has no interest in it. Revivals are perpetually on the way in every medium –as of this minute, your slate of candidates includes Archie, Logan’s Run, and even gum-wrapper superstar Bazooka Joe. Why waste your time and imagination inventing new characters when you can just stamp your preferences onto someone else’s venerated labor of love?

Also on the way: the return of the Teletubbies! England’s other, other, other Fab Four were psychedelic freeform heroes to a generation of toddlers born at a weird time. Now that formerly captive audience will have the opportunity to recapture their childhood, reunite with their old mentors, and complain about all those years of characterization, continuity, and PBS crossovers that are being tossed out the window and now the seasons they’ve collected on VHS are null and void. Welcome to 21st-century entertainment, youngsters.

Right this way for…another list!

Random Fun Moments in Comic Book Ads

Kung Fu Sandals!

Source: Incredible Hulk #205, cover-dated November 1976.

Hey, kids! If you’re chasing your dream of becoming a world-class martial artist like Bruce Lee or Jim Kelly or Chuck Norris, you’ll need proper footwear. And what better footwear than used sandals once worn by the great Oriental Fighting Masters? Either they outgrew them, saved up to buy better ones, or died fighting in them, and now they can be yours for just three bucks and a crude outline of your own foot on notebook paper, so we can tell which dead masters wore your size. We’re located up in scenic Connecticut, where all the most renowned sensei live. Send us your allowance today!

Right this way for four more clippings from ye olde times!

Post-Convention Sick-Day Blues

Troy + Abed in the Morning!

Today’s lunch: hot tea and meds.

The day after we finished up with Indiana Comic Con 2015, I could already feel “con crud” creeping into my system. I’m no stranger to the notorious cold/flu that strikes at convention attendees after they’ve hung around a few thousand fans too many, but I’d hoped to dodge a bullet this time. Between the cool temps and Friday’s nonstop rains, my good health wasn’t meant to last.

I held out for as long as I could. I lasted three business days before I surrendered and took a sick day so I retreat into defensive hibernation. After last night proved disastrously unhelpful, today I slept till noon, took more countermeasures, and tried to keep distracted with news and hobbies and such.

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Let Me Know When “Community” Season 6 is on DVD

Community!

Abed and Jeff during the premiere’s Apology Montage. Maybe someday I’ll accept it, but I’m just not ready tonight.

The big television event is here! Except not on television. At last, the fabled meta-sitcom Community returned tonight with the first two all-new episodes of its sixth season, but not on NBC anymore. Instead, in what I hope was a self-aware feat of ironic self-handicapping, the show has relocated to Yahoo! Screen, which spent the past ninety minutes of my life acting like RealPlayer used to in the ’90s, except larger and hopefully with a little less spyware. Yahoo!’s entry into the internet streaming competition didn’t fare well in the test sessions I’d performed prior to tonight, but I wanted to persevere anyway for the sake of the show that’s produced four of the funniest seasons of TV ever.

I took performance notes during the experience for posterity and as an outlet for my disappointment. With the streaming results, I mean, not with the actual show.

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Indiana Comic Con 2015 Photos, Part 4 of 4: Braving the Battle Lines

Jenna Coleman!

My wife and I in the presence of Jenna Coleman, a.k.a. Clara Oswald the Impossible Girl from TV’s Doctor Who. A friend of ours asked, “Can she BE any more adorable?” Well, no. No, she can’t.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I attended the second annual Indiana Comic Con! Part One covered our Friday experience, a smooth and engaging experience. Part Two was our bewildering Carrie Fisher encounter. Part Three collected every usable costume photo we took on Saturday.

We knew Saturday would be a busier, more hectic, potentially more disappointing day than Friday. Some cons’ Saturdays are more challenging than others. When things go wrong, blame isn’t always easy or comfortable to assign, and it’s not always the con’s fault. But when it is, the flaring tempers can light up the evening sky.

We had four primary Saturday objectives and one secondary objective left over from Friday. We tried to adjust expectations based on the con’s disastrous Saturday 2014 performance and its vastly improved Friday 2015. Ultimately we nailed three out of four, though it required strategy and persistence on our part to navigate the obstacles. If ICC’s showrunners had ever attended other cons — I mean really attended them, immersed themselves in the full experience, not just skipped through exhibit halls and glanced at activities from a distance — I wouldn’t have had to abandon the fourth objective.

Right this way for the Indiana Comic Con 2015 miniseries finale!

Indiana Comic Con 2015 Photos, Part 3 of 4: Random Saturday Costumes

Doomsday!

Superman’s murderer, Doomsday, still wearing his original “Death of Superman” spacesuit.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I attended the second annual Indiana Comic Con despite our calamitous experience last year. Part One covered our Friday experience, a smooth and engaging experience. Part Two was our bewildering Carrie Fisher encounter.

This time around: our Saturday costume photo collection. The following subjects are a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the characters on who were in the house. Many, many thousands of attendees packed into the Indiana Convention Center, this time without inviting a fire marshal’s wrath, and an impressive number showed up dressed as their favorite heroes, villains, supporting characters, animals, antiheroes, murderers, and licensed merchandise. I’d hoped to bring back three or four times as many pics, but we’ll discuss why that didn’t happen in Part Four.

Right this way for costumes, costumes, costumes!

The Alderaanian Glitter Bomber Strikes!

Carrie Fisher Glitter!

This is what Carrie Fisher did to me today.

Yes, that Carrie Fisher.

Right this way for Star Wars storytime!