NEVER FORGET.
Longtime MCC readers may not be surprised to find this very special miniseries found a path toward Star Wars. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.
Unfortunately this also led to the worst theatrical experience we’ve had in years. For the record, this was not the filmmakers’ fault, but this entry was unwritable without being candid about that part.
Speaking of unfortunate viewing experiences…
That time at Star Trek: Mission Chicago in 2022 when we met Star Trek: Picard season-2 cast members Michelle Hurd, Isa Briones, Evan Evagora, and Annie Wersching (RIP).
The topic at hand was suggested by a Facebook discussion in the wake of our Fan Expo Chicago weekend back in August. In a private group for fans of that con, Heather S. asks: “Do you have a master list of all the people you’ve met at cons?”
Well, now we do! We do love brainstorming, listing, and cataloguing. Frankly, we couldn’t believe we hadn’t done this sooner without prompting.
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s Neal McDonough! You’ve probably seen him in things, especially if you’re among the 600 million viewers now watching Suits on Netflix!
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
This past Friday my wife Anne and I drove two hours southeast of Indianapolis to attend the thirteenth annual Cincinnati Comic Expo in the heart of their downtown that’s not so different from ours. At first it felt odd to return to a “normal” comic-con contained within a single convention center after our recent Dragon Con adventure and its downtown-sized sprawl. By the end of our weekend we’d forgotten any such reservations and were thrilled at how, in at least one respect, Cincy succeeded where Dragon Con had failed us…
And now, the rest of our weekend besides cosplay.
Hey, kids! Mandalorians! This one’s from the Mandalorian Mercs cosplay group.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
In 2019 my wife Anne and I attended our very first Dragon Con in Atlanta, Georgia. As one of the longest-running science fiction conventions in America, Dragon Con had received rave reviews from our internet friends over the past two decades, some of whom recommended it to us more than once and, according to my notes, would never shut up about it. We had so much of a blast that we returned in 2021. Third time was the charm this Labor Day weekend as we repeated the eight-hour drive from Indianapolis to that amazing colossal southern spectacle…
Hi-diddly-ho! It’s our fourth gallery from D*C’s annual Saturday morning cosplay parade, always one of our favorite events. The starter exhortations in Part 5 still apply here: if you recognize any characters we didn’t, by all means please let us know! We like meeting new faces, broadening our knowledge, correcting errors, and bridging the gaps in our aging memories where those character names used to be. Between us we took over 600 photos and couldn’t possibly have known everyone. Related note: if you or someone you know was in the parade and you’re hoping for shots of them, pretty-please let us know! We’re taking requests! We’ll be happy to search our files and post ’em if we got ’em. You might come away disappointed, or you might not!
Nadja, Nandor, Laszlo, and Guillermo from What We Do in the Shadows. Bonus points for bringing Laszlo’s witch-skin hat and Doll With the Spirit of Deceased Human Nadja Inhabiting It.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
In 2019 my wife Anne and I attended our very first Dragon Con in Atlanta, Georgia. As one of the longest-running science fiction conventions in America, Dragon Con had received rave reviews from our internet friends over the past two decades, some of whom recommended it to us more than once and, according to my notes, would never shut up about it. We had so much of a blast that we returned in 2021. Third time was the charm this Labor Day weekend as we repeated the eight-hour drive from Indianapolis to that amazing colossal southern spectacle…
…and the cosplay photos march on! Here’s all the costumes we had a chance to photograph on Saturday between 11:15 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. around the various hotels, show floors, and walkways whenever we weren’t trapped in long lines. This gallery does not include the staggering number of pics we took at the annual major cosplay event earlier that morning. Those’ll star in our next few chapters, however many it takes. Once again we beg forgiveness from the thousands of cosplayers that we missed throughout our 12-hour day, but we celebrate those who crossed our path and willingly braked for us. Enjoy yet again!
Lego Eclipse-class Super Star Destroyer, which first appeared in the Star Wars Expanded Universe graphic novel Dark Empire.
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…
When we were kids, the Midway’s amusement-park rides and rigged carnival games were the most important part of the fair. The adults who brought us to the fair wanted to see the exhibits a lot more than we did. We’re now older than they were at the time, and have come to enjoy the opportunities for art appreciation across the fairground exhibit halls. It’s fun seeing the latest round of multimedia works from artists of all ages, skill levels, and facilitating organizations, be they 4-H or local collectives. One of the commonest media among the younger demos is Lego, that blessed sculptor’s tool that’s rigid and flexible, comes with instructions and lends itself to freewheeling flights of fancy.
Barbie Mania in full effect! Until I can finally finish the long-delayed entry on Barbie: The Motion Picture, please enjoy Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie and a pair of Kens.
It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the second edition of Fan Expo Chicago at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in the suburb of Rosemont, Illinois. Last year they arose from the ashes of the late Wizard World Chicago, which we attended eleven times and whose already-shaky financial standings didn’t fare any better during the pandemic. Fan Expo threw such a great inauguration party, and invited such a staggering guest list this time that we agreed an encore was in order.
Before we attempt any real storytime, let’s do mandatory cosplay photos! The humble duo here at MCC enjoys the panoply of costumes, and appreciates the makers and wearers who enliven every comic-con with their talents and their exaltation of various fandoms. We regret we can only represent a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the total cosplay wonderment that was on display this weekend. We’re just an aging couple doing what we can for happy sharing fun.
The following entry represents exactly one-half our total cosplay pics. The rest shall follow in our next chapter. Enjoy! Corrections welcome if we misidentified anyone!
Mando, meet Andy’s room. Andy, Mando. Sheriff Woody, Jessie and Buzz Lightyear a la Mandalore.
It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the ninth edition of the Indiana Comic Convention at the Indiana Convention Center in scenic downtown Indianapolis. They refrain from calling themselves “Indiana Comic Con” on paper for tiresome legal reasons that aren’t their fault, but to us they’ll always be Indiana Comic Con.
ICC 2023 was another opportunity to look at walls covered with old comics, meet people who create reading matter, boggle at toy displays, respect the anime fandom whose population dwarfs us older generations, and find space to breathe among or away from those cheerfully ever-growing crowds. Although the showrunners reserved less space than they did for last year’s edition — in fact, they moved the show back to the halls where the inaugural edition was held back in 2014 — geek life nevertheless thrived in abundance.
While we recuperate and wait for our feet to forgive us for their punishment, please enjoy this modest collection of cosplayers who brightened the day around the show floor. The jazz-hands photo ops and other obligatory details will be shared in the other chapter. We regret we can only represent a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the total cosplay wonderment that was on display this weekend. We’re just an aging couple doing what we can for happy sharing fun. Enjoy! Corrections welcome for those we misidentified!
All the Whos down in Whoville: a family cosplaying as nine different Doctors.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
Each year when there isn’t a pandemic fully raging, my wife Anne and I love attending entertainment and comic conventions throughout the Midwest and occasionally a bit beyond. We’re fascinated by the spectacle of each and every in-person nexus of geek cultures that presents a confluence of comics, artists, cosplayers, hobby artifacts, rare collectibles, IP-inspired handicrafts, talented performers and celebrity guests with fandom connections of varying levels of dedication and/or awesomeness.
This past weekend’s inaugural GalaxyCon Columbus (the one in Ohio) set out more than enough bait within reasonable road-trip range that the two of us were lured out of the house once more after previous 2022 outings to Star Trek: Mission Chicago, Indiana Comic Con, and Fan Expo Chicago. We’re the Goldens. This is who we are and what we do.
It’s time for the mandatory cosplay salute!
Someone prettied up a truck and set up an outdoor living room in front of it.
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…
Anne and I are at that age when we’re more interested in visiting the exhibit halls than we are in rattling our bones on the Midway rides. We enjoy seeing what new works of paint, photography, building blocks, and science have been offered up for the various competitions. The State Fair holds its massive celebrations on behalf of our farmers, but Indiana has no shortage of artists, either. They come from all demographics, work in multiple media, bring ideas from pop culture as well as from their own home life, and all contribute in their own ways to the Hoosier State hometown legacy.
In this case the largest artwork on the fairgrounds was an entire truck turned into a stationary mural. It was supposed to draw attention to an entire exhibit of tricked-out vehicles called the Mural Derby, but all the other participants were parked away from the main thoroughfare and out of sight behind the giant Ferris wheel, where we had no idea they existed till I looked it up just now, days after the fact. But at least we witnessed the one truck, which was nifty.
“Snips and Skyguy”, as the delightful Star Wars panel was billed.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
This past weekend Anne and I attended the inaugural Fan Expo Chicago, the comics/entertainment convention formerly known as Wizard World Chicago, and before that the unbranded Chicago Comic Con. As a proud continuation of that chain of comic-con provenance, a 50th-anniversary logo featured in their decor and con souvenirs. Their initial guest-list game was strong enough to lure us back to the suburb of Rosemont for our first time in four years to see what we could make of this latest iteration. Would it be an all-new all-different Chicago Comic Con, or Wizard World under a bed sheet with two eye-holes poked in it?
If we reused headline formats from our past comic-con write-ups, this one would be the Friday edition of “What We Did and Who We Met”. Once we emerged impatient and unscathed from Chicago construction traffic, Friday was a laid-back stroll around the exhibit hall because most of the action was scheduled for Saturday, when nearly all the scheduled guests would be around. Friday, they weren’t so much, but we had the pleasure of attending a pair of Q&As with actors who graciously dropped in a day early.
Now I come in a deluxe version with slightly more points of articulation! Soon to be on clearance at Target!
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: this past weekend Anne and I attended the inaugural Fan Expo Chicago, the comics/entertainment convention formerly known as Wizard World Chicago, and before that the unbranded Chicago Comic Con. As a proud continuation of that chain of comic-con provenance, a 50th-anniversary logo featured in their decor and con souvenirs. Their initial guest-list game was strong enough to lure us back to the suburb of Rosemont for our first time in four years to see what we could make of this latest iteration. Would it be an all-new all-different Chicago Comic Con, or Wizard World under a bed sheet with two eye-holes poked in it?
Before we attempt any real storytime and show off our latest round of jazz-hands photos, why not run through a gallery of Stuff We Saw Around the Show Floor. In hindsight we took far fewer exhibit hall pics than expected because we’re well acquainted with what comic-con booths look like and weren’t in a constant state of mind-blown-ness. We did dawdle a bit more than usual at the handcrafted displays of two charitable fan clubs, who brought their homemade replicas of props and vehicles and whatnot, which as usual made us regret letting our own artistic skills atrophy since high school.
Buttercup! Bubbles! Blossom! The Powerpuff Girls!
It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the eighth edition of the Indiana Comic Convention at the Indiana Convention Center in scenic downtown Indianapolis. It was formerly called simply “Indiana Comic Con”, then subjected to light cosmetic rephrasing after the owners of the San Diego Comic Con were bitten by a radioactive ambulance chaser and began suing other comic cons in a desperate attempt to prevent the very common phrase “comic con” from becoming a very common phrase for comic cons, as very commonly used by every comic-con attendee ever. Anyone who actually calls it “the Indiana Comic Convention” either has a mandatory work-related reason to do so or far too many neckties in their closet.
ICC 2022 was another opportunity to flip through old comics, meet people who create reading matter, boggle at toy displays, continue watching anime fandom multiply ever more dauntingly, and find space to breathe among or away from those cheerfully ever-growing crowds. Our last time at ICC was back in 2018, the end of a five-year run for us. We missed the 2019 edition due to a severe geek-related schedule conflict and skipped last year’s autumn revival because the short guest list had a certain “too soon” quality to it. After leaving the safety of our home for shows in other states last fall and last weekend, it felt good to be back inside our own hometown shindig space.
While we recuperate and wait for our feet to forgive us for their punishment, please enjoy this collection of cosplayers who brightened the day around the show floor. The jazz-hands photo ops and other obligatory details will be shared in the other chapter because everyone loves costumes. We regret we can only represent a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the total cosplay wonderment that was on display this weekend. We’re just an aging couple doing what we can for happy sharing fun. Enjoy! Corrections welcome if we misidentified anyone!
Sharp-dressed Artoo leads Mandalorians down the runway.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
In 2019 my wife Anne and I attended our very first Dragon Con in Atlanta, Georgia. We returned home to Indianapolis with a plethora of new memories, hundreds and hundreds of photos, and a shared suspicion that we’d return someday. Not every year, but someday. In the year of our grand pandemic 2020 we attended exactly zero conventions for easily guessed reasons. In 2021 several cons made their comeback plans, but Dragon Con stepped up hardest and made us some offers we couldn’t refuse. We didn’t have to think long or hard before accepting the special rules under which this pandemic-era show would be held…
As promised, another gallery from the annual Saturday morning cosplay parade through downtown Atlanta, this time with specializations in Star Wars, Futurama, chemistry, and more. Corrections and revisions welcome as always. Once more, with feeling: enjoy!
Not mine, a coworker’s. But if he retires before I do and forgets to take it with him…
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife Anne and I subscribed to Disney+ a year behind the rest of the world and are doing our best to catch up on the content that matters most. So far that means Pixar’s Soul and the Star Wars universe. On a more inessential note I also watched Cars 3, which was better than the second one, which wasn’t too high a bar to jump.
But our primary objective has been Star Wars because for the past year everyone around us has been “Mandalorian” this and “Baby Yoda” that and of course they had to take turns asking us every ten minutes, “Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet?”
YES, WE HAVE DISNEY+ NOW. Um, finally. Sorry for shouting.
Nearly all my 2019 purchases, sorted in alphabetical piles from A to Y.
Comics collecting has been my primary geek interest since age 6, but I have a tough time writing about it with any regularity. My comics-judging criteria can seem weird and unfair to other fans who don’t share them. I like discussing them if asked, which is rare, but I loathe debating them. It doesn’t help that I skip most crossovers and tend to gravitate toward titles with smaller audiences. Whenever a larger company axes titles for the sake of their bottom line or internal politics, my favorites are usually first on the chopping block. I doubt many comics readers follow MCC anyway, so it’s really the best possible place for me to talk about comics unharmed, albeit all to myself. Whee.
Our cast ponders life after Episode VIII’s messy deconstruction.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: 91 previous entries on this site bear a “Star Wars” tag, signifying that George Lucas’ beloved universe has been a major part of our entire lives, from the films to the books to the music to the fanfic to the conventions, including our all-time greatest celebrity encounter, which in turn led to that time Star Wars got me interviewed on local TV. Star Wars has been kind of a big deal in our household.
“Only begun, the meme wars have…”
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: the recurring feature that’s more like a newsletter in which I’ve jotted down capsule-sized notes about Stuff I Recently Watched at home. The last installment was eight months ago because I’ve found myself pretty easy to distract this year. Time flies when I’m going to bed earlier every night due to encroaching oldness, depriving myself of precious writing time, barely making a dent in my topical backlog, and therefore not yet forcing myself into a corner where I have to mine everything I do for creative writing fodder. Plan A for Thanksgiving weekend had been a combination of reading, writing, and watching. One of those three won out thanks to a confluence of unrelated factors, all involving TVs and streaming media.
Alternate shot of Bluepool and the Captain America: The First Avenger Dancing Girls Costuming Group.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover 2½ months ago:
For years we’ve been telling friends in other states that we’d one day do Atlanta’s Dragon Con, one of the largest conventions in America that isn’t in California or New York. We’ve been in Atlanta, but we hadn’t really done Atlanta. Hence this year’s vacation, in which we’re aiming for a double proficiency in Atlanta tourism and over-the-top Dragon Con goodness…
Upon our return home, I did my best to post our photos of the experience as quickly as possible, twelve chapters’ worth plus prologue and epilogue. Seven of those galleries were devoted to their gargantuan cosplay parade through the streets of Atlanta…
Threepio jacked in Matrix-style, trying to be among the first 300 to see the new trailer and get misty-eyed.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: last spring my wife and I had the sincere pleasure of watching the first full-length trailer Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker in its premiere airing at Star Wars Celebration Chicago, surrounded by thousands of fellow fans:
The crowd watched as one. We cheered as one. We whooped and hollered as one. Together we held our breath in the seconds before the subtitle was revealed to the entire world at that very moment after years of speculation. Together we got it. Tens of thousands of voices cried out in Chicago with the interjections and expletives of their choosing. To say nothing of the reactions of the Viewers at Home.
Whether the setting is a state-of-the-art theater or an extra-large flea market, there’s something about a geek harmonic convergence that convention showrunner fiat and any number of internet trolls can’t blast away.
There was no convention to attend for the new trailer’s premiere tonight during Monday Night Football halftime, unless you count the game itself. I doubt they showed the trailer live at the stadium, but who knows. No, for this event I was at home at the same time as millions of other viewers, online and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. It wasn’t nearly the same kind of experience as the previous trailer, especially since I was trying to watch Black Lightning when it finally premiered around 9:50 pm EDT, give or take a few minutes, right in the middle of a key development with the Pierce family.
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 