Shouldn’t Trump have accepted the nomination here as well? MonsterFestMania, July 29 and 30 in Akron

Event preview by Charles Cassady, Jr.

San Diego Comic-con is in full swing right now. But if you are reading this, you're probably not there. You're probably still stuck in the Cleveland area, with your own lonely action-figure collection and Hollywood fantasy/sci-fi/horror discs, and VHS tapes. Airfare to San Diego Comic-Con is quite outside your budget - not to mention admission at the door. You probably can barely afford to leave your parents' basement where you've been living for the last 30 years, like a forgotten Ariel Castro hostage in a state of Rust Belt permanent-recession squalor and minimum-wage poverty. A life in which the louche thrills of scary movies and canonical Bela Lugosi/Boris Karloff B-programmers emceed by Big Chuck were the only reliable escape.

No, even if you did sell a kidney or something to get money, San Diego Comic-Con would probably turn you away at the door anyway, just for being a homely Ohioan, not worthy of entry in a southern California public event. That Wonder Woman cosplay outfit is not fooling anybody.

But wait! There is a ray of hope for lonely genre fans here in flyover-land, and it resides in Akron.

Labyrinth (January 24 at 8:30 p.m. and January 25 at 7 p.m. at the Nightlight, Akron)

For a film that received wildly uneven critical reactions in its time - some critics were crazy about it, some thought it was an embarrassingly pretentious piece of pop-music/fairytale - the Muppet epic LABYRINTH ...probably still would receive wildly uneven critical reactions in this time. Probably for the same reasons (plus, not enough swag, bribes, prostitutes and drugs given by studio PR to the bought-off internet critics during the all-expenses-paid press junket).

For what it's worth, I am one of this film's admirers, and I've always wanted to write about it. Now it's in revival thanks to VIP cast member David Bowie tragically dying. I am sure his fans will blame me.

Before you gender-confused glam-rock types on heroin and/or nostalgic baby boomer yuppies come after me with your sharpened artificial fingernails and gold-plated pitchforks, listen to me: Bowie was not right-off-the-bat cast as Jareth the Goblin King in the fantasy. I have it on good authority a number of musical icons were under consideration for the role back in 1986, including Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson. I guess if you want to lynch anyone, it's director Jim Henson; HE'S the one you want! If it weren't for him, Bowie might still be alive today! Death to Jim Henson! Death to Jim Henson...oh, right, I forgot. (sigh)