What's So Great About Normal?

So… apparently a slight majority of Hugo Montenegro’s mfu songs from the “Original Music From The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” CD is on youtube after all (unfortunately not all of them, I couldn’t find Solo Busanova, nor a good quality version of Solo on a Raft, but I did find Illya and a whole bunch of other cool songs)

I have the ones I managed to find, converted to mp3s over here if anyone’s interested (plus 2 bonus songs that are from another composer that I stumbled upon a while ago) - it’s a wetransfer link so the files will be deleted 7 days from now (I’m posting this May 26th 2016), be sure to get it before then!

here’s a screencap of the tracklist below the cut:

So, on the way back to Boston from HeroesCon in June, lisapizza said, “You know, DragonCon is going to be right around the time kellysue run on Captain Marvel ends. We should do something nice from the Carol Corps.”

It was, gosh, a two hour flight? And by the end, she, charmingpplincardigans and I had sketched out a plan to collect letters from Carol Corps members and try to round up Carol cosplayers to do some sort of nebulous salute that we had a name for–The 21 Carol Salute–if not a concrete vision. The main obstacle to this, we knew, would be getting the word out without Kelly Sue hearing about it first. We couldn’t use the “carol corps” or “kelly sue” tags, because we knew she browsed them. We needed to be sneaky.

We recruited laurennmcc who was also attending the con, to help us with ideas and also make sure Kelly Sue was where we needed her to be when we needed her to be there. We also filled in our friend caphairdadbeard on the plan, and she suggested making the book a pilot’s checklist. We spent quite a few weeks being super vague and sending messages to people, asking kitcox for help, and quietly collecting submissions.

I seriously lost my mind with stress. I was afraid no one would send anything in, the parts of the physical book wouldn’t arrive on time, we’d have no cosplayers, and about a billion other things. But it all came together. We got a bunch of submissions in advance, we handed out more at the con. We filled every page. We had a ton of cosplayers agree to help us. Laurenn promised to carve out some time for us at the end of the Carol Corps panel (at which point, walking back to our room, Sarah and I realized we needed to come up with actual human words to say). And…it all came together.

I have zero recollection of what Kelly Sue actually said at the panel as I was literally shaking (when she walked by on her way to stage she touched my shoulder to compliment my costume and I swear to god I jumped out of my skin with nerves and @alyjack80,  literally shoved the book under her skirt), but I bet it was great. Laurenn called me and Sarah and KL up to stage and Kelly Sue immediately said “OH NO” and her reaction only got better from there. We spoke (I assume, it was kind of a blur) and gave her the book and did the salute and…yeah. You can see in the video.

It was really a moment that made me so, so proud to be in the Carol Corps and to have this comic that meant so much to so many people and this community that inspires and bands together to do good. I don’t know what else to say. Standing up there, watching all these people dressed as Carol profess their love and respect for Kelly Sue, seeing all the people who were so deeply effected by Captain Marvel, my heart felt happy and I knew we had done a good thing for a good person who has built something that will live on without her involvement, but has so much to thank her for.

Obviously, the weekend took a turn, and I hope that this was able to shine a little light into the gloom of the rest of it.

Thank you to lisapizza who couldn’t be at the con this weekend, and to charmingpplincardigans and caphairdadbeard for putting in tremendous work in making this happen. Thanks, too, to laurennmcc for all your support, kitcox for input, alyjack80 for changing her schedule to help, and carolcorpsatl for making time for us at the end of the panel.

Bigger thanks to every single person who contributed, from the people who sent things in advance, to the people who wrote messages while sitting in line for panels this weekend, to every single Carol cosplayer who so enthusiastically responded to my plea of, “Hi, I’m a stranger, can you help us with a thing?” Your finished product looked like this (picture courtesy of Sarah):

I went to my local comic/music store to pick up my pullbox.  It had been a while, so, I had quite a few titles there.  The guy behind the counter wasn’t the comic guy, but he grabbed my stuff and chatted with me about Bitch Planet as I made sure everything was there.

And from behind me, this guy goes, “Oh, gettin’ comics?  What’re you buying?”

And it was that tone, that tone right between expressing interest and being condescending, that you hear in comics spaces sometimes.  Mostly as a girl.  The person is cautiously optimistic that you share their interests, but also already pretty sure that you’re not going to live up to their standards.

But hey, I’m an adult, so I go, “Oh, Squirrel-Girl, Spider-Woman, Bitch Planet, Loki, Lumberjanes, Gotham Academy.  And a second copy of Operation SIN number 1, because Scottie Young covers.”  I hand my books back to the clerk, and the guy goes…

"Oh, girlly comics."

And I see the clerk’s face just close off, go to that polite ‘nothing’ face that experienced retail clerks make when they want to lean over the counter and punch someone but don’t want to get fired for it.

I turn around, and I smile and I say, “Yeah!  Isn’t it great?”

And dickhead stares at me, not quite sure why I’m not absorbing his insult the way it was intended, so I just smile a bit bigger and go, “In that I’m a girl, and these are great books that are aimed at me, and I enjoy reading them.” 

And then I just stare at him, pleasant customer service smile in place on my face, too.  I can see his confusion, and it’s hysterical.  I’m not embarrassed or threatened or humiliated by the fact that he dubbed my comics ‘for girls,’ because WHY WOULD I BE?  I mean, he’s the one standing there with nothing but a copy of Superior Iron Man, so I’m pretty sure I’m going to be having a better night of reading anyway.

The clerk goes, “I read most of these.  Bitch Planet is awesome.”

I then informed him that he could ACTUALLY order the stuff off of the back cover of Bitch Planet, and the two of us made excited noises about ordering the giant NC Foam Finger, and I paid for my comics, and I walked out.

THIS MAY BE THE GREATEST THING EVER