Sunday was my first time ever performing on stage as I ended my Improv 101 class at the Upright Citizens Brigade Training Center. Ultimately, I think I did decent for a first-timer in an entry class and luckily it was filmed. After hours upon hours of figuring out editing software and almost getting it right, I’ve uploaded the 45 minutes of show into four segments.

The class was of 16 students. One dropped out and one sadly had a family emergency, so we were split into two groups of seven. The plan is to get a suggestion from the audience, do a monologue, do a handful of skits based on the ideas of that monologue, do another monologue and so on. Of the nine skits my group did, I’m in five, plus I did a monologue at one point. I’ll do some commentary on my stuff after the fold.

What a day! Today is when I got to take part in my Improv 101 graduation performance, which apparently came off pretty well. I can’t speak for myself too well, since that was my first time performing on stage and being up there was just a gigantic blur. Had a strong turnout, though, including a visit by Chris Eckert.

I’m in there somewhere. I might possibly be the black woman, but I can’t say for sure. I’ll talk more about my experiences at UCB in the coming days, as well as hopefully have something from YouTube to show for it.

Lot of contributors this week. David has my back, apparent from all the manga, but I also have Was Taters, Space Jawa, Jody (also nice enough to check out the show) and luis. With all the comics read by all of us, the most gripping question asked is, “Why does Scarlet Witch write ‘DREAM JOURNAL’ in the middle of her dream journal?”

Amazing Spider-Man #684
Dan Slott and Humberto

Avengers Prelude: Fury’s Big Week #4
Christopher Yost, Eric Pearson, Agustin Padilla, Don Ho and Wellinton Alves

Avengers vs. X-Men #2
Jason Aaron, Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Jonathan Hickman, Matt Fraction and John Romita Jr.

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Sorry for the extended break. Last time, I finished off Kurt Busiek’s knockout run on Thunderbolts, ending at #33. While Mark Bagley stays on board for a little while longer, the new writer is Fabian Nicieza. Nicieza is a great writer (listen, he’s posted in previous comment sections, so he might be reading this. Follow my lead) that you can usually count on. His pro is his great grasp on making characters interesting. His con is his habit of making plots a little too confusing and complex at times. Like, I loved his Cable/Deadpool run, but he had a thing for introducing maguffins that needed three pages of exposition to set up. After those three pages, I’d come out cross-eyed. Odds suggest he ghost-wrote Inception. One of the great things here is that Nicieza simply picks up where Busiek left off, not choosing to kill the setup for his own specific take. It’s very seamless.

While they are still investigating the Beetle appearances that have popped up in the media, the Thunderbolts continue to try and make themselves look better in the public eye. Hawkeye publicly states that they’re going to bring in the Hulk, a statement that the others aren’t so pleased with. Luckily, he has a plan. He has Moonstone in street clothes confront Bruce Banner and try to talk him into turning himself in for the betterment of society. Banner doesn’t agree, refusing to give up his freedom so the Thunderbolts can gain brownie points and turns to leave. Unfortunately, this guy named Clay Brickford is in town and he has a tense history with Banner and the Hulk. Without thinking, he punches Banner, who transforms and skips the scene.

The team of Hawkeye, Moonstone, Songbird and Atlas more or less fight Hulk to a draw. They use teamwork to set up an attack meant to exhaust and knock him out, he lashes out in a way that takes them all out, jumps away, then collapses and turns into Banner. Hawkeye is partially buried under wreckage and when that Clay guy shows up to kill Banner, Hawkeye fires an arrow into Banner’s shoulder, knocks him off a ledge and onto the top of a moving truck, where he rides off to freedom. The team decides to regroup, accepting that they failed. Still, that isn’t the real story of the issue.

Jolt and Charcoal are forced to sit things out so they can go to school instead. After school, they hang out with their friends – the kids who have previously asked the Thunderbolts for help – and the cliffhanger shows someone watching them through a sniper rifle.

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Bit of a personal history lesson to start this off. Years back, I went to college at the Rochester Institute of Technology. By the end of it, I was in kind of a depressed rut. I lost interest in my degree a long time ago and the hardest classes I had to take part in had incredibly little to do with what I was working towards. This was right around the time when David asked me to start writing on this site and that helped me out mentally more than he’ll ever know, which is one of the many reasons why he’ll always have my friendship and loyalty.

Once I was done with RIT, I was in a bad spot where I had no prospects and no direction. A high school friend of mine, Roger, invited me and some others to check out ASSSSCAT in New York City at the UCB Theater. UCB (Upright Citizens Brigade) is an improv comedy organization that’s been in NYC for years with the main attraction being an improv show called ASSSSCAT, featuring the same people who spun UCB into its own Comedy Central skit show for three seasons. Otherwise known as “Amy Poehler and those other dudes” to your average Joe. I went to a couple of ASSSSCAT performances and even got to see Jack McBreyer there before he hit it big. It was a blast and it was brought to my attention that they had their own improv school. It was something I thought would be great for me, but in my current situation, it wasn’t viable by a long shot. I didn’t have a job and no way was I going to be able to take care of the cost of both the classes and the constant trips into the city (I live about an hour away).

Eventually, I got a job at Barnes and Noble. It was something I figured was going to be incredibly temporary, but I was surprised by how much I took to it. Something about the people and the atmosphere of the place washed away the funk from my latter days of RIT and I’ve stayed there ever since. It made me feel content for the first time in years and it’s always been good to me. Still, in the beginning, I didn’t feel financially comfortable enough to do the UCB thing. After a short while, the idea faded away, completely forgotten.

My brother Geremy never lost his faith in me and surprised me last Christmas by revealing that he had enrolled me in Improv 101 at the UCB Training Facility. I was overwhelmed that he never forgot and I agreed that it was definitely time to get my ass into gear. Every Tuesday, I’ve been hitting the city for eight sets of three-hour classes as taught by experienced improv comedian and eerily chill guy Tim Martin. Other than attending class, I’ve also been tasked with seeing at least two UCB improv shows, most of which are free for me, so that’s some homework I can get behind.

I’ve been having the absolute time of my life and I’ve enjoyed learning alongside my other classmates (plus there’s a 4:1 female-to-male ratio, so giggity and all that). I’m already set to sign up for 201 and go as far with this as I possibly can, hoping to be all that I can be on the comedy front. With my time with 101 winding down, we have a big graduation performance thing coming up. The way it’ll work is that the class will split into two groups. Each group performs for about 20-25 minutes. Someone in the crowd says a word and someone in the group steps forward to tell a monologue about that word. Then once that’s done, skits happen off the cuff loosely based on the ideas from that story.

The show is on Sunday, April 22 at noon at the UCBeast Theater. I have friends and family planning to check it out, but if there are any readers out there in the area who have nothing going on that time of the day, by all means check it out. It’s only $5, so that’s not bad. Just keep in mind that there are two different UCB Theaters in NYC and this one is at the East Village. 153 East 3rd Street, to be exact.

If not, that’s cool too. I’m trying to have the thing filmed and put on YouTube. Unless we suck completely, in which I’ll just have the camera burned and buried at sea.

It’s time to prove to your friends (and readers) that you’re worth a damn. Sometimes that means dying (on stage). Sometimes that means killing a whole lot of people (with laughter).

Late update and I’m honestly kind of slumping over as I write this up. Today I took a trip to NYC and watched the Upright Citizens Brigade show ASSSSCAT, which had special appearances by Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers and Bobby Moynihan. Awesome time.

This week I’m helped out by Space Jawa, Jody and my old friend Gaijin Dan Mastriani. Nothing from David, but on the subject of my boss who hates it when I call him boss, he has a really fantastic Comics Alliance post that should be up any day now. I got to read it ahead of time and I suggest you check it out once it’s published. It takes his JMS post from the other day and turns it into the tip of the iceberg.

Avenging Spider-Man #6
Greg Rucka, Mark Waid and Marco Checchetto

Batman and Robin #8
Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason

Carnage USA #5
Zeb Wells and Clayton Crain

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The whole 4 Elements article concept is David’s baby. The four ties into the four in 4thletter and 4thletter comes from David’s name because he’s an egomaniac, an Eggo maniac and possibly a Lego maniac. You can also say that the four comes from there literally being four elements, but I’m pretty sure there are like a hundred of those things, so that’s definitely wrong.

This is David’s site and all, but Carnage USA is my comic. It’s a comic specifically made for ME. Me. Gavin Jasper. And since I’m Gavin, which starts with the seventh letter of the alphabet, that means I need to talk about the 7 Elements.

Carnage USA is the sequel to last year’s Carnage, both by Zeb Wells and Clayton Crain. Carnage was the story that returned Carnage from his grizzly death of being torn in half in space by the Sentry back in 2005. It acts as a loose sequel to the character’s most mainstream adventure Maximum Carnage while introducing yet another symbiote anti-hero in Scorn. By the end of the story, not only is Cletus Kasady alive and reunited with his blood-red costume, but he’s also on the loose and nobody knows where he’ll end up next. All we know is that he has something bad on the horizon.

The plot of Carnage USA has Cletus venture to Doverton, Colorado, where he goes to a slaughterhouse and kills the entire stock of cows. The symbiote grows off the meat and expands to the point that he’s able to infect and assimilate the entire town through plumbing. A handful of the Avengers (Spider-Man, Captain America, Wolverine, Hawkeye and Thing) are sent to go deal with it and find a town of frightened human puppets before Carnage takes them too. Spider-Man gets away and the government goes to plan B… while trying real hard not to move to the dire plan C, which is to blow the county to kingdom come.

This miniseries helps support the idea that in comics, there are no bad characters, but bad writers. For such a mainstream villain who got his own popular videogame back in the day, Carnage’s death was met with little backlash. For years he’s been seen as nothing more than 50% shallow Venom mixed with 50% shallow Joker. Nobody’s ever really tried to write something decent with him and whenever he got the spotlight with his own one-shot, it was usually a bunch of gory dreck that didn’t do anything for me.

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I love fighting games. I also love Mystery Science Theater 3000. Never have I really considered the idea of mixing the two.

A guy by the name of FutureDami decided that not only should such a thing exist, but he went the extra mile with it by making a gallery of “official” profile art for such a hypothetical video game. Rather than go with the obvious of Mike, Joel, the Bots and the Mads, FutureDami instead goes with the many, many bizarre characters our heroes have been forced to watch over the show’s ten seasons. Behold the world of Mystery Science Theater Beatdown!

Yes, who needs playable Mike and Joel when you have Trumpy, Torgo, the Phantom of Krankor, the Hobgoblins, the Beast of Yucca Flats and Mr. B Natural?

Each character piece also features a profile, including how they would fight had this game existed. Check it out. It’s a great who’s who/love letter.

PUMAMAN (Episode 903)

Professor Tony Farms could have gone his entire life without knowing he was THE PUMAMAN. Yes, he could sense danger. Sure, he could see in the dark. And he was vaguely aware that his hands were steel claws, after a series of broken nail-clippers and inexplicably ruined sofas.

But it was only when Tony was hurled out a window by Aztec priest Vidinio that he truly embraced his inner puma, making him technically some sort of 70s proto furry.

Pumaman is an aerial attacker, using the natural flying abilities of the puma(?) and feline grace to flail around and fall at a 45 degree angle. Most of his attacks involve him losing control of his pitch/yaw, crying and giving up, and simply slamming into his opponent with the force of a discarded dishrag.

PITCH (Episode 521)

Pitch is a part time devil working for Lucifer. After a brief stint lowering the productivity of bread delivery drivers, Pitch settled in to a decent routine of minor harassment. Working odd jobs for eternity in hell has given pitch a wide array or marginally useful skills.

In combat, Pitch is quite versatile, able to switch the position of his asbestos-tipped trident for various styles of fighting. He has three stances:

“Infernal” a fire based magical stance where Pitch uses his sulphurous combustion breath.

“Impenetrable” a guarded stance in which Pitch torments his opponents witch cheap ranged stabs and stuns.

“Ineffable” a forbidden hubris-based style that is inherently too overpowered, complex, and abstract to be adequately communicated.

DROPPO (Episode 321)

Droppo is lazy. I mean seriously lazy. The guy is such a bum, he can waste other people’s time simply from being in the same room. He is probably the laziest man on Mars. If there was a Martian DMV, he would work there. Part time.

He is equipped with pulse-phase anti-gravity boots, and a deadly q-ray pistol, but Droppo can hardly be assed to use them.

What, do you ask, is his advantage in combat? This: You can’t beat a guy who doesn’t give a crap. There is at this date, no known way to defeat Droppo.

NASTINKA (Episode 813)

Knowing his time was nearly at an end, the jovial Jack Frost adbicated his frozen throne and dominion over ice to pert young Nastinka.

She was, after all, the only person ever to recover from the bone chilling effect of his magic scepter. This weapon was susequently reclassified: “Will freeze to death anything it touches save for a few rare exceptions when true love and plot convenience is involved. Use as directed.”

Nastinka does not have a large health pool, and will shatter with a few punches. Good luck ever getting close enough to her, though. She will call down ferocious aoe snowstorms slowing opponents, and will slick the ground wherever she walks for several seconds causing enemies to slip and fall in a comedic manner.

She will smile in a pleasant innocent manner while you are entombed in a bitter cold casket, and wait patiently while all the blood in your veins turns to ice. Do not mess with Nastinka.

ZAP ROWSDOWER (Episode 910)

No description needed. Its ROWSDOWER.

(Drinking arm status: healed)

Awesome. Absolutely awesome.

So I didn’t write anything between the last ThWiP installment and this one. I’ll try not to do that again. Sorry.

I’m helped out this week by David Brothers, Space Jawa and Jody. Jody offers the Avengers vs. X-Men and Avengers vs. X-Men: Infinite panels, something I find myself staying away from. I’m rather shocked by how little I care about this event. I think part of it comes from the bluntness of the concept. The events from the past few years haven’t been perfect, but they’re all based on really solid ideas. It just so happens that all of these ideas lead to heroes vs. heroes. And I was cool with that. It’s just that when nearly every single major story is heroes vs. heroes, doing a story that is literally heroes vs. heroes in the title makes it hard for me to care. It’s self-parody and it has me rolling my eyes.

Maybe if it gets some good word of mouth I’ll check it out, but after Fear Itself burned me with its terrible pacing, I need to sit this one out.

Now to the panels.

Action Comics #8
Grant Morrison, Rags Morales and Brad Walker

Age of Apocalypse #2
David Lapham and Roberto de la Torre

Animal Man #8 (Jody’s pick)
Jeff Lemire, Steve Pugh and Travel Foreman

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Now that my tomfoolery is out of the way, it’s time for the actual ThWiP update. With me are Space Jawa and Was Taters, who as it turns out, are NOT figments of my beautiful mind.

Deadpool MAX ended this week. I should be sad, but honestly, it was time. Same with Captain America and Bucky.

All Star Western #7
Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, Moritat and Patrick Scherberger

Aquaman #7
Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis

Atomic Robo: Real Science Adventures #1 (The Revenge of Dr. Dinosaur)
Brian Clevinger & Yuko Oda

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It’s Sunday, so that means it’s time for This Week in Panels! Lot of good stuff came out this week.

Usually, I’d be accompanied by my usual crew of contributors like David Brothers, Was Taters, Space Jawa, Jody, luis and the others, but recently it’s been brought to my attention that none of them are real. They’re all figments of my imagination, linked to my amazing ability to make mathematical connections. Lately, I’ve been taking pills to help me with this problem, so I should be okay.

And go!

Amazing Spider-Man #544
J. Michael Straczynski and Joe Quesada

Billy Ray Cyrus #2
Paul S. Newman and Dan Barry

Doom
Steve “Body Bag” Behling, Michael “Splatter” Stewart and Tom “Gallows’ Grindberg

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