AvidBards
Reviews

The New Age of Superheroes

The Umbrella Academy TV Review Many of you have probably watched, or are planning to watch, the new addition to Netflix: The Umbrella Academy. The sci-fi superhero show is based on a graphic novel created by Gerard Way, who is best known as the former front man of My Chemical Romance, and artist Gabriel Bá. Right off the bat, I could tell that this show was quirky, goth-y, and slightly surrealist, which aptly fits with the Gerard Way circa MCR brand. The Umbrella Academy revolves around a group of children who were all born on the same day to women…

View Post
Books

Stories about Women to Discover this International Women’s Day

Happy International Women’s Day! This blog is run by two women and for us, it is very important to constantly remember and shine the light on the amazing women artists who have been writing, directing, acting, singing, creating incredibly works of storytelling. Particularly when those stories have to do with other women. Women’s history has not always been the kindest, in fact for most of history, women found themselves in positions of want in comparison to the other sex. Strides have been made in the last century that work to alter that position, but there is still so much to…

View Post
Reflections

Batwoman: Challenging Traditional Gender Norms

In lieu of the exciting news that DC Comics character Batwoman will be made into a TV series (starring Ruby Rose), I hearken back to a time when I studied Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams’ graphic novel, Batwoman: Elegy (2009-2010), in university. This Batwoman edition is part of the modernized Batwoman canon (starting in 2005), in which Kate Kane (formerly Kathy) is written as a Jewish lesbian woman. Now, this depiction is incredibly important because it takes major leaps for the LGBTQIA+ community, as queer main characters are not often found, particularly in the superhero genre. Archaic gendered notions of macho…

View Post