Paper girls

EXCELLENT and I can't believe I just bought volume one! I had no idea what to expect, and I actually didn't know this was a sci-fi type of thing. I had only seen people praising it on the Internet and Amazon kept recommending it to me, so when a sale came, I just bought it. And boy, was I surprised as I kept reading. I don't think I'd be as thrilled as I was if I knew what the story was about. The surprises kept me close to the girls reactions as well, which was super fun.

It's new, it's gorgeous, the art is fantastic and oh my god the coloring! The story is super engaging, action-packed and with lovable characters.

The story is about a group of twelve-year-old girls in 1988 who deliver newspaper in a small town, and while doing their rounds on Halloween, strange things start to happen -- a group of deformed people , speaking a different language, apparently attacks them and steal their precious walkie-talkies, and people in town start disappearing. That is followed by a bunch of other strange phenomena and the four girls need to think quickly to survive all the chaos that ensues.

The girls are very much creatures of their time and for that I'm glad. It's so unsettling and unrealistic when writers transport present-time values to the past and slaps them on characters (cough The Alienist cough). They're a lovable group and girls of their own, however I feel like characters like KJ and Tiffany are still obscure as people themselves. I still don't feel like I know what they're like, unlike Erin and Mac. I hope to see them develop on the next volumes.

Their reactions to what was happening around them were almost always understandable and believable, and I think the only exception was the scene where Mac accidentally shot Erin. Twelve-year-olds would be much more freaked out by that than what actually happened on the comic, it was too matter-of-factly, like they were used to guns or whatever. I didn't really buy or liked that part,, but the story doesn't take a breather and you just have to keep going along with them.

Aside from those points, the story really is engaging and seeing an all-girls group of adventurers is sadly refreshing. All-boys groups on the eighties (and even now, just look at Stranger Things and how long it took them to include a girl that wasn't "magical-girl, plot-devicey" Eleven) were common, and when we had girls, it was only The Love Interest.

TL;DR: READ IT!

I'm about to head back to Amazon and buy the omnibus of this comic.

Full disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book from Net Galley. This review was originally published at Full of Words.

Paper Girls feels like a forgotten 1980s adventure that piles on the subversive twists. They don’t make movies like that anymore, let alone ones this weird.

I think the technical term here is “box office poison,” and yet I’d love to see Paper Girls up on the big screen. It begs for the kind of lovingly nostalgic adaptation that could only work with modern special effects and sensibilities.

Erin is a paper girl in the small town of Stony Stream, Ohio. Her story begins on the morning of November 1st, which is known in her profession as “Hell Night” thanks to all the teenaged trick-or-treaters still humming on stolen sugar highs.

When Erin runs into three other girls on the same route, they team up to stay safe during the night, but run into something far more sinister than marauding teenagers. Things only get weirder from there.

If you enjoy Vaughan’s work on Saga, you’ll recognize the same bizarre sensibilities here. What starts off like a throwback to Spielberg at the height of the eighties quickly collides with Vaughan’s surrealist sci-fi tendencies, and shit gets weird.

I’m still not entirely sure what is going on in the story at the end of the first volume, but it definitely grabbed me and made me want to keep reading. As soon as I finished issue five, I bought the next issue at full price and am seriously considering subscribing to the series on Comixology.

My only real criticism of the book is that the girls don’t get much character development. Erin is a good girl. Mac is a cynical rebel. KJ and Tiffany are… present? Somehow the book still works despite hanging on archetypical characters with little to no depth.

That said, that lack of depth could be a major turnoff if you aren’t a fan of Vaughan’s brand of weirdness. My hope is that future issues flesh out the characters a bit more, but either way I’m hooked.