Brian K. Vaughan

Paper Girls, Vol. 2

In the early hours after Halloween on 1988, four 12-year-old newspaper delivery girls uncover the most important story of all time. Suburban drama and supernatural mysteries collide in this series about nostalgia, first jobs, and the last days of childhood -- Page 4 of cover.

Paper girls

I got gifted this by my brother and I just couldn't get into it. I'm sure it'll be someone else's cup of tea, but it's definitely not mine.

Kirsten Simkiss

Gillian Rose

What a fun adventure set in the late 80s with a bunch of kickass teenage girls! The mystery was intriguing and I can't wait to read the rest.

Abdullah

I'm already very invested in this. I can't wait for what happens next. The artwork is also so good.

There was a lot going on. Like A LOT. Maybe a little slower pacing would have been better. Also, wasn't to fond of the many slurs used.

Jeff James

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.

The multiple Eisner and Harvey Award-winning series from BRIAN K. VAUGHAN and CLIFF CHIANG continues, as newspaper deliverers Erin, Mac, and Tiffany finally reunite with their long-lost friend KJ in an unexpected new era, where the girls must uncover the secret origins of time travelor risk never returning home to 1988. Collects PAPER GIRLS #11-15

Paper Girls Vol. 3

Continues to be epic, in a way that would be hard to rave about without spoiling it. I think I have a soft spot for feminist yet nostalgic coming of age tales set amidst absolutely bat shit sci fi action. 

Newspaper deliverers Erin, Mac and Tiffany finally reunite with their long-lost friend KJ in an unexpected new era, where the girls must uncover the secret origins of time travel... or risk never returning home to 1988.

Paper Girls

Ryan LaFerney

The Eisner and Harvey Award-winning 80s hommage scifi series Paper Girls continues with Volume 3, where we see our pre-teen heroes, Erin, Mac, KJ and Emily, getting sent back to prehistoric times.

Written by Brian K. Vaughan (Saga) and illustrated by Cliff Chiang (Wonder Woman), Paper Girls is a Stranger Things-esque tale with a sci-fi mystery and female friendship at its core. It starts out with our main characters, four 12-year-old newspaper delivery girls in the ‘80s, doing their normal paper route early one Halloween morning. Queue the madness. Immediately by the first issue’s end, it gets crazy. Mysterious forces from the future attack their Cleveland suburb (Volume 1, collecting issues 1-5), they’re transported to 2016 (Volume 2, collecting issues 6-10) and eventually end up on what seems to be a different world (Volume 3, collecting issues 11-15).

 This brings us to Volume 3 where the girls travel back to prehistoric times, and the reader gets to spend more time with KJ, who was largely absent from the second volume. The four paper girls are reunited in a completely new place somewhere far off in the past, and run into a savage young women named Wari who looks vaguely native American except for the technojunk strung around her neck. A woman from the future named Doctor Quanta Braunstein shows up in a fancy suit and cool hairstyle, while Tiffany and Erin start to bond with the primitive girl Wari and her baby Jahpo. It turns out that three men are after Wari for her baby, and somehow they all claim fatherhood. They look a bit like Uruk-Hai Berserkers covered with mud, and they too have some technological flotsam to go with their stone axes. These three cave-men run into and capture Doctor Braunstein, while the girls try to come up with a plan to get back to 1988.

It's all a bit wild and a fun wild. Young girls crushing Pleistocene patriarchy! I wonder where Vaughan will take us and the girls in Volume 4?

The continuing story of newspaper deliverers Erin, Mac, KJ and Tiffany, as they time travel from prehistoric times to the year 2000.

Paper Girls 4

The mind-bending, time-warping adventure continues as intrepid newspaper deliverer Tiffany is launched from the prehistoric past into the year 2000! In this harrowing version of our past, Y2K was even more of a cataclysm than experts feared, and Tiffany and the girls find themselves caught up in its dangers. Vol. 4 is filled with some character development, and bounds of coming-of-age, 2000s nostalgia, as well as sci-fi grandiloquence. I definitively liked this better than Vol. 3.

As usual, Matt Wilson's color palette is stellar. He is one of the best colorists working in graphic novels today.

Cliff Chiang

"Contains material originally published in single magazine form as Paper girls 21-25."--Verso.

I just can't get enough of the neon-hued time travel adventure, Paper Girls. Seriously. This is one of the best comics out there right now. Vol. 5 is particularly poignant as it deals with the nature of fate. Mac and fellow newspaper delivery girls travel from the year 2000 to a distant and dangerous future edition of Ohio where we discover that there is disease that you can get from time-travel. We also discover just who the mysterious "Grand Father" is. Additionally, all signs point to mac and the girls traveling to a terrifying Trump-As-President USA future (or just the one we are currently living in). Can't wait to see what the girls think of our state of idiocracy!

As always, the neon-hued colors of Matt Wilson are mesmerizing.

Trippy in a way that makes me want to keep reading the series. I appreciate seeing young women standing up for each other and (period-typical) homophobia challenged on page. Yay for more diverse friend groups! 

winter ☆ 

one of if not my favorite comic of all time! i hold this so close to my heart 💗 i read paper girls every halloween with my sibs and it gets better and sweeter and more tender each year. stranger things ripped this off but this was cool even before white people’s weird obsession with the 80s kicked in. obvs recommend for fellow goonies fans + anyone with eyes and some brain cells 2 spare

Izza

3.75 stars | The illustrations are gorgeous, but nothing really happened in this volume. I'm still really excited to see where this is going.

4.5 stars | this series is so great! I'm loving the friendship and little/big Erin interactions <3

Ashlee

I have no idea what’s happening but I’m here for it

Julia Lotz

Nachdem ich die ersten vier Bände der Paper Girls-Reihe verschlungen und geliebt habe, musste ich relativ lange auf Band 5 warten. Nachdem er dann bei mir eingezogen war, habe ich allerdings mit Erschrecken feststellen müssen, dass es bereits der vorletzte Band der wundervollen Reihe ist. Aber den habe ich auch wieder sehr geliebt. Er spielt in der Zukunft und ich liebe de Bände ehrlich gesagt mehr, die in einer Zeit spielen, die bereits vergangen ist. Dennoch erfahren wir besonders in diesem Band so unglaublich viel und werden unglaublich gut aufs Finale vorbereitet. Viele Fragen klären sich und ich kann Band 6 mittlerweile gar nicht mehr abwarten.

Rowan Myers

I feel like this is setting up something awesome, but I'm not immediately hooked. I'll try the next one to be sure.

"Originally published in single magazine form as Paper Girls #1-10"--Title page verso.

Paper Girls Deluxe Edition

Connor 

OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS I CAN'T BELIEVE I HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL APRIL FOR MORE

Christine Bruce

Another great addition to this amazing comic!!

sophia n

super fun setup and interesting characters, and honestly i just love a good time-fuckery sci-fi story. the plot is pretty straightforward (for time travel lmao), but also introduces just enough questions to make me curious to see where it goes in the next volume. the art is also incredibly gorgeous, and the colorist totally killed it, i’m kind of in love. trigger warning for homophobia and the use of the f-slur. (spoiler: issue #30 resolves it)

Ashley Wendt

That was a fun story! The 80’s nods & references were so great and funny! I’m interested to read the next volume and see where this story goes....and all the Apple refs?!?

I devoured this installment! My brain is a bit in circles from all the time travel talk, but I’m digging the bond these girls are creating. There was a particular conversation I felt was unnecessary in the storyline, and made me roll my eyes, but other than that, I really liked this and I am so on this journey with these girls.

I’m really enjoying this series! The mystery keeps getting better and better. I want more. I’m loving all the bad ass women in this story...and I’m totally obsessed with the artwork and colors!! I need more!!!

Paper Girls, Vol. 2

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