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Paper Girls: Your new favourite comic book

6 April, 2016 — by Catherine Thompson0

Paper Girls is billed by Image Comics as Stand by Me meets War of the Worlds. Frankly that alone should be enough to spark your interest, but if you’re still not convinced, here’s why you should be take a look…

paper girls foursome

This latest offering from Brian K Vaughan (the creator and writer of Saga and Y: The Last Man) is a sci-fi coming of age story set in the 80s – just right for you millennials young folk out there looking for your next (or even very first) comic book fix.

Paper Girls is the story of four 12 year-old newspaper delivery girls in 1988, who on the morning after Halloween, find themselves in a whole mess of neon-lit sci-fi/fantasy adventure, full of time-travelling aliens, weird futuristic technology (featuring a mysterious ‘apple’ logo with a bite taken out of it) and an increasingly sparse adult population.

The thing that hits you first is the stunning colour work by Matt Wilson. Each cover is a single block of neon, which is incredibly striking when offset with the black line art of Cliff Chiang, whose work on the initial run of the New 52 Wonder Woman was superb.

Paper Girls issue 2 cover

The story unfolds in the very early morning, which is brought to life with washed out purples, pinks and other morning sky-shades. Issue one is gorgeous and opens with a wonderfully weird dream sequence that gives you immediate insight into where Erin, the newbie Paper Girl, is at emotionally.

paper-girls dream sequence

The next four issues (there are five in the current arc) continue with this palette, and although it’s not as immediately appealing the bright warmth of Fiona Staple’s art in Saga, it’s very evocative of the era and the character art is nothing less than wonderful. You get a sense of these four girls straight away – and a lot of this is in the simple but effective facial illustration.

paper girls coming to get our shit back

Vaughan’s writing is – as always – completely spot on and satisfyingly diverse. Not to dwell too heavily on this, but it’s massively refreshing to have a coming-of-age action/adventure/sci-fi story that’s about a group of girls, and ones that aren’t just babysitting or talking about boys at that. The interplay between them and the other kids on the street is tight and realistic, plus the crazy alien languages we’re introduced to later are lots of fun to decipher.

paper girls

The characters are distinct and well drawn, and the story jumps quickly into the surreal; getting to the exciting stuff as soon as it can. Paper Girls also plants itself neatly in the 80s with lots of lovely references and visual cues, which are all hugely enjoyable. One of my favourite sequences is a montage where one of the girls realises how much time she’s wasted playing Arkanoid and it’s all played out in rectangular single-coloured blocks. Gorgeous.

paper girls arkanoid
Overall Paper Girls is charming, super fast-paced and loads of fun. The first five issues have been released this week as a very cheap graphic novel, although as it’s Vaughan, if you buy individual issues you’re treated to an exclusive letters section – this time under the guise of The American Newspaper Delivery Guide, which is great fun and superbly references what you’ll find in the back of 80s comic books. Individual issues are only 79p on Image right now, so why not give it a go?

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Paper Girls
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