Strong Women of the Far Future and Past: Paper Girls volume 3

 

Review:

With the Folding, the time portal at the end of volume 2 blasting our four Paper Girls backwards into the 12th century BCE, volume 3 of this Eisner and Harvey Award-winning series turns down the sci-fi and turns the danger dial all the way up. Prehistoric creatures. Armed locals. Wilderness ravines and other dangers. And three very dangerous, angry, homicidal men exiled from their stone-age tribe.

Erin, Mac, KJ and Tiffany encounter young Wari, barely their age, and her infant son Jahpo. They are quickly pulled into Wari's quest to find the dream women, while avoiding the three men - one or more of whom may be responsible for siring Jahpo.

Their path home seems impossible - how does one find a time machine when one is thousands of years back in pre-history? But when they run into Qanta Braunstein, the woman who invented time travel on her breakthrough journey - well, rescue her actually, from the clutches of the three men - suddenly they feel hope return.

Swirled into Brian K Vaughan's tense, edge-of-the seat storytelling are many touching moments of courage, honor, bravery, sacrifice and friendship. This volume is the most powerful so far, in this tremendously fun and engaging series. The coming-of-age motif makes a powerful return, and we get exciting new glimpses and revelations about these girls and their strength of character. Freed from the 1980s references of the first volume, and the creative imagining of how children of the 80s would react to 2016 of the second volume, the creative team was more able to dive deep into the characters themselves.

Cliff Chiang and Matt Wilson continue to do amazing work with the images. The art is strong from end to end, and Wilson's use of colors is inspired and well deserving of the multiple awards he won for the series.

And by this point, if you are not paying attention to the eyes of the different characters, you need to back up and reread parts. Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets, famously obsessed over the eyes of his creations, as they were so important to convey life and character. Chiang must feel the same, as he switches through several different ways of drawing the eyes of the characters, to fit different moments in their stories. Just one of the many little details packed into these graphic novel pages.

Description:

Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang’s Eisner Award winning series Paper Girls is coming Amazon Prime Video in July 2022!

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: issues #11-15

Authors:  Brian K Vaughan
Artists:  Cliff Chiang, Matt Wilson
Published By:  Image Comics
Published When:  Aug. 8, 2017
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1534302235
Pages:  128 pages

Erin one, Erin two, Erin three - review of Paper Girls Volume 2

 

Review:

In this second volume of Brian K Vaughan's multiple-award-winning Paper Girls series, we've jumped from the teased-hair and cassettes era of 1988 into the contemporary moment of 2016, roughly the present given the original publication date. Our temporally displaced pre-teens now have more than a mystery, they have a mission: get back home to 1988.

But 2016 is a near enough future that their older selves might still be alive and around. The childhood desire to trust an adult urges them to seek out reliable ones, and who more so than their older selves? Who would be more sympathetic to their plight and willing to assist them?

They meet 40-year-old Erin almost immediately, and their first encounter is a powerful moment. Vaughan draws out the "is this for real?" confusion and consternation, fear and suspicion over several emotionally fraught pages, and Cliff Chiang's art drives home the tension and relief in this strange reunion.

The creative team gives a similar treatment a few pages later, when the girls learn that Mac does not have an older self. In fact, she dies of leukemia in the early 1990s, just a few years ahead of her current age. It's a sobering discovery that will carry forward as a dark cloud hanging over the group. And the words and images blend together with such gut-grabbing force.

To this point, the Paper Girls series has been more or less an after-school special with a bit of Twilight Zone mixed in. But here in 2016 elements of science fiction and horror begin to come more strongly to the fore. It starts with the appearance of a third Erin, a clone from the future. Is she someone to be trusted or not? Then giant-sized formerly microscopic monsters begin battling each other in the lake and rivers of Cleveland or chasing the girls through an abandoned shopping mall. And the many-eyed monsters shaped like pyramids and cubes and spheres arrive and attack too. We are clearly not staying n the realm of middle-school relationship TV dramas!

Volume 2 is a brisk sci-fi / fantasy tale with the emotional punch of a giant tardigrade monster. Another strong chapter of this fantastic series. Our heroes escape on the final pages and land in another time, but where in history are they now?

Description:

The Eisner Award-winning “Best New Series” from BRIAN K. VAUGHAN and CLIFF CHIANG continues with a bold new direction, as intrepid young newspaper deliverers Erin, Mac and Tiffany find themselves launched from 1988 to a distant and terrifying future... the year 2016.

Collects: issues #6-10

Authors:  Brian K Vaughan
Artists:  Cliff Chiang, Matt Wilson
Published By:  Image Comics
Published When:  Dec 6, 2016
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1632158956
Pages:  128 pages

A Late-80s Immersion Course: Paper Girls volume 1

 

Review:

Erin. Tiffany. Mac. KJ. Four 12-year-old girls delivering newspapers in the early morning hours in the Cleveland suburb of Stony Stream. Four children pulled into the timestream that lands them in the middle of a war for control of time itself. Can they lean on one another and their own still-nascent skills enough to survive all the perils they face, and get back home safely? And can their friendships survive if they do?

Out of this raw material, the creative team of writer Brian K. Vaughan, artist Cliff Chiang and colorist Matt Wilson assemble a grand, epic and award-winning coming-of-age tale. It's an after-school special that collides with Twilight Zone and Doctor Who. It's trippy, beautiful, moving. Amazon Prime brought the story to an 8-episode series in 2022. And it all started here.

This first volume collects the first five chapters of Paper Girls. The very first one could well be a comic version of an old-time after-school special. Its pages are filled with friendships and drama, a dash of weirdness, conflict with older teens, and hints of something more ominous lurking in the shadows.

Mac is the tough who-gives-a-f*ck character, at least at the start the group's leader, if only by virtue of her aggressive personality.

Erin Tiang is the new kid, still in the early days of her paper-delivery job, who is only now meeting the other three. Smart and dedicated, she is no fool.

Tiffany brings the positive-energy vibe to the group. And, crucially in this first volume, she also brings the fancy new walkie-talkies.

KJ is the hardest to read in these early pages. She has courage in spades, and a dark thread of violence woven into her; she my let others lead in key moments, but she stands ready to defend her friends.

When flying monsters and their lance-wielding riders appear out of the purple-pink lightning, our four heroes tumble from the realm of teen drama into science fiction and fantasy.

This volume is very carefully paced; Brian K. Vaughan slowly unfolds layers of plot, as they encounter glimpses of the generational conflict between the mutant, deformed teens and the Old-Timers, along with time travel in a stolen space-time ship ("It's a bad idea to travel through time without also considering location")

Cliff Chiang provides the volume with stellar images. His use of well-spaced full-page splash reveal-moments add to the awe we feel in ourselves and in our four heroes. The many visual nods to the late 1980s era, in details such as hair styles, clothes and cultural references give the tale an extra level of delight. And his art is often tasked with carrying the plot over several wordless pages. What he and colorist Matt Wilson give us feels like watching a TV show.

Wilson's own work on colors is also amazing and deserves highlighting. From the pre-dawn hues of a 5 AM paper delivery, through shafts of light and shadow, early sunrise splashes on buildings, and shocking pinks and purples when temporal shifts happen, his palette range and contribution to the visuals earned him multiple well-deserved awards for this exceptional work.

By the end of volume 1, our girls have been shot, chased by glowing green Editrix creatures, met some deformed future teens, escaped the Old Ones and Grand Father, and finally jumped through time to the year 2016. It's a fantastic start to a superbly crafted series.

Description:

From Brian K. Vaughan, #1 New York Times bestselling writer of SAGA, and Cliff Chiang, legendary artist of WONDER WOMAN, comes the first volume of an all-new ongoing adventure.

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

Collects: Issues #1-5

Authors:  Brian K Vaughan
Artists:  Cliff Chiang, Matt Wilson
Published By:  Image Comics
Published When:  April 5, 2016
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1632156747
Pages:  144 pages