Brian K. Vaughan is so good, it’s not even fair. Seriously, the guy wrote his share of now-classic comics, “Saga” is consistently one of the best books on the stands, and “Paper Girls” is shaping up to be one of his best series. The dude is unstoppable. Stick him with a quality art team and watch the magic happen!
Written by Brian K. Vaughan
Illustrated by Cliff Chiang
Colored by Matt WilsonTrapped in the distant past, KJ discovers something shocking about the future.
“Paper Girls” started out a simple and grounded tale. Well, that’s not exactly true, but seeing how far it’s come in thirteen issues really illustrates how far off the deep end it’s gone. What started as a Stephen King-like story of a group of kids stumbling onto some weirdness has turned into a full-on time travel science fiction epic that defies genre convention with every twist. The book went from Stranger Things with four girls instead of four boys to a psychedelic mystery in the Pleistocene.
Despite the far-out story and visuals, the team never loses sight of the main characters and how ordinary they are. There’s some good old-fashioned lampshade hanging, like when Tiff and Erin ponder the complexities of causality as they leave a message for their past (or is that future?) selves. But then there is the thoroughly relatable conversation KJ and Mac have about first periods while exploring a time-and-spaceship. Vaughan writes the teenager-speak well enough (he’s come a long way since his quippy work on “Runaways”) but he even works in a striking exchange about the state of sex education in suburban Ohio in the 80s. It’s a conversation that should be strongly tied to a certain time, but is no less universal now. All of this in a time traveling vessel.
Speaking of time machines, this is a book that forces Cliff Chiang to do it all. He has to draw kids, dinosaurs, monsters, sci-fi vehicles, and anything else Vaughan can think to throw at him, and he acquits himself nicely while never abandoning his signature style. This is a series where characters frequently encounter alternate-timeline doppelgangers, but it is never hard to tell characters apart. That’s no small thing. Chiang, and colorist extraordinaire Matt Wilson, do a great job at bringing Vaughan’s overabundance of imagination to life. I was especially impressed at the diversity in the cavemen and women. One of them looks like Aloy from the recent Horizon Zero Dawn, but another is covered with hairy lines like a James Stokoe drawing.
If there’s one criticism of this issue, it’s that the different arcs are getting hard to follow. While the story sticks with the main girls, the mysteries and supporting cast is starting to pile up. With no recap page at the beginning, this is the kind of book that you either need to be fully committed to, or you need to be ready to do some research to remind yourself what’s going on. That’s not too much to ask for if you’re picking up a trade paperback every six months, but it makes the issue-to-issue continuity a bit hard to follow. That being said, Vaughan is a master scripter, and there’s enough happening from the first panel to the final cliffhanger that the issue never feels too packed with plot movement. It’s obviously written for the trade, and it’s hard to hold that against a book, but simultaneously makes it difficult to judge a single issue.
I’ve spent a lot of time here singing praises to Vaughan and Chiang, and even a few to Wilson, who always deserves more credit, but the real superstar of this issue is Jared K. Fletcher. He’s credited with doing “letters and layouts” and both are superlative in this issue. Lettering is often looked at as the most arcane part of the comics-making process, only understood by die-hard fans, but it’s pretty obvious this is some next level work. The way Fletcher letters translation gizmos is slightly different than regular speech, and when a word is untranslatable, it’s written as such, and you can almost hear the error sound of the futuristic computer. Likewise, he does caveman speech and baby-speak and it’s all got it’s own beautiful quality.
Continued belowThe climactic moment of the issue is when “KJ discovers something shocking about the future” as the solicit puts it. This is notable for two reasons. The first is the most obvious place where Fletcher is put to work on designs: the page goes sideways in a memorable flash forward. The second way assuages a concern I had about this series. This is a mystery box through-and-through, and those kinds of stories don’t have a great reputation for sticking the landing. By teasing at events to come, Vaughan is assuring his readership that all of these threads will be dealt with. There is a plan for “Paper Girls” even if it is almost impossible to see the outline of it.
So if you haven’t yet, pick up “Paper Girls.” Vaughan is great, Chiang is great, the whole creative team is superlatively great. This is a heavily serialized book, so you’re going to have to start from the beginning, and you should. If you’ve been keeping up with this weird little book, this is a middle chapter, but hopefully one that will keep you satisfied until the next issue. As for me, I’m dying to find out where it’s all going.
Final Verdict: 8.9 – Vaughan and friends turn out a great issue of what might be his best series in years.
