Paper Girls is yet another amazing adventure in the Brian K. Vaughan comicverse

I’ve written about Brian K. Vaughan before, which makes sense because anything he touches seems to turn to gold. In terms of storytellers through the graphic-novel media, I don’t think there’s anyone better (with Y: The Last Man still being my favorite graphic novel ever).

My latest read was the five-volume set Paper Girls, which follows the exploits of four newspaper deliverers biking through the year 1988. That is, until they are no longer in the year 1988 and are instead bouncing through time, especially the future.

This is a great tale and probably only meant for the graphic-novel format. It got a one-season run on Amazon Prime as a TV series but was quickly cancelled. I didn’t watch it , but based on the trailer and also the awful-looking Y: The Last Man TV show (how could anyone mess that story up?) it’s a pretty good bet I won’t ever bother.

The book ran from 2015 to 2019 and details how the preteens deal with a battle between two time traveling factions who somehow zap into Cleveland, Ohio in a very Stranger Things-like way.

The Old Timers are from the 2100s and want to preserve the timeline so the future is organically preserved and not altered by unnatural forces. The leader is named Grandfather and has a troop that can erase peoples’ memories if needed. The Teenagers are the other group. They are from the 7100s and believe that it’s ok to alter history. They could help send the paper girls back to their original home in 1988.

The series is not as great as Y, but that’s a ridiculously high bar, and I really enjoyed reading it.

4.5 out of 5 stars