Paper Girls 1
Paper Girls 1 collects the first few issues of a comic series in the 'kids on bikes' subgenre about teenagers in the 1980s discovering scifi weirdness in their suburban cul-de-sac, as popularized by Stranger Things. It's a style of story that relies on our nostalgic memory of the 80s, that somewhat resembles a subset of stories that were popular then, but that also relies on us today having enough distance to have formed a simplified, stylized consensus image of the decade. In the same way that no one would've actually made Grease or Happy Days or Bye Bye Birdie in the 1950s, 'kids on bikes' plots needed that 30 years of distance to become viable.
Anyway, our heroes here are four newspaper delivery girls, out on their usual morning routes at 5am the day after Halloween in 1988. Our viewpoint character is Erin, the new girl, who the others recruit for mutual protection against the older boys in Halloween costumes who think it's fun to harass preteen girls when there are no adults around. Erin is enamored with group leader Mac, the first girl in town to get a paper route, who made it okay for the others to get one too.
Erin is Chinese American and goes to Catholic school, Tiffany is Black and goes to a different private Christian school, KJ is Jewish, and Mac is White, goes to public school, and comes from the poorest family in the group. Mac uses anti-gay slurs against anyone who threaten the girls, which strikes me as pretty accurate for the time period, while the others appreciate her defending them but wish she'd use different words, which seems like a more contemporary touch.
It's fortunate they team up, because they quickly find themselves in danger from a lot more than rude kids. First, the power goes out, almost everyone else in the neighborhood vanishes, and the sky fills up with stars and constellations they've never seen before. The girls get accosted by some creepy-looking guys who speak an alien language dressed all in black. And a flock of pterandons descends on the neighborhood, some ridden by knights in white armor. Things are getting weird!
The girls are mostly trying to keep away from anything strange, especially after Erin gets injured, but they (and we, the audience) soon realize that the dinosaur riders are somehow responsible for all this, that the black-clad teens are mostly there to steal local tech while whatever's going on is happening, and that the girls themselves were supposed to have vanished along with everyone else. Also, all of this has something to do with some catastrophe in the future, something bad enough to justify sending people back to pilfer from the past. It helps that a translator device eventually helps the girls understand the future-teens.
Eventually, the girls get medical help for Erin, and ditch the knights in white armor, although the boys who helped them aren't so lucky. At the very end, the think they've found another ally ... an older, adult version of Erin!
This first volume is very heavy on mystery and set-up, light on explanation. It's probably the kind of introduction that repays you for rereading it once you understand more about how things work. The art is bold and graphic, with an emphasis on showing the emotions on people's faces, and a mix of pastel and neon colors to reflect the palette of the idealized 80s.
The 'alien language' spoken by the older boys is a simple substitution code, with a unique symbol taking the place of each letter. Other readers solved it and posted a key online, which I appreciate. We only see the symbols when the boys don't have access to a translator, but I think it enriches the story if you go back and see what they were actually saying the rest of the time after your initial readthrough.
Anyway, our heroes here are four newspaper delivery girls, out on their usual morning routes at 5am the day after Halloween in 1988. Our viewpoint character is Erin, the new girl, who the others recruit for mutual protection against the older boys in Halloween costumes who think it's fun to harass preteen girls when there are no adults around. Erin is enamored with group leader Mac, the first girl in town to get a paper route, who made it okay for the others to get one too.
Erin is Chinese American and goes to Catholic school, Tiffany is Black and goes to a different private Christian school, KJ is Jewish, and Mac is White, goes to public school, and comes from the poorest family in the group. Mac uses anti-gay slurs against anyone who threaten the girls, which strikes me as pretty accurate for the time period, while the others appreciate her defending them but wish she'd use different words, which seems like a more contemporary touch.
It's fortunate they team up, because they quickly find themselves in danger from a lot more than rude kids. First, the power goes out, almost everyone else in the neighborhood vanishes, and the sky fills up with stars and constellations they've never seen before. The girls get accosted by some creepy-looking guys who speak an alien language dressed all in black. And a flock of pterandons descends on the neighborhood, some ridden by knights in white armor. Things are getting weird!
The girls are mostly trying to keep away from anything strange, especially after Erin gets injured, but they (and we, the audience) soon realize that the dinosaur riders are somehow responsible for all this, that the black-clad teens are mostly there to steal local tech while whatever's going on is happening, and that the girls themselves were supposed to have vanished along with everyone else. Also, all of this has something to do with some catastrophe in the future, something bad enough to justify sending people back to pilfer from the past. It helps that a translator device eventually helps the girls understand the future-teens.
Eventually, the girls get medical help for Erin, and ditch the knights in white armor, although the boys who helped them aren't so lucky. At the very end, the think they've found another ally ... an older, adult version of Erin!
This first volume is very heavy on mystery and set-up, light on explanation. It's probably the kind of introduction that repays you for rereading it once you understand more about how things work. The art is bold and graphic, with an emphasis on showing the emotions on people's faces, and a mix of pastel and neon colors to reflect the palette of the idealized 80s.
The 'alien language' spoken by the older boys is a simple substitution code, with a unique symbol taking the place of each letter. Other readers solved it and posted a key online, which I appreciate. We only see the symbols when the boys don't have access to a translator, but I think it enriches the story if you go back and see what they were actually saying the rest of the time after your initial readthrough.
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