Hugos 2020: Paper Girls 6 by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2019 (contents: 2019)
Acquired and read October 2019

Paper Girls 6

Writer: Brian K. Vaughan

Artist: Cliff Chiang
Colors: Matt Wilson
Letters: Jared K. Fletcher

I enjoyed Paper Girls through to the end, though I kind of suspect I would have liked volume 6 more if I had read it in quick succession with the rest: the time shenanigans get complicated, and I read the thirty issues stretched out over twenty-nine months; volume 6 came ten months after volume 5! But I enjoyed the character beats here and the triple-bluff ending and the glimpse at the paper girls' future, even if it probably doesn't happen that way. Someday I'll sit down and read it all in quick succession. (Who am I kidding? I never have the time to reread anything.)

Review: Paper Girls 4 and Paper Girls 5 by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang

Comic trade paperback, 125 pages
Published 2018 (contents: 2017-18)
Acquired April 2018
Read December 2018

Paper Girls 4
Paper Girls 5

Writer: Brian K. Vaughan

Artist: Cliff Chiang
Colors: Matt Wilson
Letters: Jared K. Fletcher

I'm getting the hang of how Paper Girls works now; each volume takes the girls to a different time period, and brings a different one of the girls to the fore. In the case of volume 4, it's to New Year's Eve 1999, and the girl in question is Tiffany, who discovers that her 1999 self is not quite the person she'd imagined she'd be. There are some good jokes about Y2K; in this story the apocalypse some imagined kinda does come to pass. I admire the way this story slowly unspools its answers and questions, and the way it integrates action into story (as opposed to feeling like, as in many other comics, the story pauses for the action), but this volume felt a little less complex than volume 3 in terms of character and theme.

Comic trade paperback, 125 pages
Published 2018 (contents: 2018)
Acquired and read December 2018

Volume 5 was an uptick. This takes the paper girls into one of the futures they've been fighting, an oppressive dystopian Cleveland. Y2K Tiffany is still with them, but this volume focuses on Mac and to a lesser extent KJ; while Tiffany and Tiffany and Erin seek answers, Mac must contend with her own fatality and her homophobic feelings toward KJ. It's good stuff, though I do find it difficult to remember the characters and details outside of the paper girls themselves. (Probably I would benefit from reading this one in the big hardcover volumes, like I do Saga, but I started collecting in trade paperback, so it's too late now.) It's a little bit touching at times, and the cliffhanger shows that the formula I'd figured out will actually not apply in volume 6. Bring it on!

Hugos 2018: Paper Girls 3 by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang

Comic trade paperback, 125 pages
Published 2017 (contents: 2017)
Acquired October 2017 
Read June 2018

Paper Girls 3

Writer: Brian K. Vaughan

Artist: Cliff Chiang
Colors: Matt Wilson
Letters: Jared K. Fletcher

The third volume of Paper Girls is the best yet, as Vaughan and Chiang continue to deepen these characters and broaden the scope-- yet also this one feels more focused, and as though it tells a discrete story of its own. Clearly each volume of Paper Girls will place the paper girls in a different time period; in this one they materialize in the Pleistocene, and 1) must hunt down a time machine, 2) encounter a cave woman and her child, 3) encounter a future woman born in 2016, 4) discover still more time portals and the strange objects that have come through them, 5) see the future, and 6) deal with the complicated feelings of, um, blossoming womanhood. While volume 2 focused on Erin, volume 3 places more emphasis on KJ.

It's great work. The characters feel more real with each passing chapter, and Vaughan and Chiang do some neat stuff with the comics form. Loved how the vision of the future was rendered, loved the two-page spread when KJ is on the run from the cavemen. A good combination of art, character, and story in each case. This book is strong, and it promises more strength to come. The Hugos forced me to catch up to volume 3 of Paper Girls, and I look forward to reading volumes 4 and 5 soon.

Hugos 2018 [Prelude]: Paper Girls 2 by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang

Comic trade paperback, 125 pages
Published 2016 (contents: 2016)
Acquired October 2017 
Read June 2018

Paper Girls 2

Writer: Brian K. Vaughan

Artist: Cliff Chiang
Colors: Matt Wilson
Letters: Jared K. Fletcher

Some comics read quickly because nothing happens in them. Paper Girls moves quickly, but because Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang construct the whole thing as non-stop action, each scene efficiently moving you into the next. Nothing feels wasted or padded; this comic just propels you along. You have no desire to linger because you always have to see what's next.

Paper Girls is clever and well put together. I wish I remembered the characters better (it's been a year since I read volume 1) as they'd kind of blended in my mind, but this volume does have a nice focus on Erin, as the girls travel from 1988 to 2016 and meet Erin's older self, now forty years old. It's an interesting balance of being able to follow what's happening to the girls, but the wider context of what's happening still being pretty obscure. I wish it felt like the girls were learning something; right now it seems like there's a simple action story and a big time travel story, but they don't quite go together.

There are some good jokes and some great character moments. Some bits will make you go all soft inside. I've like Cliff Chiang since his Green Arrow and Black Canary days, and this is some of his best work, slick and stylish and full of character. But as well put together as it is, I wish it lasted longer.