BooksOfTheMoon

Well, that was weird. Volume six finally wraps up the series, as our papergirls are separated and scattered in time by the somewhat unhinged Erin clone. But they get back together, helped by more clones, and help (somehow, I’m still not really sure how) to bring the time war to a close. Frankly, I’m still not sure why the papergirls needed to be involved, and why the truce that was eventually obtained couldn’t have just happened anyway, but it was a wild ride that kept me entertained throughout.

It’s been lovely throughout getting to know each of the girls, and their distinctive voices. Mac can be a dick, but she has a kind heart, and the puppy romance with KJ that started in the previous volume gets a chance to breathe here. Erin is smart and calm under pressure, KJ gets to prod some serious buttock, and Tiff brings the whole lot together.

There’s some clever simultaneous storytelling in the third issue of this volume, as the stories for all four girls go on at once, with one long, strip each, across each double-page spread, making four panels in total. It took a bit of getting used to, but it was very effective.

I didn’t have a clue how Vaughan was going to end this, but when it eventually came about, I did enjoy it. It was quiet, but hopeful. It really worked. There’s loose ends and unexplained bit – like what were those 4D blobs and what was their agenda? But the main story gets pretty much wrapped up.

I started this series because I’d heard there was going to be a TV series and wanted to experience the original first. Now that I’ve read it, will I watch the Amazon series? Yes, I think I will. It’s been fun spending time with the papergirls, and I want to see how other people imagine them.

I really wish I had kept the first few volumes of this series, rather than returning them to the library as soon as I finished them. Things are starting to make sense, and it’s all a bit wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey, and I really want to go back and reread the earlier stuff in this context. The papergirls are now in the 22nd century, trying to hide from the old timers and still all just looking for a way home. They find some unexpected old friends (and enemies), and we, the readers, start to get, not exactly answers, but we start feeling out the shape of what’s going on.

Chiang’s art has been consistently good throughout, and remains so here. I was unsure of it to start with, but now I can’t imagine anyone else helping to tell this story.

Roll on the final volume. Please let it all make sense!

The papergirls’ intrepid adventure through time continues, now in the year 2000, where millennium bug has turned out to be worse than it did in our timeline [1] and this time the girls find themselves separated from Tiffany, who eventually finds her older self (after dodging a whole load of giant robots that nobody else can see). And… that is a whole thing. If Young Erin was surprised by how similar she was to Old Erin, Young Tiffany, well, doesn’t have that experience! In their quest to find Tiffany, the rest of the papergirls find an older lady who finally offers a bit of infodump explanation for what’s been going on.

This was a lot of fun. Mac continues to be called out on her homophobic crap, and it’s the fact that it’s her peers, not elders, who do so that is so great. There’s a bunch of really interesting new characters and we finally get a clue as to who “Grand Father” is, although it took me ages to remember where I had heard the name before (a problem with library books is that you have to give them back and can’t look them up when you want to find a reference).

Chiang’s visuals are inventive and really help carry the story. The giant robots help with that to some degree, and I must admit that as much as I hate cliffhangers, Vaughan is good at them. I can’t wait to see when the girls have ended up now.

[1] personal peeve here – there’s a narrative that’s developed since the 2010s that the millennium bug was a hoax or wasn’t actually a problem. This is categorically false. The only reason it was a damp squib is because hundreds of programmers spent thousands of person-hours finding all the serious issues and fixing them in the years leading up to the year 2000

Having fallen out of 2016 (literally), the papergirls find themselves in the distant past and have to do what they can to stay alive, stay together and get home. There’s some self-realisation and reflection, and a funny scene as KJ gets her first period, much to MacKenzie’s confusion and disgust.

There’s still not much in the way of answers to what’s going on in the wider story, but I’m (relatively) confident in Vaughan’s storytelling and expecting it all to come together towards the end of the series.

The art remains very pretty. Chiang’s style isn’t usually something that I would enjoy (I’m much fonder of Vaughan’s artist partner for Saga, Fiona Staples), but it really works in this context. There’s lots of oversized panels and splash pages, but the smaller-scale stuff also works really well.

So still very pretty, and with an intriguing story. I look forward to reading the rest of it (although that will have to wait until I can get the other volumes from the library).

The second volume of Paper Girls shoots our intrepid heroines (well, three of them anyway) nearly thirty years into the future, to the incomprehensible year 2016 where they encounter multiple kinds of water, giant TVs and tiny cars. Oh, and more dinosaur-riding time travellers, telepathic future iPhones, and more Erins than you can shake a stick at. Nor forgetting the giant tardigrades. As a famous archaeologist once didn’t quite say: tardigrades. Why’d it have to be tardigrades?

It’s really nice to see how young Erin and old Erin interact. Young Erin is incredulous that she still lives in the same town and works for the same paper, while old Erin doesn’t remember any of what’s currently going, but is jealous of the potential that her younger counterpart has. But despite this, they work well together, as they go off, leaving MacKenzie and Tiffany to search for their own future-selves and they all try to find the missing KJ.

At one point, someone says “Like most people over thirty, they’re monsters”. Ouch! But I guess when you’re young, that’s what it feels like – the grown-ups, who are supposed to be in charge are incomprehensible, and very often seem monstrous.

The art continues to be very engaging. Chiang seems to be having a lot of fun, and there’s loads of wonderful splash pages and oversized panels that let the story flow organically, while still highlighting high notes.

There’s not much in the way of answers here, but it seems that both groups of time travellers want to get their hands on the papergirls. Is there anyone they can trust? The story does keep me engaged, and there’s enough answers and hints of answers to make me want to read more. I just hope that it eventually pays off!

I only very vaguely knew about this series. I’ve had mixed luck with Brian K. Vaughan, having loved Saga, but not really been that impressed by Y: The Last Man. But the fact that Paper Girls is being adapted for Amazon Prime made me think that I should look into it, and then I discovered that my library had the whole series, so there was really no excuse not to try it.

This first volume certainly opens with a punch. The image of Erin on her knees, holding an apple and with the Earth in the background is a striking one, and the following dream sequence is suitably surreal. Then there’s some really nice visual storytelling as we have several pages of Erin getting ready for her paper round without any text. Lots of kudos to Chiang for that.

The ’80s setting is really nice and once Erin meets the other three papergirls, the story starts to really pick up. Of the other three, MacKenzie gets fleshed out a fair bit, but neither Tiffany nor KJ get an awful lot. Hopefully we’ll get to spend more time with them later.

One nice touch that I liked was when MacKenzie uses a homophobic slur, her friends calls her out on it, something that will recur later in the volume. It’s a nice reminder that despite the time that it’s set, it was still Not Okay.

The wider story is still really confusing, but time travel seems to be involved, with (at least) two groups involved in some sort of temporal, and possibly inter-generational, war. Involving dinosaurs. There’s a nice cliffhanger at the end and I’m left desperately wanting to know more of the story. It’s the sort of thing that could be really frustrating, but it’s handled well enough that it just works.