Halloween 1988. Michael Myers is back yet again for another Halloween. Various sitcoms are not having specific Halloween episodes (believe me I looked – it was quite annoying for this year). I had not quite understood the concept of trick-or-treat so I was not hiding away from the world. And in Cleveland, Ohio, 5 girls were performing their daily newspaper delivery for the Cleveland Preserver. 

For an early morning bike delivery everything is normal. School bullies heckle Erin and her coworkers. Certain customers continue to stiff the girls on their payments. Oh, and weird ninja mummies are breaking into houses. You know, the regular.

The ninjas aren’t the only weird thing this morning. While chasing after the weird strangers who stole part of their papers and attacked Tiffany, they find a hideout in a home in the process of being remodeled, where a mysterious space capsule starts emitting radiation. This is just the start however, as the rest of the morning starts an invasion of pterodactyls, teenagers from the future who speak in a combination of rough txt speech and Chinese, and alien technology that can not only heal but defend.

These events lead into time travel, taking the girls to 2016 Cleveland, learning that a woman is running for President, the mall has closed (along with Waldenbooks), and even stranger clones are coming to either save or defeat them.

Brian Vaughan has written many excellent series, including Saga, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Ex Machina, but the Ohio and ‘80s connections featured in this story were what drew me in immediately. While they do not appear to be in a real neighborhood, the stories my father told me about delivering the Cleveland Press as a kid were brought to memory along with my own short time delivering the local newspaper (though this was not as pleasant, as our entire family took on a small route and even that way was a pain). In addition, this series couldn’t have been published in trade form at a better time. Circling around a group of kids in the ‘80s traveling around on bicycles unintentionally harkens back to Stranger Things and Stand By Me.

While the pop culture tropes widely found in Vaughan’s series are reminiscent of a time long past, the characters are a sad replication of the world to come. In 2016, I was reminded of the many stores from my childhood which have since closed down, while the girls contemplate the idea of a female president with difficulty, while predicting the sad future that could come after the book was published (“No, some lady is running. Doesn’t mean she’s gonna win”). Future people who travel to both 1988 and 2016 speak in a combination of characters and sounds that ultimately begin to resemble speech that doesn’t need translation for readers, possibly explained by the world’s current changes in communication methods.

While Vaughan may not be an Ohio native, he narrowed down Cleveland and the Midwest pretty well. If you are looking that brings back memories of the ’80s, are from Ohio and enjoy historical (or futuristic) fiction about the area, or just enjoy speculative fiction, Paper Girls is for you.