Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: Paper Girls, Issue #30! The whole series comes to a close with the double-length issue, and I’m INCONSOLABLY sad that I have be finished. I would have hung onto the series for another 200 issues, but such is life. It’s not fair.

In the previous installment, the girls all converge in Stony Stream, circa 1831 where they will finally be returned to their own time, blissfully unaware that any of their time travel adventures had happened. Jahpo gets tendrilled by an Editrix and sees visions of his young life as Wari’s son in 11,706 BCE.

A brief, tender moment of goodbyes gets rudely interrupted by 19 Erin and Duplicate Erin, who zaps the four of them back to their time. This last issue will show the aftermath, I imagine. And perhaps what the four of them actually did after their route on November 1, 1988.

It’s been a great ride.

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Paper Girls, Issue #30 [July, 2019]
Written by: Brian K. Vaughan

“If you laugh at me, I’m gonna punch you in the boob.”

KJ is “enjoying” her bat mitzvah. Mac has shown up in her usual Mac garb. “Jesus. KJ, you look… I mean, I didn’t know this was gonna be so… dressy.”

Erin pops in with a tattered skirt. “Sorry I’m late! This stupid thing got stuck in my spokes!”

It’s 1989, almost one year after that fateful day. They keep calling Erin “new kid” because they literally don’t remember her name.

Tiff walks in with a leather jacket, sunglasses, and a gun, looking literally like the Terminator. She fucking shoots Erin right through the torso with a big, rainbow-y blast.

“ERIN!” screams KJ.

“That was her name,” says Mac.

Tiff: “I have a message.”

KJ: “Please. You have to dance with me.”

Mac: “Like, slow dance?”

Tiff: “Remember. We’re not just papergirls. We’re–”

KJ: “Mac, you love me.”

Mac: “I do?”

Then Mac wakes up in her shithole of a bedroom. “You overslept, stupid.”

It’s Hell Morning. Mac’s brother is wearing a creepy mask. “And my boys are still out there, so I hope you’re ready to get egged in the face.”

He rummages through the pigsty of their living room looking for his Walkman, which Mac stole. Next, she’s seen biking down the street with the music cranked and a cigarette hanging from her mouth.

KJ wakes up in her nice rich-girl bedroom. “Karina? Aren’t you late for your little job, sweetheart?”

It’s Hell Morning. KJ’s mother sips coffee with their poodle at her feet. KJ is trying to remember her kickass dream, but it fades. She looks quite miserable.

Tiff wakes up on her couch in front of the glowing TV screen. “…not… just… paper…”

PRESS START TO CONTINUE. Round 36. She’s in the last level of Arkanoid! Maybe just another 15 minutes… and…

“What’s wrong with you?” asks a visage from the TV screen. Unphased, Tiff slowly moves her finger toward the power button of the Nintendo and…

Erin wakes Missy up after crashing a lamp on the floor.

Huh? That mark on Erin’s stomach must be a rash or something. Very curious. Wonder if she travelled through time, got shot in the stomach, and had a pile of bugs repair the wound? Occam’s Razor, man.

“I’ve never seen one like that,” Missy scowls, staring at the scar.

“Yeah, well you don’t even know what puberty is,” says Erin. I loled.

After Missy threatens to tell their mother, Erin begs her not to say WORD ONE about it or she’ll die of heart attack syndrome. She’ll force Erin to stay home and the Cleveland Preserver will fire her. And this job is important! She doesn’t know why, but it’s important!

“Mac! How’s it going?” Tiff rolls up next to Mac. “Don’t know if you remember, but we delivered together last year.”

“Tonya, right?”

“Tiffany.”

Mac asks if Tiff’s seen KJ around. Nope, but there’s some new kid named Erin. You may have heard of her? Her older self died sending them back to 11,706 BCE? “Erin with an ‘E’? For real? How many of us are working Stony Stream now?” Mac asks, taking a puff of her cigarette. “Guess you started a fad,” Tiff answers.

Anyway, Tiff gave Erin a walkie-talkie so that she can radio if she needs any–

*kzzt* “Um, calling Tiffany?” *kzzt*

This is the part where Erin tells Tiff that she spotted three teenage jerks trying to corner KJ down a cul-de-sac. The three show up to save the day. Mac calls the Freddy Krueger kid a “fart-mouth”, which his two friends agree with! “Why don’t you mind your business, Coyle?” he yells.

“My brother told me you got fired from Friendly’s for dipping your hairy balls in the Fribble machine.”

Yuck, Fribble balls? This kid flips the bird and tells her good luck getting home alive. Then they fuck off into the night.

“I could have handled them on my own, you know,” KJ grumbles. More douchebags on the prowl, so Erin suggests sticking together. Good plan, maybe they’ll find a time capsule and–

So the four ride down the street and get to know each other. “Back in ‘83, I dressed up as Robin. From Batman?” Erin says. “But I got scared looking out the window at all the neighborhood kids and went to hide under my parents’ bed. I ended up getting a fever. I didn’t go out, and that was pretty much it for my mom and dad, so I never went out on Halloween again.”

…

“That is the single saddest story I’ve heard in my entire life,” KJ replies, shooting Erin a look of unbridled pity.

A station wagon honks and blares its lights behind the girls. Tiff recognizes it as a woman who keeps bothering her on her route, thinking she’s following her. The car suddenly accelerates and brakes right in front of Erin, who crashes and falls before she has a chance to avoid it.

About two seconds later, a car full of hooligans wearing skeleton costumes blaze past the stop sign crossing the intersection. Surely, one or more of the girls would’ve been killed…

Then the car speeds off again.

“WAIT! Who are you?” Tiff screams trying to run after the woman.

Tiff wonders if this was some sort of guardian angel who purposely stopped them all from getting fucked up in the intersection, but I don’t think most guardian angels have tribal tattoos.

Still on the ground after beefin’ it, Erin asks Mac for a cigarette! Of all things!

You know what? Cigarettes for everyone!

The four of them share a moment smoking at a playground. Erin takes a puff. “With all the warnings and stuff, I didn’t think it was gonna taste so great.” Ahh, preteen rebellion. The most I ever did was sneak downstairs at midnight to use the internet.

Tiff fiddles with her cigarette a bit and declares that she’s going to quit paper-girling. It’s all about the money, man, and she’s tired of it. Tired of stuff. Tired of capitalism. “And most of whatever I think I’ll like is just some slightly different version of crap that made me happy as a kid.” She glares at her expensive walkie-talkie. “I mean, maybe I need to grow up a little.”

Are we already on the path to Double-Oh Tiff? A life of meaningless Bohemianism and dating Marilyn Manson lookalikes?

The other three girls agree to take Tiff’s customers. She flicks her cigarette in the river and heads to her final four houses. “A paperboy always finishes strong,” says KJ, taking a line from the Paperboy Handbook (5th edition with the glossy cover).

A few more panels of idle chit chat and the four start turning in. “Well, this has been real, but I should be getting home,” Mac says, and Tiff shares the sentiment. “Catch you freaks later.” And Mac rides home.

Then KJ takes off too.

Then Tiff.

“Bye,” Erin waves sadly. Then there’s a montage of the view zooming out. Intersection to neighborhood to city to state to country to Earth to the Milk Way and– “WAIT!”

“You guys! Hold up!”

The other three come back to the interesction.

“Hey. Um, I’m not sure about you, but I don’t have to start getting ready for school for, like, another hour. Want to ride together a little longer?”

…

“…sure.”

“Why not?”
“Yeah, I’m in.”

Final Thoughts

Beautiful. What a fantastic fucking series. I like the part where there were 28 issues of no paper deliveries.

This was the best series I’ve ever read, although I admittedly still haven’t read much. Now what am I gonna read next? More Superman? Go fuck yourself, Superman. I need more Brian K. Vaughan in my life. Either Saga or Runaways, I suppose. I heard good things about both!

Or I could read more Fuckface Superman.