RadioTimes.com<\/a>:\u00a0\u201cIt does feel like a lot of media set in the \u201980s was more influenced by TV shows and movies that came out in that decade, but most of the people who worked on Paper Girls were around in the \u201980s, we remember it, and we didn\u2019t want to do a cartoonish version of it, but rather show it warts and all.\u201d<\/p> Executive producer and showrunner Christopher C Rogers agrees. \u201cThe show is set in 1988 and there\u2019s an almost Wes Craven-ish feel to it,\u201d he says. \u201cIt leans away from the nostalgia but I think it also plays fair with the decade and the different experiences these women would be feeling because of their different ethnicities and sexual orientation. We try to show more colours of the period than a purely nostalgic look back.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the face of it, Paper Girls shares a lot of DNA with the all-conquering Stranger Things \u2013 diverse teenage cast, \u201980s setting, synth-heavy soundtrack, and more sci-fi weirdness that you can shake a Demogorgon at. But the comic book that Paper Girls is based on, written by Vaughan and illustrated by Cliff Chiang, actually predates Stranger Things by a good nine months, with the first issue released by Image Comics in October 2015.<\/p>\n
The eight-episode first season of Paper Girls adapts this story to follow Erin, Mac, Tiffany and KJ, four 12-year-old newspaper deliverers out on their rounds in Stony Stream, a fictional suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. On the morning after Halloween 1988 they suddenly get caught up in a reality-warping time war, and find themselves thrust into (pretty much) the present day.<\/p>\n
Now, they have to try to find a way back to 1988 while avoiding the attention of an organisation called the Old Watch, which rigorously polices unauthorised time travel. And of course, there\u2019s the chance they might meet their future selves\u2026<\/p>\n