Paper Girls #18

Writer: Brian K. Vaughan

Artist: Cliff Chiang

Colors: Matt Wilson

Published by: Image

This issue continues Vaughan and Chiang’s crazy story about this group of four teenage paper girls as they continue their trek through time. In this issue, we get to see the fallout of Tiffany discovering a strange man in her parents house as well as the three others’ run-in with Charlotte, the cartoonist who knows quite a bit about what is going on. All this is, plus there is a giant mecha fight going on that no one seems to be able to see, except for one of the girls.

First off, the girls are able to escape the clutches of Charlotte quite easily, now that they have been basically running for their lives since the beginning of this series. How they do it is quite ingenious, since it does take advantage of their paper girl skills. It also shows that they are started to be quite capable in tougher situations as the series progresses.

As for Tiffany, without spoiling who the strange man is, let’s just say that he is part of Tiffany’s future and may become a an interesting piece to this current storyline. However, I highly doubt he becomes anything but a piece to be used for this current arc - as that seems to be Vaughan’s modus operandi with this series: introduce a character that is connected to one of the girls and have them contribute somewhat to the current storyline.

All in all, this issue continues the strong work from both Chiang and Vaughan. The story may be slightly convoluted at points, but Vaughan continues to drop enough hints from issue to issue to keep you coming back for more. We are slowly learning who all these extra characters are that the girls keep running into, and thus the bigger picture continues to fill in.