History ComicBook / PaperGirls

** The "alien invasion" setup [[spoiler:(far future time travelers scavenging resources and people from the past)]] is a WholePlotReference to the 1983 JohnVarley novel/1989 movie ''Literature/{{Millennium}}''.

* MundaneObjectAmazement: Coming from an era of (at best) [=TV=]s with 480i analog resolution, [[EverythingsBetterWithSparkles 1988!Erin, Mac, and Tiffany are transfixed]] by the clarity of the image on [[spoiler:2016!Erin's]] 46-inch 1080p Sony [[UsefulNotes/HighDefinition HDTV]]. 1988!Erin says that "it's like 3D without the glasses", and [[spoiler:2016!Erin]] warns them that their reaction is freaking her out. Tiffany is also impressed by how many buttons the remote control has, and 1988!Erin asks how [[spoiler:her future self]] was able to afford something so incredible.

* BechdelTest: The girls are 12 and boys mainly impinge on their world as obstacles or antagonists.

* MyLifeFlashedBeforeMyEyes: Happens to [[spoiler: Tiffany]] while she's being strangled by an alien, which bothers her a lot because it's mostly just hours spent obsessively playing ''{{Arkanoid}}'', though it's implied by the name of this particular monster (an "Editer") that showing you things that you don't like about yourself is exactly what it does. Played with later when [[spoiler: KJ]] finds another piece of future technology; when she touches it, a possible ''future'' life flashes before her eyes, including a vision of [[spoiler: Grand Father holding Erin at gunpoint]] and [[spoiler: her and Mac kissing]].

* [[KidHero Kid Heroes]]: The girls don't waste any time on pointless histrionics because [[GenreSavvy they've seen plenty of media about alien invasion]] and aren't mature enough to see it as anything more than a scary adventure.

* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Mac seems to feel this way, given her AngerBornOfWorry reaction when KJ returns to the group after escaping the men who raped Wari. KJ ''definitely'' feels this way, as she later [[YourHeadAsplode bashes one of the men's heads in with his own club.]]

* MyLifeFlashedBeforeMyEyes: Happens to [[spoiler: Tiffany]] while she's being strangled by an alien, which bothers her a lot because it's mostly just hours spent obsessively playing ''{{Arkanoid}}'', though it's implied by the name of this particular monster {an "Editer") that showing you things that you don't like about yourself is exactly what it does. Played with later when [[spoiler: KJ]] finds another piece of future technology; when she touches it, a possible ''future'' life flashes before her eyes, including a vision of [[spoiler: Grand Father holding Erin at gunpoint]] and [[spoiler: her and Mac kissing]].
* NearRapeExperience: A low-key example. In issue #1 Erin runs into three teenage boys in the middle of their Halloween mischief, and when they find out she goes to Catholic school, one of them seems a little too enthusiastic about that, commenting "grass on the field..."[[note]]For those who don't know, the phrase being referenced is "If there's grass on the field, play ball." It's a rather misogynistic statement which conflates the false equivalence that an adolescent girl's '''physical''' maturity(i.e. being old enough to have pubic hair) means she's '''emotionally''' or '''psychologically''' mature enough to make an informed decision about the repercussions of engaging in sexual activities.[[/note]]

** At the end of issue #15, being near another time-travel device when it activates has seperated the girls again, with Tiffany arriving at a version of January 1, 2000, where Y2K actually happened and caused a nationwide blackout. And with [[GiantMecha Giant Mechas]] in the background.

* ArcSymbol: Representations of and references to apples show up everywhere, from Erin's dreams to an Apple Records t-shirt. Even Erin's name, which is rather Irish sounding for an Asian-American girl, is awfully close to ''Eris'', the Greek goddess who created the original AppleOfDiscord. However despite all of the apple-related imagery no actual apples(the fruit) have shown up in the comic.
** Early issues are also sprinkled with references to the shootings of John Lennon and Ronald Reagan, and the Challenger Explosion. Even Christa [=McAuliffe=] of the ''Challenger'' shows up [[spoiler:in Erin's DyingDream]], though Chiang drew her wearing a spacesuit and helmet(which the crew didn't during the flight) out of respect to her memory.
* ArcWords: The word "fold" (sometimes "folding") is used to describe the time rips with specific allusions made to newspapers, as in the story considered most important at the time of printing appears "above the fold"(at the top of the page).

* InASingleBound: When KJ lets herself be chased by [[spoiler: the men who raped Wari]] as a distraction, she comes to a very deep, very wide ravine. Lacking any other options, she jumps off the ledge -- only to find that the boots she stole from a time machine in issue #12 allow her to do this.

* MaternallyChallenged: Played with. Erin has enough babysitting experience to know from the sound of Jahpo's cries that he needs to be burped instead of fed, but when questioned by Tiffany admits she wasn't really disappointed to learn that she apparently never had kids of her own.

* [[WhamEpisode Wham Issue]]:

* GamerChick: Tiffany is addicted to ''{{VideoGame/Arkanoid}}'', and sharp-eyed fans noticed, with WordOfGod confirming, that there's an XboxONE in [[spoiler:2016!Erin's TV stand.]]

* InformedJudaism: KJ snarks that the Catholic Tiffany's comment about her being a heathen is "so anti-Semitic". Later she makes reference to not having had her ''bat mitzvah'' yet(meaning that since she's 12, her family are probably Reform Jewish, who don't observe the ceremony until a girl's 13th birthday), and at the beginning of issue #11 has a nightmare which starts off as a memory of some girls at Brentwood taunting her by claiming that the "K" in her name stands for "kike"(it really stands for "Karina"). In the same nightmare, she has a short talk with her grandmother, a Holocaust survivor whose serial number tattoo is clearly visible.

* McGuffin: The girls find a mysterious, futuristic high-tech artifact--instantly recognizable to modern readers as an [=iPod=] Nano--but it's the apple symbol that's significant, not the object itself. [[spoiler: At least until chapter 5 where we learn it isn't just an [=iPod=] and it was deliberately planted for the girls to discover.]]

* ShrinkingViolet: Ronald Reagan implies that Erin appears to be on the verge of becoming one in one of Erin's dreams.

* TheEighties: The comic is explicitly set in 1988 and is filled with Eighties pop culture references. 1988 was the election year marking the end of the Reagan administration. The ColdWar was still going on amid a great deal of fear-mongering that the Soviets were actually winning. It was also the high water mark of analog culture. Personal computers were still rare and the internet was just a pipe dream. CD players were still a relatively new and exotic technology. Most people still got their music on LP or cassettes and their news from newspapers which were still delivered by FreeRangeChildren in the predawn darkness.

* ActionGirl: All the girls qualify, to varying degrees. The main protagonist Erin is actually the least actiony of the bunch, though she's picking it up as she goes along

* {{Cliffhanger}}: In classic Vaughan style, every issue seems to end with one. Issue #10 "What is Past is Epilog" seemingly doesn't but only if you forget to consider the WhatHappenedToTheMouse implications of the climax five pages earlier.

* LingerieScene: A low-key, non-Fanservice example shows up in issue #12. KJ and Mac, having swum some distance in a river, hang up their soaking wet clothes to dry but keep their underwear on, while Mac also keeps her tied-up t-shirt on(though its unclear whether she kept it on over her bra for modesty, or if she wasn't wearing one).

** The alien script title of Issue 2 translates to "Nostalgia is Death".

* TeenPregnancy: If the gang are correctly judging [[spoiler: Wari the archer in 11,706 BCE ]]to be around their age, then she obviously had a ''preteen'' pregnancy. Given that none of the four are interested in boys yet and that teen pregnancy was ''much'' more scandalous in the 80s than the modern era, they're understandably a little squicked by the realization.

** The girls lose track of where or when they are by the end of issue 10. [[spoiler: Still where they were physically, but in the year 11,706 BCE.]]

%% When listing Tropes which concern the various versions of Erin interacting, please refert to them as 1988!Erin, 2016!Erin and FutureClone!Erin to reduce confusion.(this last one has to have the bracket-equal sign-name-equal sign-bracket code placed around it)

* EveryoneHasStandards: KJ convinces an invader to back down by threatening to shoot her pterosaur.

%% When listing Tropes which concern the various versions of Erin interacting, please refert to them as 1988!Erin, 2016!Erin and FutureClone!Erin] to reduce confusion.

* GirlOnGirlIsHot: Played with in issue #13. [[spoiler: KJ touches a device that puts her into a trance and shows her visions of a future, including one scene where she and Mac are kissing in a definitely romantic way. After Mac breaks the connection KJ warns her not to touch it, presumably so Mac won't see that, though her motives in keeping this secret are as yet unknown).]]

* TranslatorMicrobes: The invaders speak heavily-accented English using translation devices attached to their throats. When [[spoiler:1988!Erin rips the one off [[spoiler:[=FutureClone!=]Erin]], they can no longer understand her, and they Erin later has the idea to use it on [[spoiler:Wari, the native girl they meet in 11,706 BCE]].

[[caption-width-right:300:From left to right: Mac, KJ, Tiffany, and Erin]]''Paper Girls'' is an ongoing 2015 Creator/ImageComics comic book series written by Creator/BrianKVaughan and illustrated by Cliff Chiang. Early on the morning of All Saint's Day 1988,[[note]]That's the day after Halloween, for any non-Catholics out there.[[/note]] 12 year old Erin Tieng goes on her normal newspaper delivery route in a Cleveland Ohio suburb only to be rescued from some teenage boys with dubious intentions by a trio of other paper girls who have banded together for mutual protection from any lingering Halloween craziness. That's when things start to get strange.

* AccidentalMurder: [[spoiler: Future!Erin's]] time displacement field kills an innocent bystander before she can warn him away.
* ActionGirl: All the girls qualify, to varying degrees. Protagonist Erin is actually the least actiony of the bunch, though she's picking it up as she goes along
* AdamAndEvePlot: thoroughly subverted. One high school boy sees the invasion as his big chance to finally get the girl of his dreams. Unfortunately for him she has never liked him much, thinks he's a total creep for even thinking of such things at a time like this and wants nothing to do with him--shortly before the invaders kidnap them both and render the whole idea moot anyway
* AdultsAreUseless: worse than useless. [[spoiler: They're the enemy.]]
* AdultFear: Not having learned caution from experience the girls are generally much bolder than the adults they encounter. [[spoiler: 2016!Erin]] tries to protect the girls from themselves until she realizes YouCantFightFate.

* AnguishedDeclarationOfLove: a tearful Mac calls her stepmother "mom" (perhaps for the first time) and tells her she loves her in a desperate attempt to dissuade her from suicide.
* AnnoyingYoungerSibling: Erin has a typically frustrating relationship with her little sister Missy. [[spoiler: making it even more annoying when travels to 2016 and learns that Missy became a helicopter pilot, which seems way cooler than her adult self's office job.]] however they are still best friends.
* ArcSymbol: representations of and references to apples show up everywhere, from Erin's dreams to an Apple Records t-shirt. Even Erin's name, which is rather Irish sounding for an Asian-American girl, is awfully close to ''Eris'', the Greek goddess who created the original AppleOfDiscord. However despite all of the apple-related imagery no actual apples show up in the comic.
** The comic is also sprinkled with references to the shootings of John Lennon and Ronald Reagan and the Challenger Explosion
* ArcWords: The word "fold" (sometimes "folding") is used to describe the time rips with specific allusions made to newspapers, as in the story considered most inportant at the time appear "above the fold".
* ArtificialScript: untranslated alien speech is rendered in CypherLanguage using a simple substitution cypher.
* BadFuture: the girls are somewhat convinced 2016 is a bad future until they notice the really HUGE Televisions, and Tiffany points out that from a ColdWar era child's perspective it's actually surprising there's any kind of future at all.
* BechdelTest: The girls are twelve and boys mainly impinge on their world as obstacles or antagonists.
* BoysHaveCooties: shows up indirectly when [[spoiler: Erin's]] future self worries that her kid self will think she's a loser for being unmarried at age 40, forgetting that her 12 year old self has no interest in boys yet and would actually consider that a good thing. And sure enough the 12 year old is thrilled her older self has remained independent.

* ChildrenAreInnocent: the girls are all young enough and have just enough PopCulture-driven ColdWar-era GenreSavvy (or WrongGenreSavvy) to accept all of the weirdness going on around them at face value.
* {{Cliffhanger}}: In classic Vaughan style, every issue seems to end with one. Issue 10 "What is Past is Epilog" seemingly doesn't but only if you forget to consider the WhatHappenedToTheMouse implications of the climax five pages earlier.
* CoolPeopleRebelAgainstAuthority: Erin thinks Mac is cool for insisting "our routes, our rules" as she spurns company policy by refusing to deliver a paper to the guy who stiffed her last month.
* ComesGreatResponsibility: raised and dismissed as a strawman argument for rationalizing inaction by one of the counter-invaders.
* CrapsackWorld: The girl's impression of [[spoiler: 2016. Stony Stream is a dying Rust Belt town, Grownup Erin's Smart car is "the size of a hot wheel" and the mall's been closed for nearly a decade.]]

* DeathSeeker: Played with: [[spoiler:Mac develops a mild case after learning the approximate year and supposed cause of her impending death. She tells Tiffany knowing how and when she's going to die means any OTHER situation she finds herself in won't kill her. Tiffany doesn't seem to buy it and Mac finds her one death seeking experience so terrifying it scares that attitude right out of her.]]
* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Mackenzie is prone to offhand homophobic comments because casual homophobia was considered normal in the 80s. She also smokes cigarettes, [[spoiler: which eventually contributes to her death from leukemia in the '90s]]. All of this helps establish her as the redneck girl from the WrongSideOfTheTracks.

* DomesticatedDinosaurs: Some of the invaders ride pterosaurs.
* DramaticallyMissingThePoint: Erin hears "Mom's in heaven" and being a good little Catholic schoolgirl (as well as being primed by a nightmare she'd had the night before) assumes the speaker is being literal and not figurative. And if ''just'' Mom is in heaven, what happened to Dad?

* EnemyCivilWar: there are two groups of invaders working at cross purposes, with the second group (the "teens") apparently trying to thwart the first (the "adults").

* ExtraordinarilyEmpoweredGirl: subtle but significant: the girls become immune to the invader's tracking technology after they get zapped by an alien artifact early in the story.

* ForWantOfANail: There appears to be copies of Erin all over the timestream, from the far future to the distant past.

** '''Sanguine''': Erin ("new kid")
** '''Choleric''': Mackenzie ("Mac")
** '''Melancholic''': KJ ("Kaje")
** '''Phlegmatic''': Tiffany ("Tiff")
* FreeRangeChildren: The girls. Children actually were allowed their degree of freedom back before cable news and new media convinced everyone there was a pedophile lurking behind every bush. The even use Erin's newspaper bag as protective coloration because the truant officers "don't bother ''Preserver'' kids".
* FutureLoser: [[spoiler: Grownup Erin]] fears that she's given this impression to her younger self, but it turns out it's not so bad as she fears.
* HappilyAdopted: Tiffany, probably from somewhere in Central America based on her appearance. Central America was ''the'' source for adopted children in the 80's just as Russia in the 90's and China in the early 2000's
* HiddenDepths: tough girl Mackenzie ''is'' a girl scout. You wanna be a bitch about it?
** Tiffany speaks fluent Spanish and unwittingly reveals she's under considerable pressure to excel academically
* HumanAlien: Save for their strange speech, clothing, and mounts, the invaders could pass for human. [[spoiler: because they're time travellers, not aliens.]]
* IHatePastMe / FutureMeScaresMe: First played straight, then averted as [[spoiler:the Erins come to an understanding with each other.]] Reconstructed when [[spoiler: far-future Erin turns out to be a treacherous clone.]]
* IJustShotMarvinInTheFace: Mac insists on retrieving her father's gun for protection but they find it in the hands of her drunken and suicidal stepmother and [[spoiler: Erin]] promptly gets shot by accident.
* TheIngenue: Erin AKA "new kid" doesn't like either "F word" ("faggot" being the other one) and worries she'll get in trouble for swearing ''in her dreams''.
* InTheBlood: A police officer accuses Mackenzie of being up to no good simply because he recognizes her as a member of the Coyle family.
* [[KidHero Kid Heroes]]: the girls don't waste any time on pointless histrionics because [[GenreSavvy they've seen plenty of media about alien invasion]] and aren't mature enough to see it as anything more than a scary adventure.
* MarsNeedsWomen: [[spoiler: the invaders are specifically seeking school-age females.]]
* McGuffin: the girls find a mysterious, futuristic high-tech artifact--instantly recognizable to modern readers as an [=IPod=] Nano--but it's the apple symbol that's significant, not the object itself. [[spoiler: at least until chapter 5 where we learn it isn't just an Ipod and it was deliberately planted for the girls to discover.]]
* MeddlingKids: the girls start out as meddling kids but work their way up to KidHero fairly quickly

** Lampshaded when [[spoiler: 1988!Erin]] becomes upset by [[spoiler: 2016!Erin's]] constant swearing because she admits she and her friends swear because they're trying to act cool and seeing her grownup self still doing it is disturbing.
* MyLifeFlashedBeforeMyEyes: happens to [[spoiler: Tiffany]] while she's being strangled by an alien, which bothers her a lot because it's mostly just hours spent obsessively playing ''{{Arkanoid}}'', though it's implied by the name of this particular monster {an "Editer") that showing you things that you don't like about yourself is exactly what it does.
* NoPeriodsPeriod: subverted. KJ gets her first period at a really inconvenient time and place.

* MemoryWipingCrew [[spoiler: 2016!Erin theorizes this is why she can't remember being shot, despite her still having the scar and 1988!Erin recalling it quite clearly. Old Erin concludes that her memory was wiped sometime between 1988 and 2016.]]
* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: On a macro level, the girls set out to save their town. [[spoiler: On a micro level, 2016!Erin warns 1988!Erin against withdrawing from the world and never seeing any of the other girls again like she did after her own 1988 "Hell Morning", though the MemoryWipingCrew may have had something to do with that.]] Both groups of invaders use this as justification, albeit with different interpretations of "right" and "wrong".

** [[spoiler: 1988!Erin tells 2016!Missy that she looks straight out of ''{{Airwolf}}'']]
* StableTimeLoop: Another possible explanation for [[spoiler: grownup Erin's]] LaserGuidedAmnesia
* TheStoic: [[spoiler: Mac learning that she's fated to die of leukemia sometime in the next four years does not elicit much of a reaction.]]
* StrayShotsStrikeNothing: Averted: the bullet accidentally fired as Mac and her stepmother struggle for her father's gun hits [[spoiler: Erin in the stomach.]]

** The girls lose track of where or when they are by the end of issue 10.
** One of the invaders, when asked if they are time travelers or space travelers, helpfully points out that time travel must ''be'' space travel because the Earth is always moving: If you traveled in time without also travelling in space you'd end up drifting in vacuum because the planet would no longer be where you left it. Which proves to be a very verbose way of not answering the question.
** [[spoiler: The "foldings" connect so many eras neither the girls nor the readership have any way of knowing if they've landed in a post-apocalyptic future or the prehistoric past. Or for that matter, if our present era is a post-apocalyptic future or a prehistoric past from the invader's perspective.]]
* TeensAreMonsters: namechecked by an irked adult. [[spoiler: The future teens the girls encounter actually do appear monstrous, with disfigurements, cybernetic enhancements and triangular pupils.]]

* TookALevelInBadass: [[spoiler: Adult Erin]] advises her younger self to stop being afraid of people as it's the one thing she regrets about her life.
* TranslatorMicrobes: one group of invaders speak heavily-accented English, the other uses translation devices worn as chokers around their throats.

* UnusualUserInterface: the Ipod-like device projects a virtual map directly into the holder's visual cortex, or so we can only assume, because only the character holding the device can see what it is displaying.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: implied by the non-cliffhanger ending of chapter 10. [[spoiler: the girls escape 2016 by leaping out of Missy's helicopter through the fifth folding just as the helicopter is seized by the invader's "editers" leaving 2016 Erin and Missy to an uncertain fate.]]
* WriteBackToTheFuture: actually "writing" back ''from'' the future in the form of an Apple-logo'd virtual reality device.
** In another unusual variant, the VR device leads them to KJ's field hockey stick sticking halfway out of a small time fold at the abandoned mall. While the stick itself is a message of sorts [[spoiler: (KJ is okay and in the future)]] they also find a (confusing) message scratched into the stick after they retrieve it.

** '''Phlegmatic''': Tiffany

* ChrystalDragonJesus: The invaders use religious titles like "Bishop" and "Cardinal" but most of the rest of their religious motifs seem randomly plucked from Buddhism and Hinduism with a dash of druidism thrown in.

* DomesticatedDinosaurs: Some of the alien leaders ride pterosaurs.

[[caption-width-right:300:From left to right: Mac, KJ, Tiffany, and Erin]]''Paper Girls'' is an ongoing 2015 Creator/ImageComics comic book series written by Creator/BrianKVaughan and illustrated by Cliff Chiang. Early on the morning of All Saint's Day 1988,[[note]]That's the day after Halloween, for any non-Catholics out there.[[/note]] 12 year old Erin Tieng goes on her normal newspaper delivery route in a Cleveland suburb only to be rescued from some teenage boys with dubious intentions by a trio of other paper girls who have banded together for mutual protection from any lingering Halloween craziness. That's when things start to get strange.

* CrapsackWorld: The girl's impression of 2016. Stony Stream is a dying Rust Belt town, Grownup Erin's Smart car is "the size of a hot wheel" and the mall's been closed for nearly a decade.

** 1988!Erin tells 2016!Missy that she looks straight out of ''{{Airwolf}}''

* ComesGreatResponsiblity: raised and dismissed as a strawman argument for rationalizing inaction by one of the counter-invaders.

* TranslatorMicrobes: one group of invaders speak heavily-accented English, the other uses translation devices attached to their throats.

* WithGreatPowerComesGreatResponsiblity: raised and dismissed as a strawman argument by one of the invaders.

* CrapsackWorld: The girl's impression of 2016. Stony Stream is a dying Rust Belt town, Grownup Erin's Smart car is "the size of a hot wheel" and the mall's been closed for a decade.

** '''Sanguine''': Erin

* FreeRangeChildren: The girls. Children actually were allowed their degree of freedom back before cable news and new media convinced everyone there was a pedophile lurking behind every bush. The even use Erin's newspaper bag as protective coloration because the truant officers "don't bother Preserver kids".

* NoPeriodsPeriod: subverted. KJ gets her first period at a really inconvenient time and place.

* DeathSeeker: Played with: [[spoiler:Mac develops a mild case after learning the approximate year and supposed cause of her impending death. She rationalizes it with the statement that, since she knows when she's going to die, any OTHER situation she finds herself in won't kill her. Tiffany doesn't seem to buy it and Mac finds her one death seeking experience so terrifying it scares that attitude right out of her.]]

** One of the invaders, when asked if they are time travelers or space travelers, helpfully points out that time travel must ''be'' space travel because the Earth is always moving: If you traveled in time without also travelling in space you'd end up drifting in vacuum because the planet would no longer be where you left it.

** In another unusual variant, the VR device leads them to KJ's field hockey stick sticking halfway out of a small time fold at the abandoned mall. While the stick itself is a message of sorts [[spoiler: (KJ is Okay and in the future)]] they also find a (confusing) message scratched into the stick after they retrieve it.

* HiddenDepths: tough girl Mackenzie is a girl scout. You wanna be a bitch about it?

** 1988!Erin tells 2016!Missy that she looks straight out of ''{{Airwolg}}''

* TheStoic: [[spoiler: Mac learning that she's fated to die of leukemia in four years at most does not elicit much of a reaction.]]