Paper Girls Stars React to Stranger Things Comparisons

Amazon Prime dropped the entire first season of Paper Girls this week, and the show has been well-received by critics and audiences alike. The series is based on Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang’s comic of the same name, and is currently up on Rotten Tomatoes with an 87% critics score and 81% audience score. ComicBook.com‘s Jenna Anderson gave the show a 4 out of 5 and called it “a wonderful, weird expansion of one of comics’ best series.” Many people have been comparing the show to Stranger Things since the titular kids are from 1988. In a recent interview with Insider, some of the Paper Girls stars reacted to the comparison. 

“I think we are honored to be associated with shows like that and we could only hope for the same feedback, but what our show is doing is highlighting a story that hasn’t been told and it has its own unique tone to it when you’re watching,” Fina Strazza (KJ Brandman) shared. Riley Lai Nelet (Erin Tieng) added, “It’s own genre in itself.”

“We’re all already aware of the intense hatred that clawed over the ’80s,” Strazza continued. “But I think it became much more apparent to the four of us because we don’t focus on just the patterns on the clothing or the fun hair or the great music. We talk about the sexism and the racism and the homophobia and how a lot of people were not allowed to fit in and it was a very enlightening experience for us.” She added, “Hopefully that will be enlightening for other people who are familiar with ’80s media because people tend to romanticize it a lot, so I hope that shines through.”

“All of our directors were female and it was just really, really inspiring because the [a lot of] crew was female. It was really cool to have that female driving force in the show and women, especially on set would come up to us and be like, ‘This is the show I wish we had when we were younger.’ And that touched me,” Camryn Jones (Tiffany Quilkin) shared. 

Last weekend, Vaughn and Chiang joined the show’s cast at San Diego Comic-Con and had a chance to chat with ComicBook.com‘s Jenna Anderson. During the interview, Vaughn talked about how much fans have embraced the new series. Vaughn is no stranger to having his work adapted. Previously, Y: The Last Man, The Runaways, and more have been turned into shows.

“This is not our first time, ” Vaughan said with a laugh. “It’s been the best so far. Just seeing how much people love the comic, and comic fans, as I’m sure you well know, are not always happy with adaptations. And there’s just been, from the moment I think the first images these guys dropped, everyone was like, ‘Wow, they got it exactly right.’ You can just tell the tone and the heart of it, so just seeing the way people already embraced it without having seen a minute of it, it’s been breathtaking.”

Paper Girls is now streaming on Amazon Prime.