Paper Girls #1

A Cleveland kid and a Harvard-trained artist

Brian K. Vaughan was born in Cleveland on July 17, 1976, and grew up in the suburbs of Rocky River and Westlake. By 2015 he had written Y: The Last Man (2002 to 2008), Ex Machina (2004 to 2010) and Marvel's Runaways, written for the television series Lost from 2006 to 2009, and launched Saga with Fiona Staples at Image in 2012. In 2013 he started The Private Eye with Marcos Martin on Panel Syndicate, a pay-what-you-want digital platform.

Cliff Chiang, born in 1974, earned a joint degree in English literature and visual arts from Harvard College and started at DC Comics as an assistant editor before turning to drawing. He drew Human Target, Beware the Creeper and the first seven issues of Green Arrow/Black Canary, and in September 2011 began drawing Wonder Woman with Brian Azzarello for DC's New 52 relaunch.

Paper Girls was creator-owned, published by Image. Matt Wilson colored it and Jared K. Fletcher lettered and designed it. Vaughan set it in a fictional suburb of the city where he grew up.

November 1, 1988, before dawn

Paper Girls #1 went on sale on October 7, 2015. For $2.99 it offered 52 pages, among them a 40-page story, a cast page and sketches of the four leads, a mock letters page answered by a fictional "Petey Roy Paperboy," and a wraparound cover by Chiang showing all four girls.

The story is set in Stony Stream, a fictional Cleveland suburb, in the early morning after Halloween 1988. Four twelve-year-old newspaper delivery girls, Erin, Mac, KJ and Tiffany, band together on their routes. Three hooded figures attack Tiffany and steal her walkie-talkie; chasing them, the girls find a time machine, and almost everyone in Stony Stream disappears. The series widens into a war between time-traveling factions, with the girls caught in the middle.

Critics singled out the point of view. One reviewer praised the book for telling "its story from the point of view of young women, not boys," with a tone the review called "harder, flintier, funnier" than comparable stories.

A strong launch for an independent book

Comic shops in North America ordered an estimated 75,585 copies of the first issue in October 2015, ranking it 23rd for the month. The best-selling comic of the month, Invincible Iron Man #1, sold an estimated 279,514.

The series ran 30 issues, ending on July 31, 2019. At the 2016 Eisner Awards it won Best New Series, and Chiang won Best Penciller/Inker.

A 9.8 book

No print run for the issue appears in the sources consulted. The grading census, checked in October 2026, shows how well copies survived: of 3,301 graded copies, 2,749 were CGC 9.8, and none had reached 9.9 or 10. Of the 2,867 with Universal labels, 2,406 were 9.8 and 316 were 9.6; another 420 carried Signature Series labels, 336 of them at 9.8.

With thousands of top-grade copies available, prices are modest. From 2023 through September 2026 CGC 9.8 copies mostly sold for between $25 and $60, with results in the $40s common and a few sales below $25.

A first printing has a wraparound cover by Chiang, an October 2015 date and a $2.99 price. The story has also been reprinted, including as Image Firsts: Paper Girls in 2016, which is a separate book.

From comic to one season of television

A streaming television adaptation was ordered in 2020, and its cast was announced in April 2021. The series premiered on July 29, 2022, and was canceled after one season in September 2022.

Over his career Vaughan has won 14 Eisner Awards, 15 Harvey Awards and two Hugo Awards. Chiang went on to write and draw Catwoman: Lonely City, a four-issue limited series, in 2022.

The numbers

Cover price

$2.99

Pages

52, including a 40-page story and a 2-page wraparound cover

Estimated orders

75,585 (North American comic shops, October 2015, rank 23)

Print run

Not documented in the sources consulted

Census, October 2026

3,301 total: 2,867 Universal, 420 Signature Series, 3 CGC x JSA, 11 qualified

CGC 9.8

2,406 Universal; 2,749 across all labels; none at 9.9 or 10 (October 2026)

Series length

30 issues, October 2015 to July 2019

Timeline

1. Sep 2011

   Cliff Chiang begins drawing Wonder Woman for DC's New 52.

2. 2012

   Brian K. Vaughan launches Saga with Fiona Staples at Image.

3. Oct 7, 2015

   Paper Girls #1 goes on sale from Image Comics for $2.99.

4. Oct 2015

   Comic shops order an estimated 75,585 copies, ranking it 23rd for the month.

5. Nov 4, 2015

   Paper Girls #2 is scheduled to go on sale.

6. 2016

   Paper Girls wins the Eisner for Best New Series; Chiang wins Best Penciller/Inker.

7. Jul 31, 2019

   The series ends with issue #30.

8. Apr 2021

   The cast of the television adaptation is announced.

9. Jul 29, 2022

   The Paper Girls television series premieres.

10. Sep 2022

    The television series is canceled after one season.

11. May 12, 2024

    A CGC 9.8 copy sells for $60.

12. Oct 2026

    The grading census counts 3,301 copies, 2,749 of them at CGC 9.8.

The world in 2015

• Sep 22, 2015

  Pope Francis begins a visit to Washington, New York and Philadelphia, and addresses Congress.

• Oct 1, 2015

  A gunman kills nine people at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon.

• Oct 1, 2015

  The cargo ship El Faro sinks off the Bahamas.

• Oct 29, 2015

  Paul Ryan becomes Speaker of the House, succeeding John Boehner.

• Nov 1, 2015

  The Kansas City Royals beat the New York Mets to win their first World Series in 30 years.

• Dec 2, 2015

  Fourteen people are killed in a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California.

• Dec 18, 2015

  Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens in the United States.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Paper Girls #1 is number 100 of 100 in the comics entries of the FLOAT 100. 92 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (90 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• About 83 percent of all graded copies of Paper Girls #1 are CGC 9.8.
• The issue's letters page is answered by a fictional character, "Petey Roy Paperboy."
• The story takes place on the morning after Halloween 1988.
• Brian K. Vaughan grew up in the Cleveland suburbs, where the comic's fictional Stony Stream is set.
• Cliff Chiang started at DC Comics as an assistant editor, not an artist.
• The television adaptation was canceled about two months after it premiered.