Although Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang’s comic book about a time-traveling newspaper delivery crew predates Stranger Things by about six months, they both lean into the same 1980s nostalgia and, let’s face it, owe big chunks of their existence to Eerie, Indiana. Like Stranger Things, Paper Girls is a creepy sci-fi fantasy tale that slams headlong into coming-of-age in the Reagan years, and it’s no surprise that the trailer for the forthcoming Amazon series evokes some BHE (Big Hawkins Energy).
Here’s the official synopsis:
“It’s the day after Halloween in 1988 when four young friends accidentally stumble into an intense time war and find themselves inexplicably transported to the year 2019. When they come face-to-face with their adult selves, each girl discovers her own strengths as together they try to find a way back to the past while saving the world of the future.” Those four friends are Erin (Riley Lai Nelet), Tiffany (Camryn Jones), Mac (Sofia Rosinsky), and KJ (Fina Strazza).
Ali Wong meeting her younger self is the strangest thing in the trailer, but the show could go in dozens of bonkers directions. The comic book is more about self-identity, fate, and the complications of knowing the consequences of your decisions before making them, so it’s nothing like Netflix’s biggest show in spite of the neon stylistic similarities (hello, kids staring into the weird-colored, lightning-filled sky!). Paper Girls is set to hit Amazon Prime July 29th.