That was the appealing thing about comics: There literally is no budget in comics. You're only limited by your imagination.

After 9/11, I knew I wanted to write about power and identity and the way Americans on all sides of the political spectrum often mythologize our leaders, which are themes that the superhero genre has always handled really well.

I write the book for one person — for Fiona [Staples, the artist]. I spend a lot of time just thinking how she'll react to things and manipulating her into drawing perverse, horrific things. It's a really weird job but I enjoy it.

We describe [Paper Girls] as Stand By Me meets Terminator.It's a story about nostalgia and childhood, but with an action-packed, sci-fi bent.

Comics are essentially films with fewer frames per second.

I grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland in 1988 and there was just one year where suddenly all of the delivery kids that used to be boys were suddenly girls. It happened at our church too. Altar boys were suddenly altar girls. There was just this sense that all these young women knew there were openings here to be the first of their kind.

But nothing warps time quite like childhood