I don't think I've ever worked on a project [Paper Girls] that is this personal. We draw so much on our memories of growing and we're putting so much of our present day into it as well.

One of my favorite comics is Love and Rockets by the Hernandez Brothers. They do such a wonderful job of showing you how the character of Maggie ages and really doesn't present that with any kind of judgment.

I realize that this is not what you want to put on a cover with Wonder Woman emblazoned on it. She could be in trouble, but she doesn't need to be completely out of control. So whenever I'm doing these covers, I try to make sure that there's an element where, even if there is danger, it's not something where agency is taken away from her.

It starts with the writing. We have to think of all these characters - we have to treat them all equally. We have to think of them as having an interior life and having motivations. When I'm drawing female characters, I'm looking for that. I'm looking for subtext. I'm looking for ways to make the reader relate to them in a way that goes beyond the pure aesthetic value. You know, just drawing an attractive woman really gets kind of boring after a while.

We wanted the book [Paper Girls] to feel to evoke the '80s, but not necessarily feel that it was drawn then.

What I like about Paper Girls in particular is that because we're approaching it more from a female perspective, we're able to consider the emotional states of these characters a little bit more, and think more of their interiority.

[Paper Girls] is very much is about how we are thinking about our past and growing up.