When coming up with Wonder Woman cover designs, sometimes people will pitch ideas to me, either the writer or the editor. And it's interesting, because I know they're not trying to, but they end up pitching things that end up feeling like damsel-in-distress covers, where the tension comes from her needing to be rescued somehow. And it's something I immediately push back against.

Nothing I've worked on has been asked this much of me to put it on the page [like Paper Girls].

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.

The '80s were a really different time for kids.Technology has changed so much of how we stay in touch and keep tabs on people.

[Paper Girls] needed to have a certain kind of almost neon style to it, but at the same time we wanted also to show the modern perspective that we had.

Matt Wilson, the colorist, has this great palate [in Paper Girls] that brings up all these emotions and this feel of the '80s without being actually as kind of as bright and primary as it could have been.

With Erin [from Paper Girls], I wanted to show what she might look like when she's 40, and I wanted it to feel authentic. In terms of inspiration I ended up using my wife for a lot of it. Just to kind of to give me almost an anchor so that I would be invested in making this character real.