From selling the comics at a bookstore to leading the Prime Video series adaptation as the showrunner, Christopher C. Rogers has a long past with Paper Girls.
During a roundtable interview Fangirlish participated in at San Diego Comic-Con, Rogers detailed how he was a fan of the book prior to working in television.
“I was a bookseller at Skylight Books in Los Angeles,” Rogers said. “I would sell the hell out of this book ’cause I loved it. I thought it was fantastic.”
The sci-fi show follows four paper girls caught in the middle of a time-travel war after accidentally going to the future during the early morning hours of the newspaper routes on the day after Halloween 1988 in the fictitious suburb of Stony Stream, Ohio.
When it came to why he worked on this property after being invited to do so, Rogers mentioned that he wanted to be “a voice,” not “the voice” for the show. Furthermore, he emphasized how women made up the majority for the show’s production.
Aside from himself, the writer’s room and lineup of directors consisted of all female individuals. He initially worked with series creator Stephany Folsom — known for Toy Story 4, Star Wars Resistance, and Prime Video’s upcoming The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power — as one of the co-showrunners before she stepped down from the role, leaving Rogers as the sole showrunner.
When asked about how the series departed from the source material of the 30-issue comic book series, Rogers noted that the show was a “completing motion” for the comics. It added depth to the existing narrative and characters. Dylan, brother of the paper girl Mac, was one character Rogers brought up in regards to seeing more of compared to the comic book counterpart.