Artist's Commentary

Newt and John are off on another Adventure!
This multi-part story started out as I was watching the original Hanna-Barbera "Jonny Quest" cartoon. I bought the dvd's on sale, without ever seeing a full episode before... but I liked the comic-book look and feel to the show. I have been a fan of Alex Toth, one of the designers on Jonny Quest. It was his simplistic, yet futuristic designs of jet airplanes used in the episode "The Robot Spy" that had me thinking of a straight-lined supersonic Jet design with an angled front like the Concorde. So, I decided to create the jet I had imagined, in google's 3D sketchup software.

The final design was a supersonic delta-wing jet based somewhat on the Canadian made "Avro Arrow" from the late 1950's. A jet that was far ahead of it's time, and capable of speeds and altitudes that only modern jets are able to achieve. My family has a history with the Avro Arrrow. My Grandfather was one of the heads of production on this revolutionary aircraft. It's such a shame the government shut down production and basically erased the jet from existence. It was only when I sat back and looked at the near completed 3D jet that I realized I had designed the wings similar to the Avro Arrow. I've always loved the design, and I guess that's why it influenced me.

I thought the final jet also looked like a paper airplane design... so I added some lines to indicate paper-folds. I liked the look, and I knew I could create the look of a newspaper airplane using some masking tricks in Flash. Since it was initially built as a 3D object, I could choose any viewing angle I needed to tell the story.

All of this sparked some ideas. What if Newt and John were flying a full-sized paper airplane? What was John's motivation?.. What would be the conflict for the story?.. and where would it lead? I came up with several story ideas worth doing, and many scenarios to start the story but simply using a giant slingshot and launching it with Newt blindfolded seemed like the quickest way to get the story going. Expect some twists and turns in this one!

As mentioned when I restarted the series with the "Jump the Shark" teaser comic... I'll be simplifying the number of panels per page, and taking advantage of new layout designs to add new direction to the comics. There will be less written per page, so obviously, that means fewer gags, but the stories will have the same amount of humour as always, just spread across more pages.

If you'd like a full story, full page humour episode, then check out the episodes from the last couple weeks, "April Fool's Day" and "MUGBOT"

I hope you like the start of this on-going story!... Passing a link on to your friends is always appreciated! Look for new "Newt and John" comics every MONDAY! Take a moment to subscribe to this website's RSS FEED for instant notification when each comic is online!.. or Follow me on TWITTER!

If you've just discovered this comic, take some time to enjoy all the episodes in the ARCHIVE. Come back each MONDAY to see what else can happen, when Two Roommates take on the Universe!

All the best,

Mike Hogue - April 19th / 2010