2024 marks 60 years since the debut of Jonny Quest, the beloved animated series following the globe-trotting adventures of the title character, his scientist father, his father’s government bodyguard, Jonny’s adopted Calcutta brother, and the family’s dog Bandit. Jonny Quest has seen various iterations and reimaginings over the decades, in different cartoons and comics, often contending with ne’er-do-wells, including recurring villain Dr. Zin. Throughout the years, fans have delighted in seeing the team encounter everything from dinosaurs to robots to supernatural wonders.
It’s no wonder, then, that Dynamite Comics is revisting the franchise on this anniversary year, launching a new Jonny Quest comic book from the creative team of writer Joe Casey and artist Sebastián Piriz. Issue #3 just went on sale today, and the comic hits all those nostalgia buttons you want, while feeling fresh and vibrant. I spoke with Joe Casey recently about the conceit behind this newest iteration of Jonny Quest, how Sebastián Piriz’s art captures the sensibility of the original 1960s cartoon, drawing from the continuity of the original series, and how what the creative team is trying to make this book cinematic.
Joe Casey and Sebastián Piriz are two names synonymous with excellence and creators who know how to take beloved properties and equal parts respect them and make them their own. So far, the first three issues of Jonny Quest have shown the franchise is in able hands.
FreakSugar: Before we get into the book itself, what is your personal history with Jonny Quest and his world?
Joe Casey: The original show was ubiquitous on Saturday mornings all through my childhood. For as much as it was being broadcast, I had no idea that they’d only produced one season back in 1964! The next thing I paid any attention to was the monthly comic published by Comico during the glory days of 80’s independent publishing. It was written by the legendary William Messner-Loebs and it was a gem of a series that still holds up to this day.
FS: Where do we find Jonny and the gang at the beginning of issue #1?
JC: For one thing, we find them extremely displaced. I don’t want to say too much more about it, because a lot is revealed in issue #1 that was set up in the FCBD story. Other than that, they’re the classic Quest family that you know and love. I think we’ve done a pretty good job of capturing their particular dynamic.
FS: There have been several incarnations of Jonny Quest over the years. What is your take on Jonny? Does it owe more to the original concept or a combination of different variations of that universe?
JC: In this rarest of cases, I feel like I’m a traditionalist. Our “bible” is the single season from the early 60’s. As much as I dug the Comico series (again, a great series, all around… especially the first year), for this project I stuck to the admittedly loose continuity they laid down in those first animated episodes.
FS: As you write these new adventures, has there been a character you’ve become attached to that you didn’t expect?
JC: Well, I knew going in that Race Bannon would be a blast to write. And he is. But the real revelation has been the father-son dynamic between Dr. Quest and Jonny. That might be the one area where I deliberately chose to go deeper than the cartoon ever did.
FS: Has there been anything that surprised you about Jonny Quest’s world as you delved into the story?
JC: No real surprises. If anything, I was delighted that it didn’t take very long to lock into the voices of the characters. When you read their dialogue on the page, I think – as far as I’m concerned – it matches pretty closely to how they sounded in the show.
FS: The art in the Free Comic Book Day issue has a look that feels very much an amalgam of the classic cartoon and a slight modern sensibility. What has the collaboration with the creative team been like?
JC: I was damn lucky to find Sebastián Piriz and even luckier that he agreed to work with me on this. He knew exactly how to strike the right tone visually for this series. We both knew that the Doug Wildey/Alex Toth sensibility of the original show was going to be our fundamental DNA. And Sebastián has been knocking it out of the park on each and every page. He’s an amazing artist.
FS: Jonny Quest is a concept that has been visited and revisited so many times over the decades. What do you think the appeal is both to audiences and creators?
JC: I think several generations of fans have always seemed to respond to that combination of family dynamic with great action and exotic locales. It’s just a perfect blend. It’s definitely what I’ve tried to lock into when I’m writing the book.
FS: Are there any other projects coming down the pike that you’d like to talk about?
JC: The big one right now is the new Blood Squad Seven series coming out monthly from Image Comics, in which we finally re-establish the original shared Image Comics Universe circa 1992 in a significant way and depict what it’s like to be living in it now, over thirty years later, in 2024.
FS: Is there anything you can tease about what we can expect in the series?
JC: Again, I really don’t want to spoil anything, because there’s a lot that I could tease… but it all relates fairly directly to the main dramatic hook of the series, the thing we reveal in issue #1. Having said that, what we’re really trying to do here is Jonny Quest: The Motion Picture. That tends to suggest that, if you were a fan of the original show, there’s a ton of stuff that you’re going to recognize in this series. We’re just putting those things into a new context. That’s the hope, anyway.
Jonny Quest #3 is on sale now from Dynamite Comics.
From the official issue description:
Jonny and the rest of Team Quest find themselves in the far east as they continue their search for a way back home, but death and danger are still hot on their heels – luckily, help is about to arrive in the form of a (sort of) familiar face!