Issue 1

"The Heated Competition" is the first published issue of Newt. It serves as a stand alone pilot to the series. The issue was first released on May 26, 2016 in a physical book format. It has been available digitally since December 8, 2016.

Plot
Newt and May are having a picnic. May thinks her sandwich tastes kind of bland and decides to put hot sauce on it. Newt then wants to try the hot sauce, despite May's warning that he isn't ready for it. Newt tries the sauce and starts panicking. He heads for a lake, but the water only makes it worse. Finally, May decides to toss a carton of milk at him, which seems to work out fine.

Later in the day, Newt and May are trying to figure out what to do. A flyer for The seventh Annual Hot Sauce Competition catches Newt's eye and he decides to enter it, again despite May's warning. May tries to stop Newt from signing up, but Newt manages to outrun her. In the hot sauce store, Pepe lets Newt sign up, but also makes Newt promise to go through with it and not chicken out. May seems to be pretty disappointed in Newt, but Newt asks if she could help him train for the competition. She agrees.

They go back into the store to pick out some hot sauces. May gives Newt a very mild sauce to start out with, but Newt forgets to shake the bottle before consuming it. Which causes him to have another freak out. After Newt calms down, he and May have a training montage which ends with Newt still not having a tolerance for any of the sauces. With the competition coming even closer, May gives up and tells Newt to just believe in himself.

On the next day, Pepe hosts the competition. Newt manages to survive every sauce simply by just believing in himself. He even makes it to the final round with the champion. However, he gets a random feeling of self doubt. May reminds him yet again to just believe in himself. Newt then gets overly confident and devours the entire bottle of sauce. After Pepe points out Newt's poor decision, Newt starts breathing fire. The fire department arrives to put out the flames, but the water only makes it worse because it's hot sauce fire. May tells them about this and the fire department douses the flames with milk instead.

In the end, Newt lost the competition, though he was given a pin for his valiant effort. Newt still feels dissatisfied as he doesn't understand why believing in himself didn't work. May tells him that having confidence is good, but being overly confident can sometimes be bad. Newt somewhat understands, and they both watch the fire department put out the rest of the flames engulfing the city.

Major

 * Newt
 * May
 * Pepe

Minor

 * Gelly

Background

 * Fred the Fork
 * Daryl
 * Clawberto
 * Malcolm Quasars
 * Pizza Face
 * Yuriko
 * Eyeris
 * Stan
 * Frank
 * Mr. Cuatro
 * Mavis

Objects

 * Death Burning Alive in the Fiery Flames of 1,000 Hecks Sauce
 * Mild Baby Sauce
 * Supernova Sauce
 * Honorable Mention Pin

Locations

 * Joannaville
 * Hot Sass
 * Joannaville Waterfront

Trivia

 * The story was inspired by the author's real life experiences with hot sauce.
 * The first print of this issue was sold at a local festival during the same hot sauce competition that inspired the one in the book.
 * One of the prizes of the competition was a T-shirt designed by Corey Boynton which depicted Pepe. Only two of these T-shirts are known to exist.
 * The comic proceeded to be sold at the hot sauce shop that hosted the competition, Maine E. Market.
 * The second edition features minor changes from the original, such as a new cover, and inside cover.
 * Yuriko appears in attendance at the hot sauce contest.
 * She also appears on the first page.

Cultural References

 * One of the hot sauces, The Bathroom Massacre, is based on The Boston Massacre . The label itself is a parody of the depiction of the massacre by Paul Revere.
 * Another hot sauce, The Farting Dead, is a reference to The Walking Dead

Errors

 * In the second edition, the font of the hot sauce, The Bathroom Massacre, reverted back to Helvetica.
 * There are some typos, most of which were resolved in the second edition.