For over 50 years, kids have learned important life lessons from the colorful and chaotic monsters and Muppets of Sesame Street. But what happens when the world has moved past the need for lessons of sharing and caring for your neighbors? Where do the puppets go? It turns out it’s the resistance. In “Survival Street” #1, it’s clear that James Asmus, Jim Festante, and Abylay Kussainov have a lot of ideas, but there’s something about the execution that prevents you from asking “how to get to Survival Street.”
Written by James Asmus and Jim FestanteCover by Ablay Kussainov with Ellie Wright
Illustrated by Ablay Kussainov
Colored by Ellie Wright
Lettered by Taylor EspositoSurvival Street is a unrepentant action satire tearing through a dystopia packed with economic and humanistic cautionary tales. After an unbridled wave of corporations take over America, the country is left completely deregulated and effectively carved up into feudal states where billionaires and businesses make their own laws. Among the wreckage, mass privatization shuts down public broadcasting, forcing all the beloved edutainers out on the down and dirty streets. One group of them stick together, determined to keep helping kids across the country and do it by becoming an A-Team-esque band of mercenaries fighting for (and educating!) kids in the crumbling, corporate war zone of New Best America. • James Asmus is the five-time Harvey Award nominee currently writing Rick & Morty: Corporate Assets, Transformers/My Little Pony crossover miniseries, and more!
There’s something familiar about “Survival Street” #1. It’s a post-apocalyptic tale about the dangers of unfettered capitalism in the now rapid deterioration of the United States. While the comic quickly gives you a timeline of events and shows just how fast the fall of America is, there’s something basic about it all. We have private militias who change the rules at a moment’s notice, charging new maintenance fees and services charges (all while the landscape shows a blighted hellscape.) There are jokes about oceanside condos with “underwater views” from a blatant ignoring of the threat of global warming. Even the jokes about the new government feel stale with the president going in front of the “fortune 500” for an employee evaluation. It’s somewhere between Idiocracy and parodies of superheroes with sponsorships, but nothing about this setting feels unique. But where Asmus and Festante differentiate this world is with the introduction of the underclass and freedom fighters of this world, puppets, which on its face seems fun but proves to be one of the biggest letdowns of the comic.
So here’s the thing, you can see the appeal of the pitch of “Survival Street” #1. There’s a lot of potential in “Muppets leading the resistance.” There’s always been something appealingly chaotic about those characters, even those geared to a more family-friendly audience like Sesame Street. There have even been other, better examples of poking fun at the ever lively and optimistic characters dealing with the grim reality of the real world (Avenue Q, for instance, springs to mind.) While the premier issue has fun with its puppet characters, you wish that James Asmus and Jim Festante did MORE with the characters. There are occasionally funny moments here and there. You have the classic bit of Hippy (the team’s heavy) being a totally pushover softy or Gurgle, the “sundae fiend” losing her cool at the mere mention of ice cream. You just wish that there were more of those kinds of moments. As it stands, the characters just aren’t particularly funny, which would help the comic immensely. It seems that the creative team found the idea of “Super Grover who kills” or “Foul Mouthed Oscar the Grouch” funny and didn’t think much from there. Instead, we’re given interpersonal drama from characters that feel inspired by Bert and Ernie instead of creative puppet shenanigans.
The puppets also act as a catch-all for the minority underclass in “Survival Street” #1, which ultimately feels unmoored and messy. There are implications that puppets “control the media” and have had an undue influence on kids. Still, they also are talking about their naturalization status and are seen being smuggled into the various micro countries America has become. While none of this is necessarily bad, it just doesn’t quite seem to go anywhere in the premier issue. Of course, Asmus and Festante don’t need to reveal everything they have planned in the first few pages, but a little more context would have been useful to explain their status in the new world. Why was there such vitriol against them? Where did they come from originally? This information would help give context to why they are the natural leaders of the resistance or why Irma working for Fawkes News is such a betrayal. The comic is trying to do too much, and because of that, everything feels rushed.
Continued belowBut the thing that feels like the biggest misstep in the execution of “Survival Street” #1 is the design of the puppets. Well, that’s not entirely true. Abylay Kussainov does a fantastic job of capturing the soft plushy nature of the characters, the texture of their fur or hair, and even the somewhat static nature of their faces. The problem comes from the fact that we see their whole body. While perhaps not a catastrophic design choice or a “your mileage may vary” criticism, something is unnerving about seeing the full design of the characters. It also limits what would have been fun design elements, making each character look and feel distinct. Different Muppets move in different ways, which would be a fun challenge to think about what roles the different types of puppets could fill. You have full-body characters like Hippy, who might be able to do more physical activity than, say, a character who can only move one of their arms at a time. You wish the puppets acted more like puppets, and it would be fun to see how the art team obstructed the puppets in the panel. Put them behind walls! Only shoot the characters from the waist up! Make them feel like PUPPETS! Then, if you have a big reveal that Corporal Punishment has legs, it makes it much more impactful because it would come as a surprise. The characters’ designs are solid, but if they operated closer to the puppets we know, it might help sell the overall concept. Kussainov does a good job of laying out the action on the page and having some visual antics, but it just makes you want some more creativity in the execution. Muppets are chaotic and fun, but they don’t feel all that different in this comic than any other action team.
Ultimately, the creative team is playing it safe and not taking big swings. A chaotic muppet misadventure through the wasteland should at least be interesting! Of course, you can do that without sacrificing the darkness, but sadly “Survival Street” #1 doesn’t seem up to the task of making it incredibly chaotic. It certainly has fun moments and the occasional humorous dialogue, but it just seems like a missed opportunity.
Final Verdict: 5.0 “Survival Street” #1 is full of ideas but is trying to do too much and not taking advantage of the potential of its central premise.
