We are delighted to be joined by writers and the creators of Survival Street, James Asmus and Jim Festante. James is a five-time Harvey nominee and Excelsior Award winner. Jim Festante is a celebrated fan-favorite writer. James has written many comics, including Captain America & Bucky, Rick & Morty: Corporate, and Transformers. Jim has written many comics, including Field Tripping, Rick & Morty: Super Spring Break Special and The End Times of Bram & Ben. With the release of Survival Street: The Radical Left #1 from Dark Horse Comics on September 25th, we got to chat with James and Jim about Survival Street: The Radical Left. For Survival Street: The Radical Left, James and Jim are joined by Abylay Kussainov, Ringo Award-winning Ellie Wright and Ringo Award-winning Taylor Esposito.
Hi James and Jim, it’s great having you both here with us.
Could you tell us about the origins of Survival Street?
James: In peak pandemic shut-down, Jim and I were looking to create our next original series together, and wanted to build a story-world that would let us tackle all kinds of different real-world issues that were increasingly keeping us up at night and horrifying us as parents of young kids. We eventually decided on a very near future where corporate lobbyists get everything they want, and they privatize most of America into company towns that make their own laws. One detail we joked about was that, since they would close public broadcasting, the very real creatures who make children’s television would be out of a job. And we quickly realized “puppets” would actually be the perfect heroes for what we wanted to explore – as they represent the kind of sharing, empathy, community, and more that stands in perfect contrast to the toxic greed of hyper-capitalism we’re warning against.
How would you describe Survival Street?
Jim: We’ve been calling it an “unrepentant action satire”: we want people to know that while, yes, we’re skewering capitalism and the powers-that-be, there’s also plenty of the fun sequences, explosions, character arcs, consequences, and visual candy you’d expect from a comic book.
How did Dark Horse Comics get involved with Survival Street?
James: I had always wanted to work with Dark Horse, and particularly editor Daniel Chabon after I met him when I moved to Portland a few years ago. Once Survival Street took shape, he was one of the first people I sent it to. He jumped on it and offered to shepherd it at Dark Horse before anyone else even got to read the pitch! Between them letting it stay a true creator-owned book, but offering the support, smart editorial, and stamp of quality that comes with Dark Horse – we really feel like we couldn’t have found a better home.
What kind of feedback did you get for Survival Street?
James: Honestly, fans have been more enthusiastic about this than anything I’ve been a part of in sixteen years of writing comics! We took a swing and made a series not really like anything else I could point to, but from the earliest reviews through the entire first series, everyone who read it was in sync with what we were aiming for. For most folks who are stressed out by the feeling that corporate and political powers are actively making all our lives way worse to make their fortunes a little better — they tell us the book has been cathartic, funny, and even hopeful. The few negatives we’ve heard were either from people who didn’t read it and think it’s just a cheap “what if puppets did bad things?” gag, or a couple people with wildly different political leanings grumpy that it didn’t agree with them.
What can you tell us about Survival Street: The Radical Left?
Jim: This time around, we’re not just setting our team up against external conflicts (including generative AI, militant book bans, soulless kids’ entertainment, colonialism, and more) but internal ones, as well. We want to explore the “big tent” challenge that can plague progressive movements – because they embrace a wider range of ideologies, they tend to lead to internal disagreements on priorities and strategies. We seeded a bit of that tension in volume one, but volume two sees that boil over into straight up fracturing as factions within the ‘resistance’ lead to conflicts between the more moderate and revolutionary members of the team.
How did Abylay Kussainov, Ellie Wright and Taylor Esposito join the team?
James: Abylay and I connected online around the time Jim and I solidified Survival Street as the project we wanted to do next. Nothing in his portfolio looked like what we had in mind, but when we asked him to do some character concept sketches, he just completely hit the nail on the head right away. Ellie was someone who’s colors caught my attention, and just seemed like a delightful person I wanted to work with. And similarly, Taylor had been doing a beautiful job lettering what seemed like every other book friends of mine were doing – and they all enthusiastically recommended him. As it turned out, every one of them totally tuned into the spirit of the book, and just always feel like they’re enriching and improving the pages in the exact same direction and vision.
Will Survival Street: The Radical Left continue the fuel-filled mayhem from Survival Street?
Jim: Absolutely! Not only do we get to meet more friends from their “Salutation Street” days, but other puppets from a bygone era whose “problematic” tendencies would offend modern audiences that are generally more aware of and sensitive to issues of representation and discrimination with a lower tolerance for offensive portrayals. And one particular action sequence with marauding toddlers is particularly funny to me. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention all the explosions – there are a lot more explosions.
Is there a particular character from the Survival Street universe that you enjoy writing?
James: Jim and I come from comedy, so most of the characters have some kind of comedic game or compulsion built into them that we enjoy. If anything, I may have had the most fun with this volume expanding the world of the series, and realizing just how much more we can play with here.
Jim: Yeah, each one has their particular thing that’s super fun to write for and play with: Herbert’s penchant for violence, Gurgle’s neuroses, Tony’s trash-talk. There’s a new character whose flamboyance and theatricality is very Ziggy Stardust, James and I had a ball discovering his particular specificity.
What can you tell us about Birdie, Gurgle, Hippy, Herbert, Mr. Burton, and Tony The Troll?
James: Those core characters from our first series remain at the center for The Radical Left. They’re all meant to evoke types of comforting characters we love from kids’ shows of our youth. But we tried to give them layers – the unique quirks and twists that make ours distinct, but also some depth of who they would really be behind the scenes, as a more complicated, sometimes conflicted person behind the tv character. But in this arc, we’re also shuffling up the team and seeing a bit more of what they’re like apart from each other.
Is Survival Street: The Radical Left new reader-friendly?
Jim: For sure. We wrote the issues in volumes one and two as stand alone adventures that have cross-issue arcs that pay off, but we wanted to have people be able to understand and enjoy these stories regardless of what they’ve read from the series. We also have a free-to-read issue #0 available on our website (futureskeletons.com) for anyone who’s interested in finding out more about these characters and the world they inhabit.
Will Survival Street: The Radical Left introduce new Puppets?
James: Oh brother, does it ever! The new arc gave us lots of opportunities — not just to flesh out some other characters from their old series “Salutation Street”, but ones who went on to find success as sports mascots, creatures in fantasy films and tv, and lots more. Honestly, I’m excited to hear which ones catch people’s attention the most, because if we get to do more, I would love to change up the format and explore some of these weirder corners of the puppet diaspora next.
Can you tell us who the artists are creating the covers for Survival Street: The Radical Left?
Jim: Each issue has an A and B cover (you can pre-order either from Dark Horse or your local shop). Abylay has some amazing A covers again, and we have genuinely been blessed by some of the most talented artists in the business for our B covers. Ben Dewey is back for issue one: Ben gave us the fantastic trade cover for volume one and his take on volume two is equally stunning. Our good friend Marie Enger (who did a phenomenal short for our earlier Amazon Comixology series Field Tripping) has a gorgeous, witchy cover for issue two. Abylay’s friend Artyom Trakhanov did an eerie, supernatural horror cover for issue three that blew me away. And Juan Doe, whose work exudes chaotic, bold energy (and who we worked with on our first Image mini-series The End Times of Bram and Ben) gave us a show-stopper for issue four.
Any message for the ComicBuzz readers?
James: Well if you’ve read this far – holy cow, THANK YOU! But if you’re at all interested in the book, please ask your comic shop to pre-order you a copy. I know it might be a hassle, but a lot of shops are cutting down on what they order, so it might be the only way to make sure they have one for you, and it definitely makes a difference in the success of original and creator-owned series like this. And I promise, we put our all into this book (plus extra pages for no extra cost)!
We would like to say thank you to James and Jim for chatting with us and wish them the best of luck with the release of Survival Street: The Radical Left.
