'Dan Harmon was willing to defer to me': Cartoonist Nathan Pyle talks bringing his beloved 'Strange Planet' webcomic to TV

• Nathan Pyle created "Strange Planet" in 2019 as a webcomic. Now, it's a TV show.
• Pyle co-executive produced the series with Dan Harmon of "Community" and "Rick and Morty."

If the adorable creatures on the new Apple TV+ show "Strange Planet" look familiar to you, there's a good reason — you've almost definitely seen them on Instagram already.

"Strange Planet" features the same "beings" from cartoonist Nathan Pyle's incredibly popular webcomic of the same name. To answer a few preliminary questions: No, the beings are not humans. Yes, they are (at least on the TV show) squishy. And no, they may not speak exactly how you imagined them to speak in your head.

The journey from Instagram feed to small screen began in February 2019, when Pyle and his wife Taylor hid their toaster in a closet while cleaning up for company, thus sparking the first iteration in the series — a four-panel comic about storing "irregular shapes inside shapes with flat surfaces" to give the illusion of a tidy home.

Before "Strange Planet," Pyle already had a successful career as an artist: He created a series of viral GIFs about New York City etiquette that eventually morphed into a book published in 2014. In 2015, Danny Pudi wore one of Pyle's T-shirt designs, distributed through the apparel site Threadless, on "Community." For a while, Pyle was a staff writer and illustrator at BuzzFeed. He also previously maintained a series ascribing thoughts to rogue pigeons.

"Strange Planet" is his biggest hit, and it grew massively on Instagram in 2019. Since then, it's been spun off into multiple books, apparel, and at one point, a card game from Hasbro. Now, it's finally become a full-fledged animated series, which Pyle co-executive produces with Dan Harmon, who also created "Community" and "Rick and Morty."

Insider spoke with Pyle about the process of adapting his comic, how the "Muppet Babies" relates to fans' feelings about his show's voice-acting direction, and maintaining the show's earnest tone.

One of the really exciting things about this series is that you've retained creative control, which is pretty remarkable. Is that something that you were thinking about when having early talks about this project, or was it non-negotiable for you?

Well, I had a good thing going already. My wife and I were making "Strange Planet." I would show her an idea and she would help me sort out which ones were good and bad. So one of the fun parts of this was that I didn't have anything to lose by going to pitch a TV show. But certainly if someone wanted to take creative control of it, then that wouldn't be nearly as interesting to me.

The fact was, I found someone who wanted to defer to me. Dan Harmon was willing to defer to me. And that really made all the difference, because I knew there were some core concepts of "Strange Planet" that I wanted to keep in place, and Dan absolutely saw the reason for that and saw why I'd want to do it. So he was excited to help build that same world that I wanted to build. But yes, that was important to me. As I said, I still love making "Strange Planet" comics and I didn't want to lose sight of the fact that I still want to do that.

You worked with art director April Apodaca on this show. What was it like going from making these comics with your wife to this much larger television production, having a full art team on this scale?

April's talent is immense. I think one of the first things that I had to step back and realize was that these artists, these writers, these voice artists are all going to do and create things with the beings that I don't have the technical ability to do. I'm drawing the front of the beings. The team can turn the beings around in their minds. They have almost, like, a physics engine in their brain where they can run the beings into each other, can see how they squish.

It was really neat to watch, as I've mentioned, the background artists. It just creates this depth to a show, that you don't even understand the richness that's happening. I love learning about how animation works.

One of the classic ideas is that April understood color, and understood the rules of color, and was able to communicate that to us. Like, "Oh, here's why we don't want to use the yellows here." It was just so natural to the way she thinks. You see a beautiful world on television, and it's because there are really smart artists creating it who have studied. They went to school for this, and they know what they're doing, and that was a really important part of what makes the show look the way it is.

You mentioned the voice actors. Many people have very strong opinions about the voice casting for the show, and you've fielded those opinions online very graciously. I'm curious what your response was to some of the backlash when people made it clear that it wasn't exactly what they were expecting.

You always know with every decision you make, you're gonna get a mixed bag of reviews for sure. To me, it shows people are passionate about "Strange Planet." And it's fascinating to me, 'cause I think like, "This didn't even exist a few years ago, and you're very passionate about it." It's fascinating to me, I love that. I think it shows to me, like, "Oh, you're really following this, aren't you?" I think that's beautiful.

There certainly are ideas that people have within their own mind of what something might look like if it turns into a show. That's understandable. And I was just thinking about "Muppet Babies" recently, and how I came to accept that like, the "Muppet Babies" is a statement to the lore of the Muppets, which as far as I can tell doesn't really fully align with the other stories of the Muppets.

Like, how Kermit and Fozzie meet. Are these the same Kermit and Fozzie? Are they babies together? I don't know. But I think there's something beautiful there about how the Muppets might have different iterations, and yet they are the Muppets. It's cohesive. And yet, it's expansive. And that kind of elasticity of an idea, it works because they put it out. They put out "Muppet Babies," they also put out "The Muppet Movie." So you might think Kermit and Fozzie met this way, but they also were babies together.

So, I don't know. I think there's something awesome about the elasticity of creation, and I don't mind if people get passionate about their own ideas. But I think from the creative standpoint, there's this elasticity where I think, "What's mutually exclusive about these two ideas? Sure, they talk how they talk in your mind, but they also talk how they talk in someone else's mind." It is very elastic.

And within that voice cast, you have a bit of a full circle moment with Danny Pudi, who wore one of your T-shirt designs as Abed on "Community." Did you ever have a conversation with him or Dan Harmon about that?

It was the last episode of season six of "Community" where Danny wore a shirt that I had designed. And Danny had done that with many, many different artists. He'd actually worn their art. And that's such a neat thing.

It's such a simple gesture, perhaps for the Abed character to do. But this is art that's done by someone out there on the internet, and they get to see it on TV. And I got to see mine on TV. So that was really cool.

Now Danny's a voice in the show, and for many people who heard Danny's name and thought, "Oh, I can hear Danny in this world," this is such a natural fit. It was really cool. And it was for us too, like, "Yeah, Danny has to be in this show for sure."

One of the really defining characteristics of "Strange Planet" is its sheer earnestness. I'm curious if there was ever any challenge to maintaining that tone over the course of making the show.

There's a fine balance. You don't want it to become preachy; you don't want it to become cynical. So if you're straddling those two ideas, you want to make sure you go right down the middle and walk that fine line.

I think the challenge here was that these beings, they do live in a world where ostensibly some of the stakes aren't as high at times for them. There may be danger, there are things that bring questions about, "All right, are we going to perish?" But they're also dealing with life in a way that I think reflects human emotion, the peaks and the valleys we all have on a daily basis. They kind of make me laugh because I realize I get so upset about even just spilling my coffee or something on my pants, which I'm going to wash.

Like, I'm literally gonna wash these pants. It really doesn't matter if I spill something on them, because tomorrow they'll be clean. It's really not a big deal. I'll forget I spilled on my pants. So that's what I think is reflected in some of the peaks and valleys for these beings. It feels very emotional when you get your favorite pants dirty, but then when you wash them — hey, look at that, your pants are like new again. Incredible.

And I think that it speaks to the need for humans to regulate themselves, but also to have Scotchgard pants. It speaks to both, so there's a lot to learn there in both practical and emotional ways.

You told ScreenRant that while your kids aren't quite old enough to pick up on the nuances of the show yet, your 2-year-old daughter has started to pick up on some of the language. Can you share any of her favorite phrases from the comic or show that she's latched on to?

Well, it's interesting 'cause there are beings all over my house. So as you can imagine, my daughter thinks "Strange Planet" is the most popular cartoon in the world, because there's so much "Strange Planet" merchandise in our house already. But my daughter sees the beings, and she's like, "Strange Planet."

And my wife will say, "All right, Daddy's gonna go to the office now and draw 'Strange Planet.'" And I think it's gotta be a much different experience for her. But as far as she can tell, my job is actually kind of ridiculous, but it does have to do with going to the office and creating more of these aliens that I bring home. That's the way she thinks of it.

But she understands they are not humans and they're not animals; they're beings. And I think that's one of the first words that she caught on with. Like, this is a particular idea that we have here. They kind of look like Muppets a little bit, but there's something different for sure. She loves the Muppets. That's a big part of our household, as you can tell.

The first three episodes of "Strange Planet" are now streaming on Apple TV+.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.