Nathan Pyle's Strange Planet Comics

Submission 46,370

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About

Nathan Pyle's Strange Planet Comics refers to a series of comic strips by artist Nathan Pyle that features aliens performing human activities but describing their actions in extremely literal ways as a means of spoofing the strange rituals and behaviors of humans. Since he started the comics in February of 2019, they have become extremely popular.

History

On February 4th, 2019, Nathan Pyle published the first strip of Strange Planet, gaining over 11,000 likes on his Instagram page.^[1]

On February 11th, he released the second entry in the series (shown below, left),^[2] and on the 12th, released the third (shown below, right).^[3] The following day he created an account specifically for the series.^[4] In one month, the account gained 1 million followers.

Television Adaptation

In June of 2021, it was announced that a television adaptation of Strange Planet was in the works at Apple TV, with Nathan Pyle and Dan Harmon creating the series.^[14] In July of 2023, the series was slotted for an August 9th, 2023 premiere. Tunde Adebimpe, Demi Adejuyigbe, Lori Tan Chinn, Danny Pudi and Hannah Einbinder were confirmed to be joining the cast as voice actors. At the time, Polygon^[15] voiced concern that hearing the characters' voices may take away some of the series' charm. On July 25th, 2023, a trailer for the animated series was posted to YouTube by Apple TV (shown below).

Online Presence

The comic has done particularly well online. For example, a comic posted by Pyle to /r/funny gained over 96,000 points (shown below, left). Another gained over 103,000 points (shown below, right).

The comic has received press coverage from Time Magazine,^[5] Think Free,^[6] and Cheezburger.^[7]

Pro-Life Beliefs

On April 8th, 2019, Twitter user @anarchopupgirl^[8] pointed out a tweet by Pyle from January 27th, 2017^[9] in which he shared a post from his girlfriend supporting the March for Life, an anti-abortion group (shown below, left). @anarchopupgirl shared it saying "oh yikes, the cute alien comics dude is anti abortion," gaining over 8,200 retweets and 19,000 likes (shown below, right).

That day, Twitter users edited Pyle's comics to mock his anti-abortion stance. For example, Twitter user @meadowlion^[10] posted an edit of Strange Planet, gaining over 100 retweets and 410 likes (shown below, left). User @guyver3x^[11] tweeted an edit of one of his comics, gaining over 60 retweets and 550 likes (shown below, right).

In response to the backlash, Pyle posted a statement saying he and his wife have "private Christian beliefs" and further clarified that he votes for the Democratic Party and does not want to be associated with the Republican Party (shown below). Twitter users were not enthusiastic about the statement. User @Syrrigald^[11] wrote "if your conception of Christian faith includes 'not supporting reproductive rights' I'm out." User @imteddybless^[12] wrote "people want to know whether they’re supporting & buying things from someone who believes in the limiting of women’s reproductive rights." Others like Shen of Owl Turd Comix wrote "you don't owe the dogpilers anything, and you don't have to prove anything to them."^[13]