Strange Planet

I am not sure where I first encountered the comic strips contained in this volume, but they sure did strike my fancy. Strange Planet is a webcomic that is published online and propagated across multiple social media platforms. Its author has more than 4 million Instagram followers. This book collects a bunch of strips, arranging them into broad themes, such as parenthood, pets, and recreational behavior. Here's a sample:

As you can see, the humor derives from making the ordinary strange. The aliens talk about commonplace earth practices using interesting/weird word substitutions. So, there's clever wordplay at hand pretty much in every strip, but what really sells them to me is how curiously evocative and even moving they can be.

Perhaps it's from the rather open and simple drawings of the aliens making it easier for the reader to relate to these characters (paging Scott McCloud!), but I also think it's from some brilliant craftsmanship as well. Observational humor is difficult to pull off often, and these strips hit their mark more often than not for me. These comics appear to be deceptively simple but they feature economically and smartly paced dialog and very human, relatable situations.

Nathan W. Pyle created these strips. He is an artist and animator who has written a previous book about etiquette in New York City. He gave a related TEDTalk about the topic here. Portions from an interview in this article help shed some insight into his work.

The reviews I could find of this book have been positive. Dami Lee wrote, "It’s clear why Strange Planet resonates with people. It stars beings without gender or race, meaning everybody can project themselves onto them. They navigate universal situations, shedding light on human behavior that no one understands the reason behind." Molly Barnewitz opined that "by defamiliarizing the human experience of the mundane, STRANGE PLANET helps readers relocate joy to the simple things."

Strange Planet was published by Morrow Gift, and they offer more information about it here.