Tarantulabanks on characters and small-scale storytelling and creates something deceptively beautiful in the process.

DEN OF GEEK: First off, how did this idea and this universe of Tierra Chula come about?

Was it something that youd been thinking about in some sense for a long time?

CARSON MELL: Yeah, I had been thinking about it for a long time.

What about these sorts of individuals is interesting to you?

Why focus on these aspects of society?

Echo kind of just came into my head as this tattoo artist that works out of the hotel.

Basically I think its harder to make likable successful characters.

Similarly, a lot of the shows storylines are these very modest, honest types of tales.

Whats appealing about telling these more grounded sort of stories?

You know really, theyre just stories that came into my head.

I think to an extent this connects nicely back to the last question about telling simple stories.

I just wanted to do something different than that.

Its a great little touch to the show.

Well in a way that comes from the web series.

So we went ahead with it.

Echo Johnson is this really beautiful, poetic character thats quite unique in nature.

You also voice Echo so obviously there is some degree of connection felt there.

Talk a little about Echo and his role within the show.

Well on a surface level hes an unlicensed tattoo artist in his late forties whos especially mellow.

That it was even through hardship that they could arrive at this place.

Thats kind of the way that the Echo character came to me.

The character just popped into my head and I started talking in that voice.

Thats what I took away from it and thats sort of the story that Echo had to learn.

Outside of that, everything else is gravy.

What was the experience of writing for that like?

That was super unusual because there wasnt any writers room.

It was more like writing a feature than a TV gig.

Do you know if youll be back to pen another episode for the upcoming second season?

I didnt write one for the second season, no.

I really like Mushroom Valley.

Thats one of my favorites.

Theres something about its pace and the simple directness of the ending that just really clicks for me.

And then the finale I really like too because I think we took some pretty wild swings there.

I think we approach a level of drama there thats pretty unusual for cartoons.

I feel like it worked.

Anything with the Shit Men is also just really fun.

It was very important for me when making this show to set out to tell comedy about nice people.

That was always a challenge for me.

Lastly, rank the drugs: grizzle, shy boy, and blinker.

In order of dangerousness?

I dont know…The effects of blinker look pretty gnarly.

Some major capillaries are getting blown out there.

So stay away from blinker, then grizzle, and then shy boy.

But if youre going to do shy boy, Id recommend handcuffing yourself to a bedframe or something.

Wise words to live by.