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*'''Gina''': One of Nate's schoolmates and rivals. Gina is P.S. 38's resident [[know-it-all]] and over-achiever, and often finds herself in academic competition with fellow overachiever Francis. Nate and Gina tend to despise each other with a passion, viewing each other's personalities and work ethics as terrible. In recent strips, it has been hinted that Nate actually likes Gina deep down, but denies his feelings for her because he believes that he hates everything about her. Ironically, Nate's behavior toward Gina of despising her but hiding feelings for her is identical to what he thinks is his relationship with Jenny, in that he believes Jenny acts like she hates him but really likes him deep down. Of course, Nate is again oblivious to the similarity.
*'''Gina''': One of Nate's schoolmates and rivals. Gina is P.S. 38's resident [[know-it-all]] and over-achiever, and often finds herself in academic competition with fellow overachiever Francis. Nate and Gina tend to despise each other with a passion, viewing each other's personalities and work ethics as terrible. In recent strips, it has been hinted that Nate actually likes Gina deep down, but denies his feelings for her because he believes that he hates everything about her. Ironically, Nate's behavior toward Gina of despising her but hiding feelings for her is identical to what he thinks is his relationship with Jenny, in that he believes Jenny acts like she hates him but really likes him deep down. Of course, Nate is again oblivious to the similarity.
*'''Cap n' Salty''': A talking like pirate. His favourite hobby is catching lobsters under the sea.
*'''Cap n' Salty''': A talking like pirate. His favourite hobby is catching lobsters under the sea.
*'''Chief Meteorologist Wink Summers''': Never seen or heard from, but Nate constantly calls him and complains whenever any part of the weather is not to his liking or if Wink's forecast is wrong.
*'''Chief Meteorologist Wink Summers''': Never seen or heard from, but Nate constantly calls him and complains whenever any part of the weather is not to his liking or if Wink's forecast is wrong. His real name is Dick Schipp.


==Enslave the Mollusk==
==Enslave the Mollusk==

Revision as of 09:49, 10 October 2010

Big Nate
Author(s)Lincoln Peirce
Websitehttp://www.bignatebooks.com
Current status/scheduleOngoing, published online everyday
Launch date1991
Syndicate(s)Newspaper Enterprise Association

Big Nate is a comic strip written and illustrated by Lincoln Peirce. The strip revolves around Nate Wright, a rebellious sixth-grader, and his classmates and teachers. Most of the strips are set in P.S. 38, the middle school where Nate is a student. Nate is portrayed as an intelligent boy with little interest in studies or conforming to standards. Because of this, he often ends up in detention. Some of the staff at the school include Mrs. Godfrey (Nate's social studies teacher and chief faculty nemesis), art teacher Mr. Rosa, Principal Nichols, Mrs. Shipulski, and Mrs. Czerwicki. Poptropica has also made an island for Big Nate, called "Big Nate island".

Answering questions from fans in the Washington Post[1] Lincoln Peirce revealed the following about the creation of the strip:

Big Nate started out as more of a "domestic humor" strip than it is now. It was my intention to feature a lot of stories about Nate's single dad, and all the comic possibilities inherent in that. But before too long, I realized that the part of the strip that I enjoyed most was the school humor. I'd been a teacher myself, and schools can be very funny places.

Big Nate's best friends include Francis Pope and Teddy Ortiz. In recent strips they formed a garage band named Enslave the Mollusk.

Other characters

  • Marty Wright: Nate's middle-aged, single father. Plays golf, albeit very poorly, and will not let Nate have a dog, despite Nate's incessant requests. Formerly known simply as 'Dad', his name was revealed to be Marty at a family get-together.
  • Ellen Wright: Nate's fifteen-year-old sister. Self absorbed and constantly at odds with Nate about almost everything.
  • Mrs. Clara Godfrey: Nate's ultimate nemesis, his social studies teacher.
  • Francis Pope: One of Nate's best friends (perplexing, as they are near-polar opposites) and part of his music band. Francis is a cat person, and often expresses the superiority of cats to dogs, much to Nate's annoyance. His middle name is Butthurst.
  • Teddy Ortiz: Another of Nate's best friends and part of his band. He is latino. His middle name is √ because his parents are math teachers.
  • Jenny: Nate's classmate since grade one. She is his biggest crush—however, she despises Nate (though Nate is obtusely oblivious).
  • Artur: A very intelligent and very well liked Estonian exchange student in Nate's class. Jenny's liking for Artur, and Artur's ability to beat Nate at chess, makes him arch rival to Nate. Artur speaks somewhat broken English as a second language, and is very innocent, gentle, and unassuming. He regards Nate as his best friend, and is generally unaware of Nate's dislike of him. He moved back to his home country of Turkey recently for a period of time.
  • Don Eustis: (Referred to as Mr. Eustis) Nate's overweight next-door neighbor. Nate sometimes mows his lawn and sells him scouts chocolates. He owns a dog named Spitsy, who is afraid of the postman, and loves cats. Nate is constantly trying to improve Spitsy and prove to his friend Francis that dogs are smarter than cats.
  • Mr. Ken Rosa: Nate's art teacher. Mr. Rosa is a soft spoken, optimistic, and mild-mannered man. As a result, Nate enjoys a lot of freedom in art class. He also enjoys sketching pictures of his teachers.
  • "School Picture Guy": Not only showing up every year as the school picture photographer, this character often shows up in unexpected places doing odd jobs such as a birthday clown or a school board meeting reporter. "School Picture Guy" often has some amusing nuggets of wisdom about the job he is doing, or a nugget of wisdom for whatever is on Nate's mind at the moment.
  • Kelly: Nate's ex-girlfriend. Not seen since she broke up with him. (Because he broke up with her via a note written on the back of a detention slip.)
  • Chester: School bully. He is never actually seen, but is frequently in the detention room at the same time as Nate, and is also on Nate's baseball and basketball teams.
  • Gina: One of Nate's schoolmates and rivals. Gina is P.S. 38's resident know-it-all and over-achiever, and often finds herself in academic competition with fellow overachiever Francis. Nate and Gina tend to despise each other with a passion, viewing each other's personalities and work ethics as terrible. In recent strips, it has been hinted that Nate actually likes Gina deep down, but denies his feelings for her because he believes that he hates everything about her. Ironically, Nate's behavior toward Gina of despising her but hiding feelings for her is identical to what he thinks is his relationship with Jenny, in that he believes Jenny acts like she hates him but really likes him deep down. Of course, Nate is again oblivious to the similarity.
  • Cap n' Salty: A talking like pirate. His favourite hobby is catching lobsters under the sea.
  • Chief Meteorologist Wink Summers: Never seen or heard from, but Nate constantly calls him and complains whenever any part of the weather is not to his liking or if Wink's forecast is wrong. His real name is Dick Schipp.

Enslave the Mollusk

Enslave the Mollusk (EtM) is a garage band featured in Big Nate. It features Big Nate as vocalist and drummer, with best friends Francis on electric guitar and Teddy on keyboards and lyricist. EtM appears to be a rock music band, although they only have three original songs, "Hot Cross Buns," "Baa Baa Black Sheep" and "I Fought the Law." They do play cover music, though.

Recently, Enslave the Mollusk appears to have broken up, after Artur's parents forced him to quit to focus on schoolwork and Francis and Teddy decided the band wasn't fun anymore. Nate appears to be trying to go solo.

Collections

Two print collections were published.

Title Publication Date ISBN Publisher
Add More Babes! 1992 ISBN 0-8868-7682-6 Topper Books
I Smell a Pop Quiz! 2008 ISBN 0-6151-9719-1 United Media (only available from Lulu)

In addition, there were three E-books, all from 2002: "Dibs on This Chair", "Pray for a Firedrill" and "Big Nate...Makes a Splash". This was described two years later by Lincoln as a "failed experiment"[2].

A prose work entitled "Big Nate: In a Class By Himself", with selected panels from the comic book, an apparent attempt to profit from the comparable popularity of Diary of a Wimpy Kid. This book is available in hardcover and paperback. It is followed by Big Nate Strikes Again. It is set to be released in October.

References

  1. ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19352-2004Aug20.html%7Ctitle=Comics: Meet the Artist|last=Tobin|first=Suzanne|date=August 27, 2004|publisher=Washington Post
  2. ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19352-2004Aug20.html Washington Post "Comics: Meet the Artist"

Notes

  • Big Nate is the subject of a virtual island in the online children's game Poptropica.
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