List of Big Nate characters and premises

The following is a list of characters and premises from Big Nate, an American comic strip and book series written and illustrated by Lincoln Peirce.[1][2][3]

Characters

Main character

• Nate Wright: The comic strip's main character. Nate is a sixth grade detentionair and 11 years old, a talented cartoonist, drummer, and chess player. He also believes he is a natural prankster, as he attempts funny and difficult pranks on the second to last day of school (known in the book as "Prank Day"). He is somewhat vain, believing himself to be irresistible to girls despite being rejected repeatedly by his crush, Jenny Jenkins. He believes he is a brilliant sports player despite his lack of athletic abilities. He also thinks of himself as a genius despite his below-average grades. Nate spends much of his time in detention, in the art room drawing comics, or playing drums for his band Enslave the Mollusk, which also comprises his friends Francis, Teddy, and Artur. Nate is desperate to own a dog, much to the disgust of his sister, a cat person. He also has ailurophobia, the fear of cats, and hates Figure skating and egg salad, but loves "Cheez Doodles". Surprisingly, Nate's most well-known talent is that he is a skilled chess -player, to the complete confusion of his friends and family, and even won the Maine youth chess tournament. Nate is also well known as being able to detect 'vibes'. He even tried to teach Chad Applewhite this ability but failed. Nate is also known for having a very accurate sense of smell.

Nate's Family

• Martin Earl "Marty" Wright: Nate's father, a bald, overweight divorcée who lost his job in the eighth novel of the series (eventually getting another one). Like his son, he is somewhat clueless about his failings and considers himself a professional musician despite his indescribably horrible singing voice and initially poor steel-string guitar playing, an athlete despite his inherent laziness, and an expert golfer, though he constantly cheats or loses his ball. He is a health nut and always tries to hand out healthy alternatives to candy on Halloween (raisins, prunes, trail mix, etc.), which are always rejected by trick-or-treaters. He also was the hero of the first Mud Bowl, according to Big Nate: Blasts Off. His first name was first stated on July 28, 2005.
• Ellen Wright: Nate's fifteen-year-old sister. Unlike Nate, Ellen is responsible and hardworking and loves cats and figure-skating, and egg salad. Nate is always compared to Ellen in school by teachers. She is Nate's consistent rival, and he enjoys playing pranks on her. Ellen also dates Gordie on and off, who works at the comic book store, Klassic Komix and has previously dated Kenny Smithson, the captain of the football team and is considered her crush. They briefly broke up before reconciling. She is 4 years older than Nate.
• Marjorie “Marge” Wright: Nate's grandmother. She and her husband, Vern, have a slightly tense relationship, as she sometimes nags him about giving up her career for married life and for generally being lazy and perverted.
• Vernon “Vern” Wright: Nate's grandfather. He enjoys stating his opinion without consideration, using his age to show off. He is shown to have a tattoo, and he also likes Junior Mints.
• Theodore “Ted” Wright: Nate's lazy uncle, an overweight, unemployed man-child who lives in Nate's grandparent's basement. He dropped out of college and since then has never held down a job. When he was in 5th grade, he played the oboe. He is oblivious to his family's hints that he move out and find work, and spouts sci-fi and musical trivia at the drop of a hat. He is a big fan of World of Warcraft, My Little Pony, Star Trek, and Battlestar Galactica.

Nate's Best Friends

• Francis Butthurst Pope: Nate's number #1 friend, Francis is very intelligent, and this upsets his friends from time to time. He has a gap between his teeth and lets people bully him often. Nate and Francis frequently make fun of each other, but he states that this is how they operate. He also likes to read ‘The Book of Facts’ also Francis loves trivia, which annoys Nate and Teddy. Nate and Francis often argue about cats vs dogs as Francis is a cat person, he also has a cat named Pickles. Contrary to Nate's feelings for them, Francis is friendly with both Mrs. Godfrey and Artur. Francis plays the electric guitar in Enslave the Mollusk and dates Sheila Stapleton. In Big Nate: Flips Out, it is revealed that he told Nate his embarrassing middle name (Butthurst) as a part of making their friendship official.
• Teddy √ Ortiz : Nate's number "1A" best friend, Teddy is a comedic character who frequently cracks jokes and annoys Nate. Like Francis, Teddy likes Artur and is a member of Enslave the Mollusk. His middle name is the square root symbol since his parents are math teachers. In Big Nate: Flips Out, it is revealed that he is fluent in Spanish. He plays the musical keyboard in Enslave The Mollusk. In 1994, it is revealed that Teddy is half Mexican, and half Puerto Rican. In 1994, it is revealed that over the summer Teddy gets to live in Mexico with his grandparents, however, this stopped happening in 1996. Teddy also knows a lot about the Civil War, as his dad is an expert of the Civil War, and has been teaching him facts since he was a baby.

Nate's Classmates

• Dee Dee Dorcas Holloway: A friend of Nate who is a member of the drama club and is considered by Nate to be a drama queen. Nate does not like her much at first, but she gradually becomes a part of Nate's friend group and a major character.
• Chad Applewhite: Chad is one of Nate's good friends. He is a chubby kid with red hair and freckles. He is obsessed with eating and food.
• Artur Pashkov: A very friendly, intelligent, and well-liked exchange student from Belarus.
• Randy Betancourt: One of Nate's rivals and a school bully.
• Jenny Jenkins: Nate's classmate and biggest crush.
• Breckenridge Puffington III: Nate's most recent met student. He's somewhat shy and is a huge fanatic of plants.
• Gina Hemphill-Toms: One of Nate's cleverest schoolmates and his rivals.
• Kim Cressly: A very big girl who at one point decided Nate was her boyfriend and refused to take "no" for an answer.
• Chester Budrick: A school bully.
• Marcus Goode: Marcus Goode is the "popular kid" of the seventh grade at P.S. 38 although tends to be quite a bully.

Nate's Teachers at Public School 38

• Mrs. Clara Godfrey: Nate's ultimate hated teacher, his social studies teacher. Nate spends much of his time trying to avoid her outside of class and antagonizing her in class, making up several nicknames for her, like Venus de Silo, Godzilla, Dark Side Of the Moon, She who Must not Be Named, Dragon Breath, etc.. Nate has been known to exaggerate her physical features in his comics. Nate always refers here to the 'Creature Teacher' and hates her the most due to her rude attitude and the fact that she is a cat person. Additionally, he frequently draws her as a parody of The Devil. Nate also thinks that 6th grade would have been much easier for him if his older sister Ellen had not been there first. The relations between Mrs. Godfrey and Nate are not entirely negative, though. She allows Nate to create reports in cartoon form, giving him an outlet for his creativity and energy. She once saved Nate from choking on a peppermint. Using the Heimlich Maneuver. She has a daughter named Katrina. Her maiden name is Lessard then she changes it to Godfrey after she got married. She shares Nate's love for Star Trek: The Next Generation and maple donuts, and Cheez Doodles, something that is especially horrifying to him. She is a fan of Gina and favors her.
• Mr. Ken Rosa: Nate's art teacher, Mr. Rosa is a soft-spoken and mild-mannered man but somewhat overworked and embittered about his career. A
• Principal Wesley Nichols: The principal of P.S. 38. Nate and the other students are very friendly towards him, but do not treat him as an authority figure; he is bewildered by the students.
• Mrs. Geraldine Shipulski: Principal Nichols' secretary.
• Mrs. Lettie Czerwicki: She is a school volunteer who supervises the students in detention. She reads romance novels while sitting in detention. Mrs. Czerwicki sometimes plays table football with him.
• Mr. Shawn Galvin: Nate's science teacher. He has a crush on Greta Van Susteren. He has almost no visible sense of humor and conducts a very boring class.
• " 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, DJ or a school board meeting reporter.
• Coach Calhoun: Nate's main gym teacher. He is also Nate's friends' baseball, soccer, and basketball coach. He manages to keep a positive attitude despite the fact that P.S. 38's sports teams tend to lose competitions against other schools most of the time, usually by a large margin.
• Coach John: A frequent substitute for Coach Calhoun, Coach John originally was the full time coach of the school's physical education program. He also is the school's soccer coach.
• Mr. Staples: The math teacher. He has a tendency to tell corny knock-knock jokes, and to act corny in general as well. He was born in China.
• Ms. Clarke: Nate's English teacher, his second favourite teacher behind Mr. Rosa. It was mentioned that Mrs. Godfrey and Ms. Clarke are very good friends.
• Mrs. "Hickey" Hickson: The school librarian. She is a middle-aged woman who does not tolerate insolence from anyone. She is the first person to ever send Gina Hemphill-Toms to detention in Big Nate: Strikes Again.
• Ms. La Chance: Nate's French teacher.
• Mrs. Lumley: A cafeteria worker who is mostly very unfriendly.
• Mrs. Corzini: A lunch aide.
• Mrs. Colletti: Appears in Big Nate Blasts Off and appears as a mean lunch aide. Nate describes her as "Coach John but with hairier legs".
• Mrs. Brindle: The Life skills teacher. In 'Big Nate In the Zone', Nate describes her as "the nicest teacher in the whole school."
• Mr. Aldridge: The Computer Lab teacher. He has only appeared in a teacher rating comic strip drawn by Nate.
• Mrs. Albert: The School Nurse
• Mrs. Dunphy: The School Guidance Counselor
• Mrs. Benbow: Lunch Lady that Nate thinks in old but is actually only 48
• Mrs. Bigbee: Nates's first grade teacher who he nicknamed Mrs. Big Butt. Is Peter's 1st grade teacher.
• Mr. Haney: Substitute music teacher in 2010.
• 'Mr. Smithson: Substite social studies teacher in a 1994 Sunday comic. Kenny Smithson's father.
• Mrs. Esterhaus: Substitute social studies teacher that Nate and his friends particularly liked

Pets

• Spitsy: The neighborhood dog owned by Mr. Eustis, who lives next door to Nate. Nate likes to hang out with Spitsy. He is "the ultimate dog nerd", for he is afraid of mailmen and he had to go to the vet and get his stomach pumped after swallowing a tennis ball. He has a crush on Francis' cat Pickles, went to a cat tea party, and even knitted a sweater like his own bone once for a cat. He likes figure skating as much as Ellen, and gets his tongue stuck on metal poles in the winter frequently. He also gets bullied by squirrels, as shown in Big Nate On A Roll.
• Sherman: The gerbil in Nate's science class. Nate and the other students frequently confide in him or comment about his emotional state. Sherman responds to them with sarcastic comments that the students cannot hear.
• Ghengis: Mrs. Godfrey's blonde puppy. Only appeared once when Francis and Nate were having an argument that every single dog likes Nate, until Ghengis nearly attacked him.
• Pickles: Francis' cat. Pickles is an outdoor cat and usually hangs out on the driveway. She also has a crush on Spitsy, the neighborhood dog.
• Ken Rosa's Dog: Owned by Mr. Rosa but not much is known about him since no one mentions him. He is seen at Mr. Rosa's house when Nate asks Rosa for ideas of a competition against Jefferson Middle School. He is a pug
• Cinnamon: Cat who attacked Nate at the age of 4, which gave Nate ailurophobia, the fear of cats.
• Poco: Trudy's cat.
• Ollie: Mrs. Godfrey's cat.

Other characters

• Chief Meteorologist Wink Summers: He is 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. Wink Summers is his nickname because his real name is Dick Schipp. He was replaced by Chip Cavendish and transferred to weekend meteorologist in August 2011. In 2013, it has been revealed that Wink Summers came back as the chief meteorologist.
• Mr. Donald "Don" Eustis: Spitsy's owner, who is depicted as a heavy man and a bachelor, not to mention the next-door neighbor of the Wrights. Nate has an autumn job raking leaves for Mr. Eustis. He also has a summer job mowing his lawn, and a winter job shoveling snow.
• Peter: A six-year-old boy who Nate sometimes babysits and serves as a 'Book Buddy.' He speaks with a lateral lisp, has an above-average IQ and reads at a college level. Nate tutors him by introducing him to Femme Fatality comics.
• Gordie: Ellen's boyfriend. He shares Nate's love for the comic book Femme Fatality, and works at a nearby comic shop at the mall called Klassic Komix. He has a boss named Wayne, who communicates by mumbling.
• Angie: Nate's first girlfriend. They dated from July 1997 to February 1998.
• Kelly: Nate's second girlfriend. They met at the soccer camp. She goes to Jefferson. They broke up after Nate wrote a break-up note on a detention slip in an attempt to chase after Jenny again. They dated from July 2001 to April 2002.
• Trudy: A seventh grader and Nate's third girlfriend. They met at the fair, when Francis and Teddy didn't want to join Nate on rollercoaster. She went missing and Nate spent the summer trying to find her until he literally ran into her at P.S. 38. When Nate told her he is a sixth grader, he thought she did not want to go out with him, but then she kissed him, officially starting the date. However, because Nate kept going to parties and hangouts with Trudy and her friends, missing out on even more special events involving his friends, he eventually broke up with her. They dated from October 2015 to April 2016.
• Chief Meteorologist Chip Cavendish: The weatherman who replaced Wink Summers as chief meteorologist. He appeared on 03-05-2012 in a science class to talk to Nate and his classmates, where Nate accused him of ruining Wink Summers' career.
• Wayne: Gordie's boss, at Klassic Komix, a comic shop at the mall. Wayne communicates by mumbling.

Minor characters

• Rusty Sienna: A character in the earlier years of Big Nate, host of Oil Painting with Rusty television show and Nate's inspiration to be an artist. A graduate of the Art Institute of P.O. Box 73, he is a parody of Bob Ross and his public television art show. Rusty Sienna returns on August 2, 2007, only to reveal that he died on May 7, 1996. Nate is devastated by the fact that his favorite artist had been "secretly dead" for eleven years. Only seen in Nate's comic May 25, 1991.
• Cap'n Salty: A fisherman who enjoys talking like a pirate. He catches lobsters under the sea. Cap'n Salty is a character Lincoln Peirce created exclusively for the children's website Poptropica.com, where Big Nate Island is one of the features. However, the only mention of Cap'n Salty in the strip itself is the restaurant Cap'n Salty's by the beach.
• Marla: The town mail deliverer.
• Bradley: One of Nate's enemies. He challenged Nate to 'Gas Giant', and was apparently a video game master but his mom, who reveals his name, takes him home after he was playing Gas Giant and was almost beating Nate's top score.
• Kenny Smithson: Ellen Wright's former boyfriend. Kenny's first appearance was in November 1991, and Ellen dumped him in June 1995. When Nate was around the mall with Francis, Nate said "I had hawk-vision eyes, and I saw Kenny Smithson with another girl!"
• Carol: Carol was one of Ellen's friends.
• Scoutmaster: Only appearance in Big Nate On a Roll. He announces the winners of the fundraisers and announces that the third prize goes to Josh Husky from Troop Seven. Then he announces that the two top prize winners (Nate and Artur) have a tie and to determine the winner, he flips a coin. The coin lands on heads (which Nate called) meaning that Artur won second prize and Nate won the first prize.

Enslave the Mollusk

Enslave the Mollusk (ETM) is a garage band featured in Big Nate. It features Nate as backing vocalist and drummer, with best friends Francis on electric guitar and Teddy on keyboard, as well as Artur as lead vocalist. Chad is the band's roadie. Enslave the Mollusk had a big role in Big Nate the Musical. They performed 3 times: twice during the In The Zone novel when P.S 38 was starting a fitness zone but the first time Artur wasn't there because he quit the band, but eventually rejoined by their last performance, and also at one of the school dances. They tried to perform at another school dance but failed because of a power outage. Nate was originally lead singer as he formed the band but wasn't good enough, which was realized after Artur passed by the band playing one day. Artur then sang a rendition of "I Fought The Law" and was hired as the band's lead singer. He quit in the middle of Big Nate: In The Zone after he found a slip of paper with rude nicknames for him that Nate wrote, but was enticed back by the end of the book.

Femme Fatality

Femme Fatality[4] is Nate's favorite super-hero comic. The images are never shown, but there were a few appearances of the eponymous character, as a life-size cardboard cut-out in a 2002 comic and as a cosplay actor visiting Klassic Komix in 2004. The character is highly suggestive, judging from the reaction of Nate and most of the other male characters. Some of the girls show exasperation over Nate's obsession with the comic, but Nate insists he only reads it for the stories. One of Nate's previous comic book crushes was Red Sonja.

P.S. 38

P.S. 38 is the school Nate and his friends attend and is where most of the comics are taken place. The school is noted to be over 100 years old and is considerably run down, but was remodeled in Big Nate: Lives It Up after a painting by local folk artist Granny Peppers was found to be worth a lot of money.

Jefferson Middle School

Jefferson Middle School is a middle school near P.S. 38 and is the school's sister institution. The middle school's kids are the rivals of PS.38's kids and beat them in almost everything. PS. 38 only beat Jefferson in the 'Snowdown', the 1'st and 38'th 'Mud Bowl', and their big 2008 soccer game. Jefferson lost the Snowdown, even though they cheated by packing snow around the spare knight statue.

Jefferson students and teachers

• Nolan: Bully to Nate and his friends.
• Zach: Striker on the Jefferson soccer team. When P.S. 38 has mold, in 2008, the P.S. 38 students move to Jefferson, Zach torments and teases Nate and his friends right up until their big soccer game. During the soccer game P.S. 38 ends Jefferson's four year winning streak when the game goes into penalty kicks.
• Mr. Chung: Nate's social studies teacher in 2008, while the P.S. 38 students go to Jefferson while the school has mold that is being cleaned up. At the start of the year, Mr. Chung seemed to have a liking for Nate, but later in the year Mr. Chung started to yell at Nate quite a lot, possibly because Nate posts about him a lot on his blog.
• Jefferson Soccer Coach Jefferson's soccer coach. Before the big 2008 soccer game, was tormenting Coach Calhoun.
• Annie Jefferson student who beat Gina by one point on a test in 2008. They had a big argument, but then reconciled and became friends.

Nate's comic strip creations

Some earlier strips would show the weekly adventures of Nate's own comic strip creations, drawn on notebook paper in a more childlike drawing style. Few of these characters have appeared in more recent strips.Nate's characters include -

• Dr. Cesspool: an inept surgeon whose mistakes in the operating room tend to be either fatal or debilitating. He has an assistant named Maureen Biology, who also serves as Cesspool's love interest.
• Chip Chipson and Biff Biffwell: Two inept TV reporters who sometimes appear in other strips interviewing the characters. Nate also has them interview characters like Santa Claus, Mother Nature, the Sandman and sometimes Mrs. Godfrey or his own father.
• Ken Doolittle: A talent TV show host. Ellen is often drawn on his show failing at some activity or making a fool of herself.
• Dan Cupid: A cupid who sometimes neglects or messes up his job to bring happy couples together.
• Superdad: Nate's parody of his own father as 'The world's only balding superhero with a slight paunch,' who sometimes appears with Ellen as his 'dimwitted sidekick.' Superdad usually avoids fighting crime or facing danger, preferring to lie on the couch or delegate his job to 'Chore Boy' (Nate himself.)
• The Snuggles Family: A parody of a saccharine, wholesome middle-class family, consisting of husband Bob, wife Honey, son Timmy, daughter Punkin and dog Fluffy. Haven't been seen since 2015.
• Moe Mentum: A Hollywood stuntman stuck doing dangerous stunts in badly directed action or horror flicks.
• Slim Stubby: A country-western singer struggling with being a second-rate celebrity, who is a possible parody of Slim Dusty.
• The Pilgrims of Plymouth: These strips would appear the week of Thanksgiving. Instead of showing the traditional 'First Thanksgiving,' the strip would show the Pilgrims having a wild party, complete with dunk-tanks and bikini mud-wrestling. Haven't been seen since 2015.
• Leo Tard: Dance Instructor for the totally hopeless. Series of strips mocking Nate's sister Ellen's dancing abilities.
• Ultra-Nate: Nate's parody of himself, but a superhero with super strength, flying, and super suction.
• Mega-Chad: Appears in Big Nate in the Zone and Big Nate Lives it Up as Ultra Nate's sidekick. This was never seen in a comic strip, and thus is not very well known.
• Teddy-Titan: Appears in Big Nate Lives it Up as a usual sidekick.
• Captain Frantastic: Another sidekick character whom appears in Big Nate Lives it Up.
• Action Cat: A comic about a cat getting run over by vehicles. There were a few Action Cat comics in 1993, but there haven't been any of them ever since, probably due to some complaints about those strips being too violent.
• Luke Warm, private eye: Nate's comic strip about a detective he made up. Luke is very clumsy, and not very efficient. His comic first appeared on January 2, 2013 in "Big Nate: Flips Out". The comic was later destroyed, because When Nate was hypnotized he could not make it neat enough.
• Everlovin Ellen: An early comic about Ellen's life as a soap opera.
• Claude The Stupid Ideas Fairy: Nate’s comic character that appeared in multiple books including “Big Nate: In The Zone”. He is depicted as a small fairy that gives bad advice to others.

References

1. Peirce, Lincoln. Big Nate goes bananas. Kansas City, Missouri. ISBN 978-1-4494-8995-3. OCLC 1023524693.
2. Peirce, Lincoln. Big Nate : silent but deadly. Kansas City, Missouri. ISBN 978-1-4494-8991-5. OCLC 1027470620.
3. Peirce, Lincoln. Big Nate. A good old-fashioned wedgie. Kansas City, Missouri. ISBN 978-1-4494-6230-7. OCLC 994234441.
4. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2099151/