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Nathaniel "Nate" Wright is an 11-year-old male sixth-grade student who attends P.S. 38. He lives with his father, Martin, and older sister, Ellen.

Nate has a talent for sports, comic trivia, Chess, detecting and deciphering things with his sense of smell. Coming up with nicknames, cartooning, snowball fights, and coming up with hilarious and serious pranks for School Prank Day, like putting a load of fire ants on Mr. Galvin's chair, vandalizing the bathroom with invisible ink, letting a talking parrot in Mrs. Godfrey's room, etc.

"Lads, sometimes it's not what you're going to do... it's what you've already done."
―Nate on Prank Day 2007


He also has a talent for sensing things with his nose and brain and even reading full sentences with just his nose. Nate insists that he is destined for greatness and that Jenny, a girl in his school who he has a crush on, will fall in love with him one day. However, he eventually gets over his crush on Jenny after breaking up with Trudy.

Nate is best known for causing mayhem, awkward moments, and getting himself in detention over and over and over again. His locker is extremely messy and is filled with all kinds of junk. Some of his “junk” is surprisingly valuable, such as the Faberge egg that was once found in his locker.

Biography (Comics)

Pre Story

Baby Nate

Martin Wright holding Nate as a baby

Nate's father decided to save up money to afford college for Nate, so he started a college fund for Nate. When he was a toddler, he liked to wear Ellen's dresses and pretended to be a ballerina.

Nate soon started attending the Honey Hive, a preschool. This is where he met Jenny Jenkins, his crush, though Nate wasn't in love at that point. Jenny used to chase boys at recess, and once she caught them, she kissed them. Nate was once kissed by her.

When Nate was three years old, he asked Santa for a pink tricycle for Christmas, which Nate's dad constantly reminds him about.

When he turned four years old, he visited a pet shop. However, he was attacked by a four-month-old kitten named Cinnamon. This gave him his current phobia of cats.

When Nate turned five years old, he attended kindergarten at P.S. 38. He sat next to Jenny, but, after reading her name tag, mispronounced her name as "Jonny", as his reading was not very good. He then falls in love with her. He also played in Little Kickers, which is soccer for youth. He is known for being the only player of that age to get a red card. Nate also meets a friend called Lila in pre-k. When Jenny left to Seattle, She was a pitcher in his little league game and Nate had a short crush on her until Jenny came back.

When Nate started first grade, his teacher was Mrs. Bigbee, who still isn't very fond of Nate. He nicknamed her "Mrs. Big Butt" for her weight, which was probably the start of his nicknaming career. He also somehow managed to make a dent in one of the desks with his head.

In the third grade, Nate had to get his appendix removed, and Francis brought him a "Tickle me Elmo" toy in the hospital.

Weird Nate

One of Nate's funny faces

The Early 90s

On January 7th, 1991, Nate appears in the comics for the first time. He is seen doing an assignment for school. He has to write a hundred words in his journal. However he decides to draw a picture of himself and says that "one picture is worth a thousand of those suckers", a reference to the saying "A picture is worth a thousand words". In his very first appearance the reader understands that Nate dislikes school and homework.

The next few comics consist of Nate and his family life, with a lot of gags consisting of his contempt for his sister, his father's bad qualities, and his relationship with his best friend, Francis. January 22, 1991 was a prominent day in Big Nate history, as though before school had been mentioned, this comic was the first comic in which Nate was actually at school.

On February 7, 1991, Nate created Doctor Cesspool, his first known fictional comic character, and showed him to his dad. In this comic, Nate also mentioned that he wanted to be a cartoonist, marking the first time Nate had ever shown any interest whatsoever in cartooning.

On February 18, 1991, Nate got put in detention for the first time after he threw a paper airplane during Social Studies class and the paper airplane crashed into Mrs. Godfrey's forehead.

From February 25 to March 2, 1991, the first ever one-week story arc was released. Ellen was going to babysit the baby of one of the Wrights' neighbors, the McCarthys, when Marty had to attend a PTA meeting and had her take Nate with her. The arc was basically Ellen and Nate babysitting the McCarthy Baby, with Ellen trying her best to keep things under control while Nate managed to not screw things up, although just barely,

On March 19, 1991, Nate's locker made its first appearance, and was a complete mess, showing that his locker never changes throughout the entirety of the comic strip.

From 1991 to 1993, Nate is seen annoying his friends, his teachers and his family. He also writes many comics throughout this period such as Action Cat, Dan Cupid and Doctor Cesspool. Nate also starts developing more feelings for Jenny Jenkins. He continues to pester her about going out in next years to come.

Shorter Legs and New Friends

Near the end of 1993, it can be seen that Nate's legs have gotten a lot shorter than they were before. This is most likely due to Lincoln Peirce's art style becoming better and more consistent.

In January 5, 1994, Nate kissed Jenny during a game of Spin the Bottle.

In January 27, 1994, he befriended Teddy Ortiz.

Later that year in April, during the School's Charlie Brown play, Nate asked Ms. Clarke if Charlie Brown and Lucy had any make out scenes. Jenny was playing Lucy.

In December of that year, Nate tried to get Jenny to go out with him by trying to do a heroic act. He thought of trying to do the Heimlich maneuver on Francis.

In April 17 through April 29 of 1995, Nate and his school went to Washington D.C for a school trip.

In May 15, 1995, Nate found out his team was called Joe's Falafel. This would lead to many more embarrassing team names for his baseball team.

A year later, in May 6 of 1996 through May 18, Nate's chess team got to travel to New York since they qualified for a tournament. During the tournament, all of Nate's teammates lost their matches. It is unclear if Nate won his match however.

One Year: Two Girlfriends

On April 24th, 1997, Nate asked a girl named Abby Wilson out and she said yes. However 5 minutes and 10 seconds she dumped him. Nate gave her his glossy which was returned back to him by Abby’s friend.

Later that year, it became known that Nate's grades were so low, he had to go to summer school. There, he meets Angie, and they became a couple. At first, he tells Angie that he is helping the kids here at summer school. However this was a complete lie and Angie finally finds out. Nate apologizes and asks Angie if she could forgive him. She does and kisses him. They went out from 1997 till 1998.

The Breakup and Further Encounters with Angie

In February 12, 1998, Angie dumped Nate for Dan Labreque. Nate was heartbroken by this but eventually moved on.

Nate went out with Jenny to the 1998 Spring Formal. There, Nate once again met Angie. Angie and Dan Labreque seemed to be fighting because they couldn't remember when their 4 month anniversary was. Nate eventually helped resolved the conflict and they seemed to be happy once again. However while resolving the fight, Nate left Jenny all alone and by the time he was done with Angie and Dan, the formal was over. Jenny screamed at Nate and Nate left the formal upset.

In September of 1998, Angie appeared once again as Nate ran for class president. Angie also ran. Nate considered Angie as a rival. However Angie did not. Eventually Angie won class president in the last of Angie appearing in the comic strips. Nate came in 3rd place, even though only the two were running, because Kenny from 'South Park' was sworn in.

Late 90s

In November of 1998, Jefferson Middle School and P.S. 38 played each other in a soccer game. It was an extremely close game and Nate sensed an upset. However when Francis passed the ball to Nate, the ball went in because of Nate not paying attention. This made P.S. 38 lose the game.

On the annual New Years Monopoly game in January of 1999, Nate tried to get Jenny to kiss him. However this backfired as Jenny threw a snowball at Nate.

In March of 1999, Nate joined the School's Orchestra. He decided to play the Trombone. However he quit shortly after because it wasn't attracting any girls.

In April of 1999, Nate learned that he was traded from Joe's Chicken to The Eagles. However his friends would stay on the Joe's Chicken team. At first Nate was excited but then he learnt who the coach was of the Eagles. He was not happy with the coach as he felt the coach was way too strict.

The Eagles eventually played Nate's old team. During the game, the coach saw that Nate was talking to Francis and Teddy a lot. The coach shouted at Nate for doing this and Nate's distaste for the coach grew. At the end of the game, Nate decided the Eagles weren't for him and so he quit and rejoined his old team.

The "Brain" Arc

In July of 1999, Mr Rosa asked Nate and his father to let Nate attend Chess camp. At first Nate was reluctant but then he saw a cute girl at chess camp and changed his mind. Then he found out his chess group mate was Derek Nack who seemed to be a big fan of Nate. At Chess camp, he beat the tough computer program 6 times in a row. This alerted the camp's counselors, who asked him if he would like to pursue a career in Chess. Nate wasn't interested in it and wanted to persue a career in cartooning instead.

He then met "The Brain". He got beaten pretty badly by her as he was trying (and failing) to flirt with her instead of actually playing the match.

Girlfriend (2015)

Nate met Trudy at the annual fair on July 13, 2015, but then she left him. He spent months looking for her, and he finally found her at P.S. 38 on 14 September 2015. He found out that she was in seventh grade. Soon, she became Nate's fourth girlfriend. They started going out on 15 October 2015.

Trudy also has a cat named Poco who Nate is afraid of but Trudy doesn't seem to mind his embarrassing fear. She also demonstrated extreme lenience for Nate's bad qualities.

Endgame and Breakup

Main article: Party of Lindsay Phillips

On 26 January 2016, Trudy was invited to Lindsay's party. Trudy asked Lindsay if she could bring Nate along too, and Lindsay said yes. Nate enjoyed the idea at first, but when he told Francis Pope and Teddy Ortiz about it, they brought up that Dee Dee Holloway's party was on the same date. Nate then apologized to Dee Dee for his absence, and on that Saturday, he attended Phillips' party. Nate mainly stayed by Trudy's side, but when she left him to go upstairs and paint her nails with her friends, Nate was all but lost.

Up Down Left Right A Start

Nate alone at seventh grade party

After continuous failed attempts at socializing for him, Trudy finally returned to him. Trudy and Nate danced together, but after a while, Nate started feeling tired and took a break. A grade seven child then asked Trudy if he could dance with her, and, with Nate's reluctant blessing, she said yes. Soon after that, the party ended. Nate called up Teddy and Francis to see how Dee Dee's party was, only to find out that it was the "best party in the history of the universe".

Later, on 14 March 2016, Nate was anticipating a very special cartooning club meeting that would be attended by a professional. However, Trudy reminded Nate that they had a plan to go rollerskating that same afternoon. Generally, Trudy has proven to be a selfish person when technically forcing Nate to hang out with the seventh graders. The two of them ultimately broke up on 25 March 2016.

Several months later, Nate played Monopoly with his friends on New Year's Eve. Despite being very reluctant about making New Years' Resolutions, Nate came to Klassic Komix on January 2, 2017, with a comic book to purchase, claiming it was such a resolution and he had felt self-centred in the past.

Lucky Pencil

Nate once found a lucky pencil that made Nate's teacher, Clara Godfrey, throw a popcorn party. This pencil kept Nate on a lucky streak until Mr. Galvin ruined the pencil and destroyed it for eternity.

Girlfriend (2023)

On March 30, Gina mentioned Daphne, a girl who would later become Nate's girlfriend. As of now, they have not broken up.

Description

Physical description

Nate Hair

One of the only times that Nate's hair was seen straight, instead of his usual seven spiky tufts.

"Big Nate always wears the same shirt. It’s yellow on the bottom, blue along the shoulders, with a yellow collar."
―Lincoln Peirce on his blog


Nate Wright, with a BMI of 21.0, is slightly overweight, although he is short and slightly overweight for his age with a height of 4.5 feet(an 11-year-old is supposed to be 4"8-4"10) (1.37 meters) and 87 pounds (an 11-year-old should be 78 pounds)(39.5 kilograms). Nate's most notable trait is his jet-black hair, which has seven smooth spikes, which always (sproing!) springs back up when he tries to make it flat (when it’s flat it makes him look like a young Adolph Hitler according to Dee Dee. Nate wears a short-sleeved T-shirt). The top is blue and takes up only a quarter of the shirt. The other three quarters below it are colored yellow. He also wears blue jeans and white shoes.

Personality and Traits

Nate Wright is very rebellious, vain, conceited, and arrogant. He also has greedy and angry tendencies that are usually a disadvantage, and he is very self absorbent. He has even compared himself to other immortal individuals. However, he is also funny (though many characters would say otherwise), noble, hardworking (depending on what he is doing) and he always sticks up for himself and his friends when they are being bullied. Although his grade point average is very low, he is shown to be quite smart at various times, and is certified "street-smart". He is pretty stupid at other stuff though. He also has an incredible imagination, as he has created many creative comic books (such as "Doctor Cesspool" or "Moe Mentum") and has helped his friends out of several situations, including when he helped them discover the weakness of Jefferson Middle School and helped Chad hook up with Maya. His sarcastic/dramatic nature also tends to land him in the principal's office. He has been given detention hundreds of times and he is unofficially the detention "tour guide", although he wears the title with pride. Nate is highly sarcastic, which is only built up when he is under pressure. However, he is able to keep most of these thoughts to himself or write them down.

He has ailurophobia, also known as elurophobia, meaning he is afraid of cats. However, this is not always consistent (for instance, he was willing to get Spitsy away from a feline called Pickles).

Nate has confessed his love for fellow student Jenny Jenkins, much to her chagrin, and he makes any attempt to flirt/talk with her, despite Jenny already having a boyfriend (Artur Pashkov) and the fact that Jenny hates Nate. However, he seems to have grown out of this, to Jenny's slight disappointment. Nate can be seen mooching food on January 8, 2019 and January 9, 2019.

Abilities

Nate Wright is a comic genius and has created many comics of his own. He is also an amazing sportsman. His musical talent was enough that he created a band called "Enslave the Mollusk." While Nate is a great drummer, he is a terrible trombone player.

There are other things he excels at as well. Nate insists that he is destined for greatness. Every prank day at his school, he pulls off the most insane and sophisticated pranks of all. He is a very good treasure collector - his locker is a dump, but other kids mistake valuable items inside for junk. He has also seemed to have organized his locker, despite the apparent mess.

It is implied that he has some degree of combat skills and physical strength. For example, he has been shown to hold his own in a fight against the likes of Randy Betancourt and Ellen, both of whom have a size advantage over him. When he broke his wrist playing football, he was able to swing his cast against a bully with enough force to stun him. This is further shown by the number of times Nate swings objects at his friends with enough force to stun them.

While having a low GPA, he is a capable strategist, being able to outwit his opponents in chess with little to no effort. He has also outwitted bullies, typically by crushing them with the contents of his locker. This has been used to get him and his friends out of sticky situations, but sometimes even more than that. He is also able to stuff eight fig newtons in his mouth at once.

He also has two strange abilities, both of which he acquired through unknown means:

  • Sense of Smell: Perhaps his most bizarre ability, Nate has an extremely acute sense of smell, possibly surpassing the level of an average dog. He has been able to detect minimal things through aroma alone on numerous occasions. For example, during a bet with Mr. Galvin, not only was he able to identify the object, which was a binder clip, he was able to smell what he had for lunch and that the clip was used to hold a lunch bag in place. He was also able to not only identify what was in Randy's lunch bag, but he was also able to read a note that his mother left him. His sense of smell is so acute that even Mr. Galvin implied that it was an affront to science.
  • "Vibe" Awareness: Another unusual ability of Nate's is the ability to detect vibes, or how people are feeling. He can accurately detect people's vibes and interpret them and has even tried to teach this to others, albeit with little success.

School Grades

These are Nate’s school grades, taken from guesses or information straight from the books.

Social Studies

Nate’s Social Studies grade has been mentioned to be a D or F, and is likely true, as it’s his class with Mrs. Godfrey and she has given more detentions than all of the other teachers combined. But very rarely he gets an A+. He got one in Big Nate: Strikes Again on the Benjamin Franklin project and in Big Nate:Flips Out he gets a double A+ because of writing his notes neatly for the first time ever.

Math

While Nate doesn’t like math, it has been said that he is good at it. A passing grade would be an A+ to a C+, so his grade is likely around this range.

English

His grades are mostly C's C- C+ or rarely a B. He writes haikus and poems about Cheez Doodles.

Science

He normaly gets a D+ in science.

Likes and Dislikes

Likes

Red: Nate's favorite color.

Cheez Doodles: Nate's favorite snack.

Yellow: Nate's secondary favorite color

Jenny: She was Nate's love interest. However, Nate gave up on her. He is now dating Ruby Dinsmore.

Sports: Nate enjoys playing sports at school. He plays soccer, hockey, dodgeball, beach volleyball, baseball, basketball and fleeceball (a baseball parody).

Summer Vacation: For obvious reasons, Nate enjoys being out of school.

Femme Fatality: He enjoys reading the book because he enjoys the plot and characters, but mostly because he finds Femme to be attractive.

Comics: Nate loves to draw comics, and has made up several characters of his design, such as Doctor Cesspool and Moe Mentum: Hollywood Stuntman.

Art: Art is Nate's favorite school subject for obvious reasons. Ken Rosa teaches the class and Nate has gradually warmed up to him as well.

Geometry: It is Nate's second favorite subject, although he never had done it before.

Francis Pope and Teddy Ortiz: Francis Pope and Teddy Ortiz are Nate's two best friends. The three of them do almost everything together, where Nate's girlfriends are not concerned.

Dislikes


Cats:Nate hates cats and thinks dogs are superior to the felines. He has also been known to be afraid of cats on some occasions, as he suffers from ailurophobia.

Egg Salad: Egg salad is self-explanatory for Nate; it is his least favorite food of all time. In one case, he even tries to use egg salad as a means to avenge Gina, though he probably remains unaware if Gina hates egg salad as much as he does.

Figure skating: Nate thinks figure skating is boring and cheesy. Besides, he is very annoyed with Ellen watching it on the television.

School Picture Day: When it is School Picture Day, he usually screws his picture by making a weird face at the wrong time.

Gina: Nate is annoyed with Gina bragging about her perfect grades and her spotless academic record, amid other things. The two of them are worst enemies.

Social Studies: Not only does his one-sided nemesis, Mrs. Godfrey, teach the class, but Nate believes that he is just memorizing useless facts that will never benefit him.

Math: Nate thinks math is boring, though he is not terrible at the subject.

Ellen Wright: Nate thinks his older sister, Ellen, is obnoxious. He also thinks it is annoying when his teachers compare him to Ellen.

Mrs. Godfrey: Mrs. Godfrey is Nate's least favorite teacher.

Nolan: Nate hates him for bragging how he and other Jefferson students beat him at almost everything. This enmity increases after the P.S. 38 students transfer to Jefferson and he gets to know them better.

Artur: Although he does not hate Artur outright, Nate seems to be annoyed by him being "perfect at everything". He is even more annoyed that Jenny, whom Nate has an unhealthy crush on, is in love with Artur.

Bethany: Nate likes all comic strips but he hates Bethany and says it's horrible.

Turkey: In Big Nate From The Top, he reveals he hates turkey, due to having it for lunch every day since Thanksgiving.

Randy Betancourt: He is the school bully and has bullied Nate for years. However, they stop hating each other in Big Nate Blasts Off, but their mutual hate lives on in the comics.

Trivia

Vital status, health and fears

  • Nate is 4' 6" and weights 87 pounds.
    • Once, one of the comics revealed Nate's weight to be 86 pounds. However, more comics supported Nate being 87.
    • He also gained 5 pounds by eating too much fried dough. So at that point he was 92 pounds.
  • He broke his right wrist twice, once while playing football in 1992, and another time when he dived off of a table at Jefferson.
  • He has Ailurophobia, which means he is afraid of cats.
  • In the novels, he is either 11 or 12.
  • According to Nate, if he hadn't been named Nate his name would've been Ethan.
  • His ears turn red when he gets mad.

School

  • Nate is the goalkeeper for the P.S 38 Bobcats soccer team, as well as one of the point guards for the basketball team.
  • Nate and Francis' Locker is number 217.
  • His locker is full of random, valuable things.
  • He once got 7 detentions at once in the novels, and 10 in the comics.
  • Nate is a reporter for the school newspaper, and was formerly the food critic, movie critic, advice column writer, and many other jobs.
  • In 2009, Nate was elected as class president. His presidency was very successful, as he started a bake sale to raise money for a soup kitchen.
  • Academically, Nate is a horrible student. The only subject he is good at is art, although it has been mentioned that he isn't exactly bad at other subjects.
  • His SPOFFs fleeceball team won the finals.

Sports

Screenshot 2018-07-26-09-15-10 kindlephoto-278634554
  • Nate plays right field (formerly left field) for baseball.
  • His baseball team used to change sponsors and names every few seasons. Nate is usually the most annoyed kid in the team whenever they get a new sponsor.
  • His hand once swelled up so much Coach Calhoun thought he was wearing his glove when he wasn't.
  • Nate went to soccer camp in Summer 2001. (From July 4, 2001 to August 31, 2001.) It is where he met Kelly and Coach John.
  • Nate supports Boston sports teams like the Patriots, the Bruins and the Red Sox.
  • He spent 3 days in Debate Club.

Gallery

Comics

Older Images

Color Pictures

Miscellaneous

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