Big Nate: Prank You Very Much, a work in process

He’s been through the process. I’m paraphrasing, but that was one of the funnier jokes from the Chip ‘n Dale, Rescue Rangers movie on Disney +. It was referring to Chip (or Dale, I can’t tell them apart) who had been through the process of computer animation. What was once a 2-dimensional character in comic books and television, is now a slightly more 3D creation that seemingly pops off of the page or screen. Big Nate has undergone the process in a series of graphic novels cut directly from the animated show on Paramount + and Nickelodeon. Big Nate: Prank You Very Much is a graphic novel that follows the line that’s been established by episodes that readers might have seen on television.  

As a comic strip or graphic novel, we are massive fans of Big Nate. It usually consists of four panels that accurately bring middle school life to the pressure of its white-headed self. The awkwardness, the balance between embarrassing family life and friends who aren’t as smart as you, the bullies that make it worse, and the occasional things that go your direction are played perfectly in that strip.

Graphic novels and comic strips are excellent avenues to get readers into the habit. It’s how I got into reading and a major way that many of the elementary students I teach do today. Big Nate: Prank You Very Much looks like it’s from the television series. For better or worse, it looks exactly like still shots from the animated series.

That is most likely going to really appeal to those reluctant readers who have discovered that a show that they like also has a book attached to it. Those viewers, now readers, might think that it’s just a money grab to cash in on the popularity of the show, but because they dig the show they’ll gamely read along. That is great because parents and educators know the more children read, the better prepared they’ll be for those essays and comprehension questions.

I tell my middle school ELA classes that you must practice like you play. The totality of the words, phrases, and concepts that they read, even if it’s in a graphic novel; add up to where it assists them as they’re summarizing that 3,000-word essay on human intelligence. Those readers who have kept their distance from books will read Prank You Very Much and hopefully discover other great graphic novels or mglit that’ll satiate their growing need to discover stories that their minds will help shape.

Those readers who have already enjoyed Big Nate will either continue enjoying his exploits via this colorized graphic novel that’s been through the process, or they won’t. They’ll still enjoy the 2D version that they’re used to in the graphic novels that collect the comic strips, but they might not be down with this.

For us, Prank You Very Much has moments of cuteness, but its transition, via the process, explains and tells too much about Nate and his friends. Call us old school, but the joy in seeing Nate through the comic strip is that it left something to the imagination. There were aspects of the group’s personality that immediately took us to our friends when we were that age. This graphic novel will probably do that for today’s elementary school readers, but it does it in a more direct manner that’s more in line with Captain Underpants or some mild gross-out Cartoon Network fare. Big Nate: Prank You Very Much isn’t as smart or funny as the comic strip that brought it here, but if it gets kids to reading something that they otherwise wouldn’t then it’s a win.

Big Nate: Prank You Very Much is inspired by the series created by Lincoln Peirce and this book is based on episodes written by Sarah Allan, Mitch Watson, Emily Brundige and Eric Shaw.

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