The Kids are
All Right
Robert Brown brandishes the collection
of Lincoln Peirce's Big Nate comic strips
as though he is holding the book that has
all the answers.
"This," says Brown, a Character
Designer on the new Nickelodeon series,
"is our bible. We're always going back
to the strips because there's so much
material there. We had an episode that
required a squirrel, so we went back to
see whether Lincoln had ever drawn a
squirrel. We're trying to maintain his
design language as much as we can."
Nate Wright, the central character of
Peirce's strips and books, is a trouble-
prone sixth grader who is also an aspiring
cartoonist. His antics resonated with
Art Director David Skelly who also had
dreams of being a comic book artist.
Skelly's career includes Muppet-
building at The Jim Henson Company,
and his eclectic resume—particularly
his puppeteering expertise—are part
of what made Executive Producer and
this page: Stop-motion animation
influenced the transformation of Big
Nate from its book and comic strip
(center right) origins to the screen.
opposite page: Original Winnie the
Pooh illustration by E. H. Shepard.
F E AT U R E
©
Lincoln
Peirce.
Distributed
by
Andrews
McMeel
Syndication
for
UFS.
26 KEYFRAME
