Cartoonist and author Lincoln (Big Nate) Peirce is interviewed as his 2nd Max and the Midknights book is soon to be released.
[H]ow are Nate and Max different?
Nate has a much bigger ego than Max and is convinced of his own exceptionality. He’s older than Max is, but not as emotionally mature. He’s impulsive and impatient – character traits that do not serve him well in middle school. Max, on the other hand, has a level of self-awareness that eludes Nate. She is far more responsible; in Battle of the Bodkins, she must make decisions that will impact the safety and security of an entire kingdom. She’s also independent and uncommonly self-reliant for a child of her age – one gets the feeling that Uncle Budrick might fall apart without her. And above all, Max is a protector. She understands that the job of a knight is to shield others from harm, and she embraces this role. Nate is the star of his own life, but his adventures are inevitably low-stakes events. Max, on the other hand, frequently deals with high-stakes, life-or-death conflicts. She is truly heroic.
What’s next for Nate and Max?
Book 2, Max & the Midknights: Battle of the Bodkins, will be published on December 1. And I’m already well into writing Book 3, Max & the Midknights: The Tower of Time, which will conclude the series. The story has been optioned by Nickelodeon…
Big Nate continues to appear in newspapers as a daily comic strip; it will celebrate its 30th birthday in January. New comic collections are published twice a year – the next one is called Big Nate: In Your Face … a Big Nate animated TV show is coming to Nickelodeon in the summer of 2021.